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15g, 25a would be my rough guestimate as to his 80% but we don't have enough data.

Sir! Sir! It came from me.

Middle 6 guy with a strong work ethic and a two way game. He will play hard and make no excuses, just like his Dad. The Sabres Embedded video made him a key part of the trade. They have high hopes. He is an RFA next season.

I player that'll win the cup... on another team after the Sabres trade him and the deadline in 3 years.

14 years of losing while waiting for kids to grow makes it really hard for many to separate player from result. Thats going to be particularly relevant to Doan, who was acquired for one of the few kids who actually did arrive. In a vacuum, Doan looks to embody the care, effort and fearlessness Sabrespace has been crying for the team to add. In reality he’s got 62 games under his belt and is probably going to take two more years before he comes into his own. I think aesthetically he’s someone we should be able to appreciate on the journey, if too many losses dont get in the way.

Your last sentence kind of answers your first imo, but yeah, the presidential security protocols are very strict. As they should be. Having spent nearly 30 years in the DC area, I can attest how every presidential motorcade that I witnessed shut down traffic and if you’ve ever experienced the impact on DC traffic during your morning/evening commutes, you could certainly relate. That said, in discussions I’ve had with retired Secret Service agents in the past, Trump’s frequent demands put so much more stress on local law enforcement than other presidents did in the past. Especially when his movements in and around Mara Lago are very predictable.

You gotta consider that most players don’t hit their ceilings. We do this so often. It’s where the whole “concept of”. SS meme came from. What’s an 80% of ceiling look like? That’s much more likely.

I think this is his ceiling to be honest. He may not be quite the hitter that Peca was, nobody in the nhl is, but he is a forechecking machine that has some talent. I really think Doan is going to be one of my favorite players this year, his growth could change this whole team

The NHL schedule is demanding - their are practices, home games, extensive travel (especially out west), road games, and there is a need for rest - I doubt golf is a common thing during the season, even in the winter. Sure, maybe they get out a few times a season but golf is not a major factor. The hockey season coincides with the best weather in Vegas - warm sunny weather in late fall, all winter, and early spring is certainly a factor. Summer's are rough in the desert, I know from experience and my wife hated it and our kids stayed inside too much for our liking. Players pick Vegas first and foremost because the team wins, the owner is committed to winning and built a winning culture, and the Front Office has demonstrated to be among the finest in the NHL. Next, there the no state income tax, with is attractive. I am sure many of the younger players could be attracted to the big presentation that is their home games, and the nightlife which is hard for most cities to compete with. Buffalo is opposite of Vegas in every one of these factors. They can control the team culture, the Ownership's commitment to winning, the quality of the people in the FO, the facilities and the game day experience. They fail at all of it.

A future captain.

I had Tuch with Quinn and McLeod for similar reasons. But there’s something really appealing to me about the Doan/Quinn pairing. This exercise really made me think about trust, in terms of “as a coach, do I trust this guy in this situation?” Quinn is the guy who burned a lot of trust last year. It’s important that he earns it back because I think in terms of raw skill he is one of our most dangerous forwards

Probably too many summer margaritas, but I feel too comfortable with too many of these line combos and D pairs. There are still too many unproven pieces but the group feels more balanced in terms of skill sets. Effectively, it needs a healthy Norris and one of Quinn, Doan, Kulich or Benson to pop before I can say playoffs are possible, but the latter is something I think more likely than not. Fingers crossed on Norris.

This is a comedy thread.

This happens for every president, where ever they go. Does it really matter how much he golfs? This really comes across as a desperate reach for things to criticize about Trump when there are so many more obvious and more important criticisms to be made.

I think the Sabres look at analytics like them having the most 5v5 goals in the league and think, it's really not that important as that has not translated to wins. We all know that as well. The Peterka trade is not all about replacing offense but improving overall defense so the team can potentially give up a few 5v5 goals for while reducing the goals against (in all situations) by more. I think Doan is a middle 6 player. He will almost certainly be a character player in the lineup who leads by example. I haven't followed him recently and certainly some things are attributed to him because of his father. However, from what I recall at draft, he's got that motor and desire to dig out pucks. The team is not good at that. I will remain optimistic that he will be a player that fans really enjoy watching and he's built as a player who can thrive in playoff hockey. Naturally they have to get there first.

Regardless of the player he becomes, there’s a good bet that he’s Tuch’s inexpensive replacement in the top 6 next season.

I'd say more of a peak Dixon Ward. Modern: Zucker His focus determines his reality.

The final piece to a Stanley Cup team that has been in the making for the last 14 years!

Michael Peca

He's been called a throw in, a 4th liner, a grinder, a late bloomer, a good checker, inexperienced, an unknown, good, bad. But what is he? First let us start with the games played, 62. That is barely enough to call it a sample and to put that in perspective, Zach Benson has 146, Jiri Kulich has 63. This is to say, Josh Doan has a bit of a mystery box to him because there isn't multiple seasons to look at. Now let me get this out of the way here, that is a problem and it is a reason why the Peterka trade has major flaws. The Sabres traded a forward with 238 games and his forward replacement has 62games. Now that we have acknowledged the experience and sample questions, let's look at what we do have in those 62 games. Really quickly, can this not become another "Adams is stupid" thread? I get it, 62 games and 23yrs old, there's some hope and some projection in there. But every thread is Adams is dumb and idk, can we focus on the player? Just asking. Josh Doan last year on Utah HC ranked 2nd in xGF% at 5v5 with a 61.45xgf%. The only player above him was Yamamoto who only had 133 5v5 minutes, compared to Doan's 600mins. Same for HDCF% where Doan has a 63.02hdcf%. Now zone starts can impact this for sure even though hockey is free flowing and there are a ton of on the fly changes (525), it does help to see who is getting helped most. Doan has 102ozone, 154nzone, and 74dzone starts. By far he started in the neutral zone most with a slight lean into the o over the d zone. I don't think that split would over produce his xGF or HDCF. The next part is how much offense was Doan creating? xGF% tells us the split between but not what was being created. In order to do that, we need to adjust for TOI especially for a first year player in Doan. xGF/60 puts Doan at 3rd on the Utah HC, behind Yamamoto and Hayton, with 3.08xGF/60. For reference, JJ Peterka was at 2.62xGF/60. Now remember those numbers are certainly influenced by systems and team play. Buffalo was bad at sustaining pressure and instead created most of the offense off of the rush (Peterka was really good at that). The Sabres have 0 player over 2.85xGF/60 (Kulich) and that shows you that the system itself is having an impact. But Doan was creating offense for Utah but it just was not clicking or turning into points. Which brings us to PDO or "luck" as some call it. PDO measures PDO=(Shots For/Goals For×100)+(Shots Against/Saves×100) and if you are at 100, you are average, below or above is just that, below average or above average. Peterka had a 1.032PDO, the highest on the Sabres. Many look at McLeod and say he was lucky, he was but only 1.020. Doan on the other hand falls at 0.990 which suggest we see positive regression from him. Now this isn't to toss Peterka under the bus, we are looking at 5v5 specifically and Peterka will be making up for lost 5v5 production with PP production on a team that doesn't run the 24th PP in the league (Utah was 10th in pp%). It is more or less looking at Doan's stats and showing a comparable to understand what Analytics might have been talking to Adams about. I say Analytics because like the McLeod trade, the underlying numbers here seem to indicate at least some intent. AGAIN, I am not saying Doan is better than Peterka, I am merely giving you Peterka's Sabres' numbers for some context. With all of that said about Doan, his good 61.45xgf%, his fairly even zone starts, his 63.02hdcf%, 3.08xGF/60, and a bit below average PDO, the question is what will Doan actually be. After what is effectively 1 NHL season over two years, he has stats that average to 15.9g and 21.2a per 82gp. That's about a typical 3rd line player. At 23yrs old coming off of 1 season, is there an offensive jump to have? Will he get more TOI in Buffalo? He's going to at minimum slot behind Tuch and Thompson on the right but could still end up with McLeod as his center. In the end, the underlying stats look good but they are based on a 62 game sample on a team that plays far better overall hockey than Buffalo's run and gun style. My conclusion, there's enough here to make me believe that Doan has 20g, 30a potential and could be a legit 2nd line winger in his prime (26-30), but again, Adams is gambling because he already had a legit 2nd line winger in Peterka. Doan plays better defense. Peterka seems to score more goals (especially off the rush). Doan could also end up as a 10g, 15a type of guy which in the grand scheme of things would really require him to play elite defense to help balance this trade. In the end, we will certainly know a lot more about Doan after this season in Buffalo. My prediction? he'll have around 14g, 26a if he locks down a 3rd line role for all 82 games.

@LGR4GM beat me to it, but Quinn's best offense has come when he and Peterka swapped wings. Yes, he's more than a bit of a defensive black hole right now, so regardless of which side you're playing him on, you need to give him defensively responsible linemates. Personally, would rather get the increased offense from him (which could be substantial) being on his off-wing and worry about the slightly worse defensive play (it CAN'T be much worse than it was if he is going to keep a job in the NHL) as it comes. Tuch and McLeod/Norris would be defensively responsible and actually give Quinn players with legit offensive chops that might actually get him the puck or be able to do something with it should he get his passing touch back. Krebs & Greenway would cover for his defensive deficiencies but wouldn't afford him much help in the offensive zone.

Re: Greenway In terms of starting lineup, he's a 4W. But, if the team does surprise (frequently leading in the 3rd period), then I see him floating up into top-9 minutes to protect the lead at the expense of Quinn. At this point, though, he's another double-salary for the production you expect from him on the scoresheet (like Girgs and Okposo before him) even if he fills a role that the team needs: some leadership/experience, muscle, and PK skill.

His owner set him up for failure from day 1 with EEE and the whole position being gifted to Adams because he was willing to gut the front office and Amerks staff. But 5 years in, he is absolutely the author of all of ours demise. Before his first season even started, he went 1-year only on good young players you could count on to play top minutes/starts: Montour, Reinhart, Ullmark -- walking them to UFA (or in Reinhart's case, to a final RFA season where Adams was already in full rebuild mode). He got super-lucky with Tage Thompson's cheap contract, coming off of injuries and basically being an AHLer at that point. ---> and wasted it by not protecting him with the likes of Eichel/Reinhart on the team. Then, still in 2020 offseason, Adams went and overpaid on ... Hall (1-yr $8M with nearly full NTCs??) and Girgensons $2.2M/year?, and in later years $3M for Okposo's final season and $4M for Greenway. All good players who perform solid roles on their team; all overpaid for a team that was in yet another rebuild. Adams set that bar himself: he'll pay over top dollar to roles that other teams are paying much less for, and... at least since after the initial 2020 wave of 1-year offers, he'll overreact and extend any young player who wants to be here to a massive deal (Power, Samuelsson, Cozens) rather than risk a bridge. If he (and Pegula) had instead built a competitive hockey team first and foremost (build around Eichel/Reinhart/Dahlin) and not go cheap, they wouldn't have to overpay because players would want to come here to win, as opposed to come here to try to undo what Adams/Pegula have done -- and be over-compensated for it.

Keeping Wilford is like getting Lewis Hamilton to drive your Indie Car but putting a stock civic engine (wilford) in it and then being like "idk why he can't win!?!?"