dudacek

Is this deliberately disingenuous? In the past 2 months Tage Thompson and Mattias Samuelsson chose to be here for 7 years each, giving up 6 and 3 UFA years respectively. This summer Vinnie Hinostroza, Eric Comrie, Craig Anderson and Ilya Lyubushkin who were unrestricted free agents who could have gone anywhere else chose to be here. Kyle Okposo and Jeff Skinner signed as unrestricted free agents who could have gone anywhere else and chose to be here. Zemgus Girgensons and Victor Olofsson each chose term here instead of walking to unrestricted status and bolting at the first opportunity. Casey Fitzgerald could have walked out of college into free agency like Cal Petersen did, but chose to be here. Literally half the roster, by their actions, chose to be here.

Quibble over the 6D and the starting goalie if you’d like, but that might be the most attractive top-to-bottom overall lineup they’ve put on the ice since Lindy was coach.

40 of the NHL's top 50 scorers right now were drafted before 2015. Four of the top 50 are 22 or less. Not sure those numbers are saying what people think they are.

Adams has been keeping his powder dry for the right player at the right time. Chychrun is 24 and fills a need, now and 5 years from now. He fits. Recent comps: Alexander Romanov went for pick #13 Hampus Lindholm (pending UFA) for a late 1st and 2 2nds Seth Jones for (more or less) Adam Boqvist and two high 1sts Rasmus Ristolainen for a 1st and a 2nd

Remember when a battered team driving 90 yards late in the final quarter for the go-ahead TD, holding the opposition to a game-tying 51-yard field goal, then marching 48 yards downfield in less than 25 seconds to win the game was something to celebrate? People’s choices are strange to me.

Here’s an interesting statistic from this year, not sure what to make of it. The Sabres currently have the: #1 highest-scoring NHL players from the 2018 and 2016 drafts #5 highest-scoring NHL players from the 2021, 2020 and 2019 drafts. That’s a top 5 producer from 5 of the past 6 drafts and 2 of those players are defencemen.

A bit of context to UPL’s season: 5 good starts, 2 poor, 2 indifferent. https://theahl.com/stats/player/7644 This moment is maybe arriving a little earlier than the brass hoped, but it was always going to happen sometime this year. Ive been looking forward to it, basically since Ullmark walked. The door is open. Let’s see if he can step through and slam it behind him.

Poltapov is now a full-time KHL rookie with 5 goals in 27 games. This is the best place to find prospect stats: https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/53/buffalo-sabres/in-the-system

Missing context: Leinonen is 3.08 GAA and .841 SV% after a couple rough outings playing parts of 8 games with men in Liiga. Against his peers in juniors he is 1.71 and .943 in 7 games.

I wonder why people are so reluctant to believe their eyes. Dude has 34 goals in his past 50 games. That’s 4th in the NHL over that span - only 2 less than McDavid, 1 less than Mathews. More than Robertson and Pastrnak and McKinnon and Tkachuk and Stamkos and Ovechkin and Kucherov and Marner and Crosby and Draisaitl. He’s scoring (and has a great shooting %) because his shot is elite. He’s a star. @Thorny remember a year ago when we were comparing this build to the lockout team and I said maybe Tage could be the Briere and you (correctly) said hold your horses, that Briere was a helluvalot more than a good 2C? It’s happening.

OK, this avatar absolutely has to be the new Islanders logo. Fantastic.

I think you can’t overlook the fact that over the 113 games since Ralph Krueger was fired Tage has yet to plateau - the arrow has continued to go up. In his 25 games from when Ralph was canned until the end of the season: 7 goals, 12 points In his 1st 30 games at centre: 10 goals, 18 points In his 2nd 30 games at centre: 17 goals, 30 points In the 28 games since: 18 goals, 34 points

Not really disagreeing, but at it's heart, this is a "when do you believe" question. Down the stretch last year he put up 15/8/23 in 23 games against Vegas, Colorado, St. Louis, Boston Toronto, Tampa, Florida, Carolina, the Rangers, Nashville, Washington Pittsburgh, Calgary, Edmonton, Minnesota and Dallas. If he gets just a goal and an assist in the next 5 games, does that mean he's not there yet? How many times do we have to see something before it's real?

It doesn't get nastier than what we saw in the AHL playoffs last year. Certainly didn't slow Krebs and Peterka. (I'd add Tuch to your list as someone who's proven in that environment and Okposo and Girgs will be there)

Here's a question we were all scared to broach even a few weeks ago: "What if Tage Thompson can actually fill the role of legit 1st line centre every team needs to be a contender?" Is it something we can talk about yet? The sample size continues to grow. In the calendar year of 2022 Tage now has 33 goals and 62 points in 56 games. In Eichel's best year he had 36 goals and 78 points in 68 games.