dudacek

Just to add a bit to be clear. The defence is definitely the weakest part of the pipeline and should be addressed this June. But that’s relative to the overall pipeline and ignoring the players already on the team. Relative to their peers in the NHL, Lindgren Komarov Novikov and Johnson is mediocre, but not bottom of the barrel. When you add Power into the mix (how many D from the past 2 drafts are in the NHL?) the Sabre group is closer to top of the barrel. And when you look at what the depth chart in Buffalo looks like for the next 4-6 years - you know, the reason you have a pipeline - the Sabres rank right at the top of the league.

You’re being pretty selective here on how you are presenting your numbers. Going back 5 years is not a false flag at all, not when players - particularly defencemen take 3 to 5 years to even reach the NHL. It’s certainly no worse than choosing to draw the line at 3 years so you don’t have to include the 3 top 32 picks used on defencemen the 2 years before. NHL teams, on average, get 7 picks a year. Since defencemen make up 30 % of the roster, they “should” be using 2 picks each year on defencemen. The Sabres, under Adams, took 2 last year, 2 the year before and 1 the year before that. On average, an NHL team “should” be picking 1 defencemen in the 1st round every 3 years. That’s what Adams has done. You can choose to ignore that the Sabres had just invested 3 of their 4 highest picks and traded for another recent 1st round defencemen just prior to Adams arrival, but you shouldn’t. It’s definitely relevant and should factor into the rationale of how they’ve picked since. The Sabres have invested an NHL average amount of draft capital on defenceman over the past 3 years and well above average over the past 5 years. That’s not even accounting for the unique fact they have invested 2(!) #1 overall picks on the blueline. The idea that they are ignoring the defence is an absolutely false narrative that crumbles to dust under close examination. You’re missing the forest for the trees. Just ask yourself how many U23 groups you’d rather have.

That was a great read on Savoie. His coach basically said he is the best player on the best team in the league and is contributing in every area of the game. Loved his comments about Hockey Canada. And Savoie sounds like another guy who is happy to be here. Pumped about his chances. Big fan of Östlund and Kulich, but Savoie is still my #2 prospect after Levi.

Agree completely. The numbers don’t look impressive in and of themselves, but in context you have to be very happy with where he is.

Just so we’re clear, this isn’t Johnson “news” any more than Lance’s Tweet about him was last week. It will be news when he announces he’s signed, or that he won’t be signing. (And for the record, my position - for years - has been “he’s given us no reason to believe yet that he isn’t going to sign.”)

I just think that in practice GMs are rarely choosing between players of significantly different value and “best player available“ doesn’t carry the weight a lot of people assign to it. Basically, BPA is like “top 4 D” or “3rd-liner”: it means different things to different people. BPA matters when it’s obvious, like if Adams thought Beniers was O’Reilly and Power was Marco Scandella. It doesn’t matter if he thinks Beniers is O’Reilly and Power is Pietrangelo because in that case it’s in the eye of the beholder and their asset value is roughly similar.

No wonder at all, since they’ve invested two 1st overall picks and 2 top 32 picks in the past 5 years on defencemen, more high picks over that span than any team in the league save one. (And also traded to add another former 1st rounder) This “stop ignoring the defence” thing is one of the worst memes on Sabrespace. The reason there are no defencemen in Rochester is that all our recent picks are already in the NHL. This complaint is basically saying the Sabres have taken too many Rouseks and Weissbach when they should have been taking more Laaksonen’s. If that’s what’s important, 🤷

20 years ago, I used to enjoy Timmy’s. The quality and consistency definitely fell through the floor over the past 10 or so. Avoid it now for the most part.

Personally I think fans factor in pre-draft rankings way more than they should and somehow convince themselves a guy ranked 10th is obviously and demonstrably better than a guy ranked 20th. Ask 10 Sabrespacers to rank McKee, Campbell, Tallinder, Pominville, Briere, Drury, Connolly, Reinhart, O’Reilly and Skinner and you will get 10 different lists and I doubt many of them would be “wrong.” It’s not that GMs reach for a position, it’s that the players are so close, position and type of player is frequently used as a tiebreaker.

Schenn is Boosh. I'm not opposed to adding him, but I'm not sure why people think the team needs 2 of them. I mean, he's probably better than Clague/Bryson, but if we're sacrificing a 2nd-rounder, it better be on something more than 20 games of a 3rd-pairing guy. I assume people are thinking of something like: Samuelsson Dahlin Power Schenn Jokiharju Lyubushkin Or, given handedness, and teaming a puck mover with stay-at-home: Dahlin Schenn Power Lyubushkin Samuelsson Jokiharju I'm just not seeing him as a great fit 🤷‍♂️

They're not going to sit Mitts or Victor for a guy like Lafferty and I doubt they sit Zemgus or Kyle for anybody. Maybe they like him better than Jost, but I doubt it. IMO, our two least effective forwards recently are Peterka, then Quinn What's more valuable: what Lafferty contributes down the stretch, or what Quinn and Peterka learn down the stretch? We've already got Asplund and Vinnie for injury coverage. I think I'm only adding a forward if he's an upgrade on Mitts and/or Victor.

What do the advance stats look like on Boosh since the New Year? Eye test has been more like what I was expecting we were getting when we signed him, leading me to suspect his problems in the fall were more about nagging injury. I think he was better than a lot of guys teams run out on their 3rd pairing, at least he was in January.

Not sure what you guys get overseas, but on Canada's West Coast I get every Sabre game through Sportsnet Now — no searching, always in the same place. Used to only get blackouts for games against the Canucks, but even that is gone now since Sportsnet has the Canuck regional contract.

But...

Thank you. There’s a level of revisionist history around here that Ullmark wasn’t that good as a Sabre. No, he wasn’t a Vezina caliber goalie, but he was a good NHL goalie for most his time here and his numbers reflect that.

His historical numbers show a .904 NHL goalie. He was .917 last year. History suggests pulling his numbers up, which is what has been happening. He has 5 absolutely terrible starts where he was under .850 in his save percentage. He also has 5 fantastic starts when he was over .940. 4 of those crappy starts were in his 1st 6 games.

People seem to be ignoring that since UPL got some early call-up yips out of the way, this is exactly what he has done. The league average save % is .906 right now. Since mid-December, UPL's save % is .910. I agree with @PromoTheRobot that UPL has been fine. It would be nice to have better.

Interesting. I would have guessed it was more. To @PromoTheRobot's initial post on getting lit up, and on consistency. Over the past 2 years, Levi Has allowed 2 goals or less 41 times Has allowed 3 goals 11 times Has allowed more than 3 goals 9 times Over the past 2 years, UPL Has allowed 2 goals or less 28 times Has allowed 3 goals 23 times Has allowed more than 3 goals 25 times So if you measure consistency by how often you have a "bad" game, (more than 3 goals), they happen to UPL 33% of the time, Levi 15% of the time. If you want to measure it by how often you "steal" a game, (less than 3 goals), that happens with UPL 37% of the time, Levi 67% of the time. Sure, it's more complicated than that, but generally speaking each goalie has been playing behind a bad defence and the spread in results is far too pronounced to dismiss.

I’m going to have to look this up, but I’m willing to bet Levi has maybe 5 games with a save percentage under .900 in the past 3 or 4 years. UPL has that many in the past 3 or 4 weeks. All goalies get lit up. Consistency is about how often that happens.

Luukkonen has 5 games with a sv % over .940 and 3 more over .923. Since UPL “got good” (mid-December), he is at .910, good for 19th in the league among goalies with 10 or more starts. I think he’s been inconsistent, and I’m not sure he’s the answer, but statistically he has mostly been doing his job.

Is there plenty of evidence to suggest that adding a Luke Schenn level player - or any player for that matter - at the trade deadline is likely to improve the team? Bear with me here, if you look at all the “buyers” at the trade deadline, do most of their records actually show improvement down the stretch? Or do we just fall into accepting the “just do something Darcy” hype?

Michkov's numbers are just crazy in context. He's 17 and pretty much doubling the output of the best 20-year-olds in a league that barely uses 20-year-olds.

And just for fun, a look at the top drafted U20 players in the KHL, plus this year's top prospect: 1. Nikita Grebyonkin (Toronto) 49 9/16/25 +5 7. Matvei Michkov (undrafted) 26 7/6/13 -5 8. Viktor Neuchev (Buffalo) 54 4/8/12 +2 9. Danila Yurov (Minnesota) 55 5/6/11 +5 10. Prokhor Poltapov (Buffalo) 51 5/5/10 +4 12. Nikita Yevseyev (Edmonton) 47 5/2/7 +8 15. Ivan Miroshnichenko (Washington) 22 3/1/4 0 16. Fyodor Svechkov (Nashville) 27 2/2/4 -7 17. Nikita V. Novikov (Buffalo) 59 2/2/4 -1 Other guys in the top 17 were undrafted.

Interesting to look at what the Sabres picks have done compared to the other 1st-round forwards taken last year: Cooley 30 15/28/43 +27 (NCAA) Wright 7 6/8/14 +2 (OHL) Gauthier 25 14/13/27 -3 (NCAA) Kasper 44 8/13/21 +9 (SWE Div.1) Savoie 46 24/39/63 +37 (WHL) Geekie 48 24/27/51 +32 (WHL) Nazar 3 1/0/1 +3 (NCAA) McGroarty 29 10/14/24 +1 (NCAA) Lekkerimaki 29 3/6/9 -4 (SWE Div.2) Östlund 33 8/17/25 +9 (SWE Div.2) Kemmel 38 11/2/13 -17 (FIN Div.1) Ohgren 30 10/7/17 +15 (SWE Div.2) Gaucher 38 20/21/41 +35 (QHL) Snuggerud 31 19/23/42 +26 (NCAA) Mesar 36 16/20/36 -4 (OHL) Bystedt 37 5/11/16 +4 (SWE Div.1) Kulich 37 11/15/26 -4 (AHL) Lambert 10 8/8/16 +9 (WHL) Howard 27 4/6/10 -14 (NCAA) Looks to me like Snuggerud is the guy that has probably opened the most eyes, but after that Kulich and Östlund might be the next 2 in terms of improving their stock. Kulich has played against the toughest competition. Mesar (0 points, 1 game) Lambert (3 in 14) and Wright (4 in 5) are the only ones besides Kulich to spend time in the AHL. His numbers are outright better than what Kasper and Bystedt have done in the next-highest league. They are also roughly in line with what Chytil and Puljujarvi did as AHL 18-year-olds, ahead of Fiala and Byfield and just behind William Nylander. Among 18-year-olds who played roughly a half-season or more, his points/per game is fifth overall since 2000. Östlund is top 25 overall in points/game in the Allsvensken, 1st among U22 players at age 18. He is now clearly a step above the Euros who were rated around him (Lambert, Lekkerimaki, Ohgren, Kemmel). Among 18-year-olds who played roughly a half-season or more, his points/per game is sixth overall in the Allsvensken since 2000, behind Elias Pettersson, Filip Forsberg, William Karlsson, everybody's favourite Patrik Berglund, and just behind William Nylander. Savoie has not taken a leap but appears to be hanging on to the status he had on draft day: the draft's 3rd-best offence generator, after Wright and Cooley. I know it's a product of playing on a stacked junior team, but that +37 in 46 games still makes me smile. Based almost entirely on this season, my draft might look something like this today: Cooley Wright Kasper Savoie, Snuggerud Östlund, Kulich, Nazar, Slavkovsky, Gauthier Bystedt, McGroarty, Ohgren Gaucher, Geekie, Kemmel Lekkerimaki Mesar, Lambert Howard I don't think it's a stretch to say there is a good chance we nabbed 3 of the year's top 10 forwards.

Tampa and Boston remain a tough hill to climb, but the Leafs as a soft team that can’t play defence has become wishful thinking these days, and this just cements that. Heres hoping their goalies let them down.