All Activity

Right now, his shot is so weak that I don't see him as a first or second line forward. If he came into camp more physically developed and more capable from an offensive standpoint, I would be ecstatic to be proven wrong. The more important issue for me regarding his individual stats is not what his production is right now but rather whether can it be surpassed by another player. We'll have to see who the front office brings in to determine what his role will be. Although he played a lot on the first line last year, he was in my estimation a first line caliber of player. The criticism for his elevated role should be directed to the front office.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm surprised. The Las Vegas team had an expansion fee of $10 million.

Not sure what you mean by “bust”. Dude has played nearly 700 NHL games, averaging a minimum of 22 minutes a game every year. Or did you mean he will be a bust as a signing? He’s only 28, not too risky in terms of depreciation.

So much demand that when the Fort Worth NLL club stopped operations last year, no other city was interested in buying a team that was established and had made playoffs the last two seasons. They just folded. The Bandits are a unicorn that they have a good team in a big league city arena and little to no competition for fans during their season (since the Sabres suck hard ballz). Rochester is a more typical city for the league and if they can't support an NLL club, why would another city want to jump on that?

45 points puts you at around 150th in the league in scoring. 91 of those players are listed by ESPN as "C" or "D" (yes i know there is discrepancy between where they are listed and where they play) ... that means ~ 60 wings scored 45 or more points last year. Given that 2 wings per team play on the TOP line ... one could make an argument that 45 points as a wing is borderline TOP line production. Not sure where the arbitrary nature of "45 points is not top 6 production" comes from. But stats don't back it up. I think there was a long discussion on McLeod in this same context. In today's watered down NHL, not every top line player is putting in 90 points ... Edit: Dang, @dudacek typed less and beat me to it! and I was totally debating the point 🙂

Not debating your point, just adding context: There are 192 top 6 forward slots in the NHL. 45 points was good for 137th in forward scoring last year.

I’d prefer Gavrikov, Provorov to me has bust where I think Gavrikov will be good for many years

If he's bringing you 45 pts in a top six role then in my opinion he's not a top six player. I have extolled the virtues of Benson as a player as much as most people here. However, because of his current lack of physical development I don't see him being a top two caliber of player. Will he eventually do so? I'm confident that he will. But right now, I would say no. I have never felt that he was a liability playing on the top line. But that is not to say that I felt that he was providing the team first line production. If he comes into camp more physically developed than in his prior years, then good for him and the team. I will be open minded about where he should be slotted. But what I have seen so far that type of leap forward is a lot faster than I expect.

Little surprised I haven’t seen this name attached anywhere to the Sabres, given their need for defencemen and the fact he was one of Jarmo’s last big acquisitions in Columbus. 28, 6’1” 213 - he’s a left-handed shot who usually plays RD. Unremarkable analytics but he’s always been a horse when it comes to eating minutes and in tough deployments. One of the bigger UFAs on the market projected to get around $7.5M from what I’ve seen. Not sure if he’s what we want with Power, but he’s a legit 2nd-pairing player. Basically, he’d get Mule’s role and Byram’s money. Should we be interested? Do we have a chance if we are?

If you think you really had to explain that for people to catch the humor, the reputation and sense of humor of this board has sunk like the Titanic. 🥹🤣 I was actually going to type something very similar, but thought, no need.

Yeah I'm old school that see 3rd liners as defenders, top 2 lines are majority of scoring and 4th liners are grinders that don't kill you with bad defense. Benson to me isn't a great on offense. He might get to 45 in three or four seasons but see it next year for sure.

If we move Peterka to Chicago I want Sam Rinzel and Teuvo Teräväinen at the very least. Maybe also a swap of 3OA and 9OA.

You don’t think he can contribute 45 points in a consistent top 6 role? I’m pretty comfortable with that considering he put up 30 as a teen in a lesser role. Also, the only way Peca was on the Sabres 3rd line was if you defined 3rd line as “matchup line”. He led all forwards in ice time during the run to the finals with 21:44 a night.

Thanks, Jabba. Thank you for bringing in the Swamp Cats as the parent to the Amerks when they were what the Sabres are now. Thank you for killing a very vibrant hockey market. Too bad for you, you only essentially killed pro hockey in the area. Youth hockey is thriving and one of the local rinks is even adding a new sheet this summer. Go fork yourself, Donner the Hutt.

My big issue with acquiring Dobson is that he is going to get paid around $10 million per year based on having a 70 point season where he played a role he won’t play here. Dahlin is going to play PP1. I can maybe squint hard enough for it to make sense if we traded both Byram and Power. I don’t really see the point of acquiring a R-shot version of Power if we are keeping Power.

Not sure I trust Seravalli, especially when it comes to JJ Peterka, but he reported this morning that he believes one of the teams with significant interest in Peterka is Chicago, but their overture has stalled. “They have let Buffalo know they’ve been willing to talk about #3 and it hasn’t really gone anywhere.” He says the Sabres have told teams they need roster players back; they are looking for current help.

Only if he can contribute 45 or more points. Back in Cup run days our best defensive forward was Peca who was on the 3rd line.

You don't like the best defensive forward on the roster in the top 6?

NLL is a money loser, look for the owner of the Rock to sell in the next 4 months, he’s had enough of losing money. With Toronto, Philadelphia and others I can see NLL folding in 5 years

If Dahlin is traded I'm done holding onto my fan card. He's arguably the best player on the roster with Tage.

We lack a 1C/2C pending where we play Tage/Norris. To me we lack a 2nd line as I don't like Benson in the top 6 and Norris a major question mark as is Quinn. Would I trade JJP straight up for Rossi? No due to age and think Peterka the 2nd best goal scorer on the roster.

“Seravalli suggests that buying out Mattias Samuelsson (yet another left-shot D), with his five more years at $4.285 million, would help free up some cap space (and the logjam on the blueline). He even posits that Buffalo could then go on to "trade one of Power or Dahlin” Um. No thanks on trading Dahlin.

I want nothing to do with Maccelli. He does more of what we don't need which is be a passive all skill, no defensive player. We have enough of that.

We need to keep the puck out the net. Sabres have had no problems scoring.