tom webster

Waiving the lottery protection

A more interesting question would be if Las Vegas wins the lottery and moves to 6, would they decline the pick.

Speaking of Gilbert, where was he all year?

While I agree that KA may not be the guy to ask about the condition of the arena, he is the only guys representing the franchise at the moment. They made a big deal about how arena improvements made at the beginning of the Pegula era were in part designed to lure players to “Hockey Heaven.” Numerous Bills players have referred to facilities as being part of what brought them to Buffalo. Having a world class arena falls under the scope of “wanting players who want to be here goes hand in hand with showing the players they are wanted and respected.”

I keep reading this, or a similar version of this, and while I understand the excitement, you can’t go into next year expecting people like Mitts, Cousins and JJ to make a seamless step to their next progression. You have to be aggressive and look for the right piece or two to add. If Casey has a Tage like breakthrough, tremendous but they have the flexibility and the means, and I believe the desire, to add a significant piece at forward as well as a RHD to pair with Power and a legitimate number one goaltender

Not by much. Anyway, he’s top four potential by most accounts. He may end up being swapped out for a RHD , might be Buffalo’s or somebody’s third pairing guy, no one really knows but the people whose opinion I trust most on the matter consider him a top prospect and I guarantee you that if Buffalo offered him or Bryson, the offers for Johnson would be much higher.

Ppg might be just a shade better than plus/minus when it comes to evaluating him.

You are really undervaluing Johnson, and I like Bryson.

The development of Mule, Fitzgerald, Quinn and Peterka along with potential surprise of Biro makes this a good season for the Rochester staff, their record not withstanding.

If one wanted to spend some time researching they may find that a certain poster mentioned quite a long time again that the Sabres believed that Dahlin could be their right side defenseman.

With all due respect, this isn’t an argument that falls under the “checkers vs. chess,” argument. C v. c implies a definitive benefit. This argument falls under differing opinions with regards to benefits resulting from different scenarios.

First, let me preface this by saying this is why I hate business/ sports analogies because I find them seldom analogous. However, my response to this would be “ thank you sir but I think staying at the corporate office is better for my long term growth and I believe that I am at least partially responsible for our surprising growth and have this earned my position here. Furthermore, I believe there is little support for our current structure and instead of supporting the corporate office I believe the industry is moving away from artificially supporting a local branch office structure.

For the record, I have no idea if I’m right but what I know with one hundred percent certainty is that the game is better because people questioned the status quo and I think there is at least a little doubt that should cause people to question what’s best for a player’s development.

And what I’m saying is that I believe the three players listed might be better served playing out the season in Buffalo and that other than “that’s the way we’ve always done it” there isn’t hard evidence to the contrary.

You also don’t play around with people’s lives. You earn a promotion, you deserve to live that promotion.

Cause and effect. Good guys are likely to be good at every level. Just because a guy found success in the NHL doesn’t automatically infer that it happened as a result of some age old developmental plan that might be the last vestige of a Don Cherry belief system. No surprise that a guy that ended up successful was probably successful along the way. Isn’t it just as likely that a deep playoff run might result in a guy wearing out in next year’s playoff run? Plenty of evidence to suggest that as well.

This implies that there is an absolute correlation between success in the AHL and success in the NHL and I have seen no proof that one exists.

I’m talking more of whether winning in the AHL translates into winning in the NHL. The numbers you reference project NHL production based on AHL production. No way to know what would happen if they never played in the AHL and were just part of a practice squad of an expanded NHL roster until they were ready to play full time.

Most people around here know I put little stock into the notion that winning at the AHL level has anything to do with success at the NHL level. I’m surprised with the continued explosion of analytics that no one has done any comprehensive study showing any correlation between AHL success and NHL success.

2006 Anaheim Ducks without too much thought. I’d bet there are more.

People get all excited about every time one of their own decides not to sign. You can literally count on your hands the number of players that did this and turned out to be worth all the angst. I was literally typing the same thing. For most kids, it just isn’t going to make sense to forego the money that long. You’ll always get a couple that it works for.

Asplund and Zemgus are the kind of forwards every team needs. Ideally suited for defensive roles, they can hold their own in the top six when needed, contribute offensively and they won’t complain if circumstances dictate one game they play little, next game they seem like they are out there continuously. They are not JAG’s.

I expect the Sabres to be very good long before Portillo or Levi is NHL ready. Portillo wasn’t even considered amongst the top NCAA goalies let alone a top NHL prospect. He may end up being such but the fact remains that very few of these NCAA free agents end up being worth all the consternation. For every Adam Fox there are 10 Dan DeKeyser’s. All that being said, it’s not a slam dunk he doesn’t sign with Buffalo anyway. All in all, it doesn’t rank in the top 20 questions that I consider when I project where I think the Sabres will be in the near future.

Up to four pages for a guy who may not even be any good. Nice.

I understand that but maybe not as much as is perceived.