dudacek

The bold is right there in my first paragraph 😁 I was a little surprised to see the Sabres have only lost twice outright (with 2 OT losses) when leading after 2 this year. It felt like more. I wonder how much responsibility Ruff owns for that. When he took over it was a stated goal to teach the team how to finish games. He's .810 (17-2-2) when leading after 2, good for 24th in the league. Granato was 53-1-5 over the 2 previous years, .898 and good for 4th overall.

I'll bite. He is 6'3" right-handed centre who competes hard and can skate and shoot the puck at speeds in the upper 3rd to quarter of the league. The concept of Cozens ticks a lot of scouting boxes. Too bad about his ability to use those tools.

Hard to fathom given our lived experience, but the Sabres are a slightly above average ES team. They are 14th in Shot attempt % They are 12th (at +10) in ES goal differential. They are 3rd in the NHL in goals for at 5on5. Their goals against 5on5 isn't good (21st) but it is almost identical to Carolina and Vegas. Individually they have a number of players that stack up well Dahlin is 4th and Byram 14th in ES points by defencemen. Tage is tied with Jack Hughes and Artemi Panarin, ahead of players like Nylander, Reinhart and Point. JJ Peterka's ES production is the similar to Austin Matthews Ryan McLeod is comparable to Anton Lundell, Alex Tuch to Tim Stutzle and Sebastian Aho Jason Zucker's numbers echo Mark's Stone's, albeit in more games played All five of those Sabre forwards are among the league's top 80 in ES points. All seven of those players save Peterka (-3) are + hockey players; the Sabres are winning the battle 5 on 5 when they are on the ice. Basically, we have three players in significant roles who are failing 5-on-5: Cozens Quinn and (defensively only) Power So why do we suck? Our PK is -32 this year, good for 23rd in the NHL. Our PP is +22, good for 26th We've allowed 18 goals when the opponent pulls the goalie, 1 off the league worst. We've scored just 7 empty netters, good for 25th Basically, we're fine overall playing 5-on-5, but we're a disaster in most areas when we're not.

If you look at the 64ish NHL centres getting middle six ice time (15:40 to 19:10 per game) McLeod ranks 40th in points, 9th in plus/minus Mittelstadt is 35th in points, 57th in plus/minus Cozens is 50th in points, 61st in plus/minus McLeod has been one of the league's best 3rd-line centres. Cozens and Mittlestadt two of its worst 2nd-line centres

Lot of bitching about Adams not acquiring the right players to surround his kids with. i don’t think that’s exactly right. Byram has been a good sidekick for Dahlin. McLeod has been a good 3C. Zucker has been everything they were hoping for in the middle six. He overpaid for Malenstyn, but the guy is what you want in a 4th line winger. The issue is the kids themselves: this management team expected UPL, Samuelson, Power, Cozens, Quinn and Peterka to be rounding out a playoff core by now. None have been better than middling contributors and all save maybe Peterka have been below average at best for where they should be relative to their roles.

And before anyone jumps on me, I’m not drawing any conclusions other than the Sabres are indeed playing firewagon hockey and for a longer period and a higher degree than the OP suggests

I dont think you guys are paying enough attention. Since the end of 13 games that crushed their season, the Sabres have been the highest-powered offence in the league. Over the last 2 months - 21 games - they lead the league with 3.86 goals per game. Only 8 teams are averaging even 3.10. Caps are 2nd at 3.6 and the Jets 3rd at 3.5. Over that same span they are 24th in goals against https://www.nhl.com/stats/teams?reportType=game&dateFrom=2024-12-22&dateTo=2025-02-23&gameType=2&sort=goalsForPerGame&page=0&pageSize=50

Your work on this has been exemplary over the past year. Appreciate the effort you've put in. What my eye test has shown is how often plays have died when the puck is on the stick of Cozens and Quinn: bad passes, pucks skated into traffic. Defencemen look bad because pucks that should exit the zone don't and they have to defend more than they should. Forwards look bad because they get stuck in no man's land when a puck unexpectedly turns over or doesn't go where it should and the play is launched in another direction. I think there is a pretty good case to be made that if the Sabres had a more reliable "2nd line" that wasn't weighing everyone else down and a good power play they'd be in the playoff race. Those two are certainly prominent in both those areas.

Curious how often you’ve watched him play?

So sad what the franchise has sown.

The question of what kind of contract he should get is another conversation entirely. There is no debate that Byram benefits from playing with Dahlin. Every player does. I suspect that if Byram and Power traded roles they'd also trade results, because the drop-off from Dahlin to Samuelsson, Jokiharju and Clifton is considerable. But as good as Dahlin is, it's false to suggest that being his partner is "easy"; he's unpredictable, takes risks, plays a ton, and against the opponent's best players. A lot of NHL players would be in over their heads. Out here on the West Coast, I'm reminded of how Quinn Hughes boosts everybody and Filip Hronek does not. But Hronek is good enough to play off Hughes and Hughes/Hronek tends to give you the best of both players. Players can only be judged by how well they've performed in the role they've been given. Byram has been given a prominent and important role and played it well. And Dahlin has played some of his best hockey with Byram as his partner. The Sabres don't need to move on from Byram or Power — those aren't the spots that are broken. They need to round out their top 4 by acquiring the player Samuelsson was supposed to be.

I’d look for seravalli’s actual quote and context first before worrying too much about it. That article provides neither a link, nor a direct quote. Seravalli is hit and miss. Yard barker has no credibility at all. I always thought the best way to judge what a team thinks about a player is to look at his ice time. Byram has played more minutes than any player on the Sabres this season by a pretty wide margin, and is 2nd to Dahlin in TOI per game. Draw your own conclusions. Not sure when expected goals became the final arbiter of a player’s worth. He’s also +8 despite playing some of the hardest minutes on a last-place team, while sitting tied for 7th in the entire NHL in ES points by a defenceman, with 27. His peers in the latter stat are Theodore, Morrisey, Karlsson, Dahlin, Toews, Hedman, Fox and Carlson who are all between 29 and 24. If you are literally using “hasn’t been great” to mean “he’s no Dahlin” then I agree. But to the point of the post, Byram is having a career year and has been the Sabres 3rd or 4th best player. If the team is disappointed in his play, what the hell did they think they were getting?

I don’t think people fully grasp what kind of contracts this escalation will bring. Saw elsewhere that in terms of a percentage of the cap, the numbers Zdeno Chara signed for in his big deal with the Bruins in an escalating cap world will equate to $16.3M this summer. In the first year of his $8.3M 7-year deal, Owen Power is making 9.5% of the cap. Part of the reason that looks bad right now is because three years ago that deal, under a mostly flat cap, was worth maybe $8.5M in today’s dollars and we’ve gotten used to that world. But three years from now, that will translate to just $6M in today’s dollars. Inflation is going to make a lot of players very wealthy over the next few summers.

Yes, exactly my point when it comes to Byram.

If you want to know what Byram has actually said, you'll find things like this: “(The contract) can be stressful,” Byram said. “People that don’t admit to that or don’t say that are probably lying in my opinion. It’s a big part of your life. It really is our entire lives. Wherever you’re signed, it’s where you’re living, it’s where you’re playing, it’s where your family is coming to visit, it’s where your spouse is living most of the time. I just try to stay present in the moment and enjoy what I’m doing and enjoy the people you’re doing it with.” “I feel like you have that here,” Byram said. “Good blue-collar, hardworking people. On top of that, it’s just really easy living. You go to some places on the road and you’re in traffic all day. I’m lucky to not have to deal with that here. It’s pretty low-key. I really like that about Buffalo. I feel like it fits my lifestyle. I have a lot of good things to say. You never really know what you’re getting into when you go somewhere new, but I’ve loved it here so far to be honest with you.” “At the end of the day, (the contract)’s not really up to me in a lot of circumstances. I’m more so focused on playing hockey and playing at my best. Things will take care of themselves. I’m just mostly focused on playing. But at the same, it’s always kind of in your head when you’re on an expiring deal. I love it here and don’t have anything negative to say. We’ll see how things shake out.”

"There's a belief that..." OK. Now find me one with Byram saying those things.

For a guy who frequently complains about the internet making things up, I'm surprised to see you leaning into this. I've never seen or heard Byram saying anything like this and I'd be surprised if anyone on here has. I believe it's a byproduct of Colorado's GM saying that he became available because he was never going to get that opportunity there. There's not a team in the league acquiring Byram with the goal of installing him as their #1D. It's going to be pretty hard for a player of his calibre to find a better spot than playing 23 minutes a night on a 1st pair with Rasmus Dahlin. Will he pull a Reinhart come contract time and basically let them know he's not going to commit to this franchise for the long haul because he wants to win? It's entirely possible and few would blame him. And once again in a few years we would be mourning another one that got away. Because the kid is is a good hockey player — probably Buffalo's 3rd or 4th best right now along with Tuch, and easily the best partner Dahlin has ever had.

I don't necessarily agree about the doesn't want to be here part, but everything else about Samuelsson seems spot on to me. The reason he's not playing tonight is coming out of the team meeting, not any bumps or bruises suffered against Jersey. And thank you for the Zucker observation. I'm not saying he's nothing but a mercenary, but there's a real tendency toward 'emperor has no clothes' thinking about certain players around here. No Sabre was closer to the Tage hit than Zucker.

According to the NHL, the shots on goal in the 15 minutes after the Tage injury were 5 apiece. The hits were 6-4 New Jersey.

Undersized first round draft pick emerges as a point-per-game player at age 21 in his 3rd AHL season, explodes with a run of 9 goals in 7 games, and gets an NHL look? Isnt this kinda how it’s supposed to work with prospects? Can you imagine the reaction here if any tiny part of Rosen actually preferred going to an AHL skills competition to the NHL roster? Sometimes a puck is just a puck.

Did they? They'd just stepped on the ice on for a line change. The puck was gone across the ice toward the other blue line. Samuelsson said flat out he didn't see it. Zucker's head flips back and forth like "what just happened there?" Power made a half-hearted overture toward Seigenthaler like "was that you that did that bad thing?" No one was even looking at Noesen.

Elliotte Friedman's podcast today stated the following: Sabres are talking hard with the Canucks about Pettersson; there might be other teams doing the same Rutherford's acknowledgement of the rift between his stars and him saying he will likely have to trade one or both was calculated to prepare his fanbase for a trade that they may not like The Sabres need to make some hard decisions as to which players they are going to move forward with and which ones they are going to move The Canucks have a Miller trade they can make if they decide to take that path I don't do Twitter, can't comment on what's being made up by its users. But I take Friedman pretty seriously, as in I believe he talks to people, checks into what he's told, reports what seems to check out and doesn't make things up. The implication from his podcast is that the Sabres are discussing something with the Canucks, and that the Canucks might prefer to do that deal among the options available to them, even though it won't impress their fans. And the roadblock, at this point, is whether or not the Sabres are ready to give up on a player or players that Adams has invested much of his building plan around. Maybe the Friedmans and the Dregers (who said "Buffalo sources tell me they're in on it and will stay in until they're not") are making things up for clicks. Maybe the Sabres are not in talks for a good, available player they have the resources to acquire Or maybe Adams is actually trying to do his job and is struggling with reconciling his esteem for his corps with the way they've actually played. After all, it is — or at least it should be — his job on the line.

Elias Petersson is a very talented hockey player, among the best in the league, He is also the embodiment of the ‘soft, lacking in fire’ approach this board despises. He is on the market because the Canucks have decided they can’t be the team they want to be with him making $11m at the top of their depth chart. At the right price he makes any team better. Just be careful what you wish for.

According to the Athletic's recent piece on NHL trade value, these are some of the players with approximately the same value as Power: Oettinger, Hischier, Robertson, and Aho. According the Nov. 27 piece — which attempts to balance age, contract, team control, and performance — he's part of a tier of players (including Sidney Crosby and Victor Hedman) thought to rank outside the top 30 and inside the top 60 most valuable NHL trade pieces. "What’s more valuable between a young, cost-controlled defenseman with a bright future (but who is still taking some early lumps) and a proven top-line center who has already made a significant impact on the biggest stage, but who has just one year left on his deal? The answer may vary based on a given team’s current and future outlook — which is the very basis for most trades, even if the magnitude is usually lower." The piece says Power has more trade value than Tage Thompson, Sam Reinhart, Matthew Barzal, JT Miller, Cole Caufield and Mark Stone, among others. Personally, I think piece makes some strange choices - particularly the further down the list you go, but I don't think Power is one of those. You may beg to differ, but the Athletic generally has more credibility than some guy in his basement. It's reasonable food for thought. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5920905/2024/11/27/connor-mcdavid-bedard-nhl-trade-value-rankings/

They're picking up Trouba, aren't they?