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Projected lines: Artturi Lehkonen — Nathan MacKinnon — Martin Necas Ross Colton — Brock Nelson — Victor Olofsson (Valeri Nichushkin) Gabe Landeskog — Jack Drury — Gavin Brindley Parker Kelly — Zakhar Bardakov — Tristen Nielsen Devon Toews — Cale Makar Josh Manson — Brent Burns Jack Ahcan — Sam Malinski MacKenzie Blackwood Scott Wedgewood -------------- Alex Tuch — Ryan McLeod — Tage Thompson Isak Rosen — Noah Östlund — Jack Quinn Jordan Greenway — Tyson Kozak — Josh Doan Josh Dunne — Peyton Krebs — Beck Malenstyn Mattias Samuelsson — Owen Power Bowen Byram — Conor Timmins Jacob Bryson — Michael Kesselring Alex Lyon Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen

So he's a fast Mittelstadt?

It has to go much further south for Pegula to give up on his buddy. Think Tuch/TNT requesting trades and the reason given that they have no faith in Adams specifically. And no veteran player is going to do that because they'll appear as a malcontent. Their potential suitor GM doesn't want to see that.

I think you're inserting his narrative into his mouth.

Would expect that if they were healthy they'd be sitting at a playoff spot but without fixing the PP (which essentially means canning Appert, which wouldn't be happening if they were on a 0.600 playoff pace) they'd almost definitely fall out of the playoffs when other teams get serious come January and when the inevitable injury bug were to then strike.

So you want players that don’t like being criticized?

WGR mentioned McKenna a bit this morning and they did say something I like. McKenna has some of the best hands/handling ability ever. He can do that in stride and at speed but he can also do it to take pucks away from the walls. The issue is that some of his ideas and execution is not there and wont work in the NHL. You can use your hands to go around a guy or to open up space, but you can't use it to deke an entire team. He also isn't strong enough which is a major issue right now. ALL that said, McKenna in November is not going to be McKenna in April. Same thing applies to Stenberg and Belchetz and Lawrence, and Verhoeff.

This summer, Leone will get an offer from an NHL team to be an assistant. Prospal may receive an offer to be an AHL HC. Will either of those offers be from the Sabres?

For the record, I never thought of him as the throw-in and the fact he is playing better than Kesselring underscores the fact that he wasn’t.

He made the Kessel Run from the Sabres in less than 8 parsecs games played.

And someday, maybe, one of the offspring of the Eichel trade will help the Sabres reach the playoffs.

Yes, except that the PP is a complete disaster and shouldn’t be. Can’t really blame that on injuries. A good PP would go a long way, of course as soon as it gets fixed the PK would probably start to falter

Does anyone else besides me think that if we weren't down our 3, 4, 5, and 6th F and Dahlin was actually able to be Dahlin, that we'd be in a playoff spot right now? The only one I could maybe fault the team for is the #3 being down given his long injury history... Though are we any better with Cozens playing? It's true that the reasons for firing everyone go way back prior to this season, so there's that, but I kind of think this team when healthy could be good. Unfortunately, we'll be way too far back for it to matter if we ever do get everyone back

They might've. At any rate he seems to be significantly better than Appert. (Not that that's saying much.)

Did the organization finally hire the right guy. I'd rather have Leone than Appert be heir apparent to Ruff

Injuries have us putting out two 4th lines and the second 4th line played like a 5th line, the matchups are rough and it will be worse against the Avs. The 3rd D pair was like a 4th D pair. Keep in mind that Kesselring had two NHL seasons, 156 games, prior to coming to Buffalo so he is not an established NHL veteran on defense. I see some little things that I like, but I am still waiting for him to impress me. 7 games and 0 points so far.

Man, imagine being Matt Ellis and waking up every day employed. Incredible.

Unless it goes further south, I don't see a in season change. Not publicly. I could see Kekäläinen making the moves at the deadline with Adams as the figurehead but I don't think we get an in season firing.

Seems fairly obvious that Analytics is not used for every pick. Bedowski shows us that. Kleber shows us that. If you want to know what drafting using analytics looks like, look at Carolina. Jerry Forton might listen to analytics for the 1st round but he's clearly looking for "player types" after that. It is why all the RHD we draft later seem to have the exact same profile. My point is the scouting system in Buffalo is brutally flawed. Doesn't help that Adams gives 2nd round picks away for Malenstyn and so he can get Josh Norris and Bernard-Docker who he didn't even sign.

Many scouts have been released over the years. Adams gutted the scouting department as part of EEE, then he added to the staff later. The Sabres rely heavily on analytics and that is headed up by Sam Ventura. They have a guy named Jerry Forton, recently promoted to AGM, that is also heavily involved. None of this means that GM doing to drafting has to listen to the scouts. The scouts provide inputs but they do not select the players. The buck should stop with Kevyn Adams. Its lonely out in space ....

Him and Vinny seem to get it. Prospal last year basically said that if Kisakov didn't work hard on the ice he wasn't going to get any ice. The Sabres let the kid go this summer.

I get what you're saying, but watch this town blow up if this trash owner hired Shanahan as POHO, DeBoer as HC, promoted Kekalainen to GM, and then made the playoffs. It's a dormant fanbase ready to explode as soon as Terry gets out of the way.

Josh Doan was not a throw-in and fans and the coaching staff should stop acting like he was. The fact he isn't getting more ice time is another nail in a coffin that is so filled with them it is just metal for this coaching staff.

That is another area where a POHO can step in and be the face and voice of the organization.