dudacek

Which is the way it should be based on performance.

Wow, listening to Canuck radio and analyst Thomas Drance is saying don't be surprised if Riley Stillman turns into an asset for the Sabres, despite his struggles in Vancouver. Basically he says Stillman was put in the worst possible position with the Canucks where the system and his partner (Tyler Myers) exacerbated his flaws. Drance says that won't be the case in Buffalo, which is loaded (his words) with defencemen who can move the puck. Drance thinks he's a viable 6/7 who can grind out neutral minutes on the bottom pair. Different take from most of the other Canuck-watchers. Also said Stillman was targeted by the Canucks when they acquired him along with cap space for Jason Dickinson and a 2nd. They thought he was going to be a regular, not filler, but he proved a bad fit.

I think that seems to have been more true in the summer than it is now. John Gibson and Thatcher Demko are depreciated but talented options worth looking at. Cam Talbot has certainly outplayed Comrie. And Juuse Saros would flat out transform our team.

He is second-guessing himself so much and is way too focused on the fact he's not creating offence.

I mostly agree with you, but context matters. Canuck fans hate and want to get rid of more than half their roster. Add being an actual fringe player to that situation and the message board response is predictable. Casey Fitzgerald didn't play enough to get universally hated here and it sounds like Stillman is basically the same player. I suspect he'll play a similar role and be regarded similarly by the fan base.

I look at the trade deadline like this: This is a lineup as I see Adams more or less committed to for next year Skinner Thompson Tuch XXX Cozens Quinn Peterka Krebs XXX Girgensons YYY YYY Samuelsson Dahlin Power ZZZ/Jokiharju Jokiharju/ZZZ Lybushkin ??? ??? Right now, the candidates for: XXX are Okposo, Mittelstadt and Olofsson, YYY Jost, Okposo and Asplund, ZZZ Johnson, Stillman, Bryson, Clague ??? Luukkonen Comrie I'm interested in any trade that maintains that 1st depth chart while upgrading any of the candidates for open spots. I don't want Brock Boeser because he's not playing on the 4th line and he's not better than Olofsson or Mitts. But I'd love any defenceman as good or better than Jokiharju and any goalie as good or better than UPL.

Adams sticks pretty firmly to his path and believes in his people. If I'm not 100 % in agreement with you yet, I doubt he is. I suspect he won't make up his mind by Friday and if he doesn't,he wont until after the season is over. So what happens between now and then matters.

https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=160632&encode=TRUE

If i could trade for Thatcher Demko right now I would. Adams won't, so our guys get 24 games to prove you wrong. He's no Thatcher Demko

This is exactly what I'm saying.

I've been fully accepting of Comrie/UPL as the plan - mostly because I knew that's what Adams was committed to, but also partly because a month ago I had just watched UPL play well enough for 2 months to be a bridge, I still had some faith Comrie had it in him to do the same, and I have unreasonable faith in Levi lurking in the weeds. That's becoming harder and harder to hang on to.

Except he's not very good at it. The more I think about it, the more I see this as Fitzgerald's replacement: role, personality and effectiveness. No more, no less. Nothing else to see here.

Yes, that’s pretty much my point. Objectively, Josh Bloom has a less than 10 percent chance of being as good as Jacob Bryson. Stillman (roughly) seems to be about as good as Bryson. Therefore, good chance the Sabres got value in this trade. Notwithstanding the real work of actually scouting the players, which we haven’t done. To be clear, based on my superficial knowledge about the players, I don’t like this trade, although I think there’s a pretty good chance most of us will forget about it fairly soon

I think it’s inevitable that when you put as much priority on character as Adams does, you’re bound to miss on the talent portion sometimes. This will be one to watch. I have a feeling this is one of those trades where one team would have just been happy to cut ties with a player, only to be pleasantly surprised to get a call where someone actually wants him and will pay for him. To be clear, Josh Bloom was hardly a big price to pay.

Didn’t he though? Arent you pretty content if your 3rd rounder plays 140 NHL games by the time he’s 24? I mean Stillman is 37th in his draft year in NHL games played. Adam Fox is the only 3rd rounder from his draft year (2016) to play more. And it’s more than 20 of the guys taken in round 2.

And he’s quite an accomplished punch catcher too!

Just her

My phone just lit up with my Canuck fan friends laughing at me, so there’s that 🤷

OK, that perspective helps a bit

Got nothing to add to the above. At best, he’s another Clague or Bryson. Bloom may or not ever be an NHLer, but Riley Stillmans can usually be signed for free every summer. Maybe the front office has spotted something they can work with? Or maybe there’s another move coming where Clague or Bryson is headed out? Guess we’ll see, but right now I’m not sure how this improves the Sabres now, or long-term.

I wonder when Chychrun gets sick of this bull spit and pulls an Eichel. He’s been into this over a year and has even been allowed to play for the past 2 weeks. I am sure there were promises made that this gets done by Friday and the Armstrong is under a tremendous amount of pressure.

There’s no roster reason I can think of to have Houser on an NHL contract when you already have 4 healthy goalies on an NHL contract. Particularly when you are about to add a 5th NHL contract in net with Levi, and possibly even a 6th with Portillo. You can make this move at any time an emergency situation arises, in fact, they have in the past It might be a reward, but it sure seems to suggest that one of our 4 is being moved. Or just a big middle finger to Portillo,

While I agree with your point, it has to be pointed out that 12 of those minuses were put up in those few weeks when Mule and Joki were out. That number shows he’s a terrible top 4 defenceman. As a 6/7 he’s certainly upgradable. But bringing in a better 6/7 isn’t going to make a huge difference in our goals against.

I think I counted 8 starts where his sv % was above .920. Anderson has had 10. Comrie has 2, Edmonton and Calgary in his second and 3rd starts of the year way back in October. In his 12 starts since, he’s had 9 games with a save % under .880. He’s “giving the team a chance to win” only once every 4 starts and has yet to “win” a game for them. I get why people want to sit UPL, but Comrie has been clearly and demonstrably worse.

One thing that doesn't get a ton of play around here is that the 3.4 GAA is as much by design as it is roster construction. Don Granato's Sabres are built to win games 5-4, not 2-1. I'm not absolving the team of its need to improve, just pointing out that any cracks on the blueline are magnified by mediocre goaltending, inexperience throughout the roster and a coaching staff that is always urging the players to attack. One of the cures will hopefully be experience, but that will take time. I'm not sure if you can "fix" the goals against short-term without a corresponding drop in scoring, shy of making a significant upgrade in goal.