dudacek

That poor family. And under those circumstances and against that backdrop. And Columbus, again.

Pronman appears to have a tendency to scout from a checklist. What I mean is that he has his view of what an ideal NHL player looks like and should be able to do, and he subtracts points from prospects based on what they lack from that archetype. I don’t think it’s a surprise that Dylan Cozens is (or was) his favourite Sabres prospect because that archetype would be Eric Lindros or Mark Messier.

Curious where you got those numbers. Stuff I've seen showed Power ranking highly on his possession numbers offensively, not so good on the defending side, and overall slightly positive. NHL.com had Power at 51.5% Corsi, if i remember correctly. The need for Power to take a leap for the Sabres to do the same is certainly spot on, as far as I'm concerned. Brian Duff has been pushing it a lot this summer.

It really comes down to the bold doesn't it? Are Tage/Tuch/Cozens/Quinn/Peterka/Benson Dahlin/Power/Byram/Samuelsson Levi/Luukkonen the players Adams seems to think they are? Or are they the players we watched last year?

Not being snarky, I wonder how often Pronman sees these guys? He rates literally hundreds of them on his own.

I looked past being told my opinion is rank. And puke emojis being posted beside my posts. But I’m done with this particular discussion. You don’t have to argue with me about an internal cap; I’ve not argued otherwise, and you should know that. Just like you know I’m not a Pegula apologist. I’m not here to be a backstop for your anger at the way he’s destroyed our team. Happy to talk Sabres with you any time. It’s one of the things that keeps me coming back here. But if you just want to vent, find somebody else to indulge you.

I’ve never really been into Sith philosophy. Bad for the complexion. 😜

I’m struggling to reply to this. It feels like you’re ripping me a new one for suggesting that an opinion that I don’t agree with might be plausibly held by the Sabres brass. I think there’s a pretty wide gap on the value you and I ascribe to Skinner that underlies this discussion. Beyond that, I mostly agree with you. My opinion on the move hasn’t changed and neither have my goal posts. Win and they were right.

Oh I agree money is a factor, actually edited it in to my post, but not before you quoted it, apparently. If I’m willingly blind - and I’m not discounting that - the glare coming off Skinner’s game is certainly feeding that.

Can’t Skinner be cut in the name of accountability and, at the same time, the Sabres be cheap and arrogant for not using the cap space saved? My opinion: 1) I don’t like Skinner’s game, I can see why Lindy doesn’t want him in the top 6, and I won’t miss him as a fan. 2) Skinner is too talented an offensive player to toss aside without having an obvious replacement, or a plan to use the cap space to improve the team. 3) I love Quinn and Benson, but I don’t trust the sample size - or the depth behind them - enough to hand them the keys without a safety net. My perception of the Sabres opinion: 1) Lindy doesn’t see a role for Skinner, and his play in the 2nd half of the season was enough to sway Adams 2) A demoted Skinner is a distraction detrimental to the culture they want in place next year, and the money saved is at least a nice fringe benefit. 3) Adams was/is overly confident he can trade for a Skinner replacement if Quinn/Benson/Zucker don’t work out. So I guess I am posting both sides in a way, but I don’t think I’m being inconsistent.

September, hah! Dahlin was hosting captain's practices in July.

Skinner finished the season on a 13-game goalless streak. He scored a hat trick against Seattle, and had 3-point night against Vegas in March. In the other 34 games to finish out the year, he had 3 goals and 4 assists. 13 points in 36 games of uninspired play as the team needed to get its season back on the line. From its highest-paid veteran. Pretty sure that's why he's not here any more. You want accountability, this is what it looks like.

I looked back into the mists of time to when the Sabres were a team that didn't need to push their prospects into the NHL early. These were the approximate ages when these guys graduated to full-time NHL action Myers 19 years, 8 months Ennis 20 years, 6 months Foligno 20 years, 7 months Stafford 21 years, 4 months Sekera 21 years, 6 months Kassian 21 years, 10 months Armia 22 years, 7 months Paille 22 years, 10 months Pominville 23 years McNabb 23 years, 8 months Pysyk 23 years, 9 months Miller 25 years, 3 months These are the ages of these guys right now: Helenius 18 years, 3 months Wahlberg 19 years, 1 month Kulich 20 years, 4 months Östlund 20 years, 5 months Komarov 20 years, 7 months Novikov 21 years, 1 month Rosen 21 years, 5 months Poltapov 21 years, 6 months Levi 22 years, 8 months Johnson 23 years, 1 month

Never opposed to a team flipping over rocks.but I don't think I'd be too interested in a PTO with the Sabres if I had other options. One of Zucker/Benson, plus McLeod, Greenway, Krebs, Lafferty, Malenstyn, Aube-Kubel are 7 guys ahead of you for 6 spots, plus Rousek is on a 1-way and Rosen and Kulich are knocking on the door. I could see the Sabres in the market for a top 6 player, but a reclamation project would realistically have to have a hell of a camp to push the team off some of those investments to crack the bottom 6.

I think a fully formed Benson would be so good for Cozens. I think the same about Benson and Thompson. We shouldn’t have to be relying on a 19-year-old to be a difference maker this year.

Yep, I go back and forth between this voice and the one that says “but what’s the plan if he can’t?” But despite their different positions, I’m sticking with the idea that situationally, Benson is the one replacing Mittelstadt. Quinn, situationally, replaces Skinner and Zucker backfills into the roster spot where Benson was. McLeod is less about replacing Mitts than he is about addressing a role that was missing on last year’s team.

McLeod scored 14 in 28 in his last AHL stint, and has 23 in his last 138 NHL games. I think he’s a pretty safe bet for 12 to 15, which is a good number for a bottom-sixer. The problem to me is the other guys coming behind him if there are injuries or poor performances in the top 6. I think Jason Zucker is a better 3rd line winger than Skinner because of the versatility of his game. And Jack Quinn is a better top 6 winger than Skinner for the same reason. I think they are asking a lot of Zach Benson to essentially fill Mittelstadt’s role offensively as the playmaking 2-way middle six swing guy this year, which is the way the roster shapes up to me right now.

Kulich Helenius Murray Rosen Östlund Wahlberg Tullio Dunne Jobst ...would be a very watchable top 9. I think Kulich's path is on the wing, hoping they make the move, which also benefits Östlund and Helenius Novikov Johnson ...is a pair I'd like to see tested under hard shutdown minutes to prep them for their NHL futures.

We've talked a lot about whether the top 6 has enough pop, but one of the reasons for that is how little margin for error this group of forwards has. You can cross your fingers and hope for 30 from Cozens or Quinn, but you can't do that for even half that with most of the bottom 6 Nick Aube-Kubel has scored 31 goals — in his entire career, 282 NHL games over 6 seasons. Sam Lafferty scored 13 last year, 12 the year before and 11 combined in his 3 other partial NHL seasons. Jordan Greenway's 10 last year tied his career high Peyton Krebs has never scored 20 goals in a single season anywhere, even when he was ripping up junior, it was as a playmaker Lukas Rousek has 1 NHL goal. The 16 he scored 2 years ago with the Amerks were his best in any league. Beck Malenstyn? 7, 7, 11, 7, 6 — those are his season totals, AHL and NHL combined If Zucker and Benson aren't scoring, they aren't getting any help filling the nets from these guys

He's going to play because people get hurt and Lindy won't hesitate to juggle his lineup. But as far as being a guy who stays in the lineup, I see 3 paths: 1) Beat McLeod out for the 3C job. This is the least likely path, given what the Sabres just gave up to bring McLeod in, but it's not impossible. Sabres fans have convinced themselves McLeod is going to be a great 3C, but the Oilers saw fit to upgrade him when they traded for Henrique and he was a healthy scratch in the playoffs. Krebs has more edge to his game; if he rediscovers his offence he could conceivably earn the job nobody wanted to see handed to him and push McLeod down a line, or over to the wing. 2) Hold on to the 4C centre spot. People haven't really talked about him in this role, but It's been his job the past 2 years and he hasn't been bad at it. His defensive numbers are solid, and he likes to mix it up. Lafferty can and frequently has played on the wing, so it's not necessarily an either-or situation. Basically, he just has to outplay one of Malenstyn, Aube-Kubel, Lafferty or Greenway. Krebs can also slide in on the wing ahead of one of those guys as well. 3) Grab a middle six wing spot. I'm leaning hard into what Adams said at the end on the year about playing him on the wing, but I'm wondering if he gets a look at the potentially open spot at left wing beside Cozens and Quinn. He and Cozens had excellent chemistry together as juniors and there's a school of thought that says maybe he can reignite that, after the combo has basically been ignored since Krebs' rookie season. Last year's Krebs of the meagre offence won't cut it, but the concept of Krebs can and maybe adds some defence, playmaking and instigating in the process. Nothing wrong keeping Zucker and Greenway honest. I agree with you entirely that he starts — and should start — at the 13th forward, but I also agree with @Cascade Youth that he just might be a Lindy kind of guy and I do think he will be highly motivated. It's a make or break season for him as a Sabre, and maybe as an NHLer. It's going to be up to him to earn his spot and in the process make the guys in front of them earn theirs. That's the way it should be.

I always wondered a bit about how the Sabres developed Krebs. He never seemed to get the opportunities or the leash his peers got. Kid’s numbers in his 48-game rookie season compared favourably to the mid-30s totals Quinn and Peterka put up a year later, and he was about a point-per game as an Amerk prior to his call-up and in the playoffs. His production was tracking well. But the following season he got the more conventional rookie treatment: limited ice time in a bottom-six role, grinders for linemates and a spot on the bench when he screwed up. It seemed to me the organization made a decision that he was going to be the 3C behind Tage and Cozens and they were going to force-feed him lessons on defence to prepare him for that job. It kinda worked. 26 points is a respectable total for a 22-year-old 4C - pretty similar to what Ryan McLeod put up as a 24-year-old 3C - and he went from being a rookie turnover machine to a respectable checker. A year ago, I was still pretty high on him becoming a good 3C. But like so many of his peers, his game stalled last year. It’s like in the bid to make him more reliable, they stripped away the creative part of his game. Last year he was pretty much the definition of a JAG.

It's not particularly unusual for a player coming off his ELC to still be unsigned this late in the summer, Puckpedia currently lists 15 of them. But I'm really curious how (if?) Krebs fits into Kevyn Adams plans and what the respective positions are in contract talks. I think most of us have Krebs pencilled in as the team's 13th forward. Does he have a path to becoming a roster regular? Does he have a level beyond what we've seen in his 202 NHL games in Buffalo? Does he have a future in Buffalo?

Not sure if I can remember this place as uniformly high on a young player breaking out as we seem to be on Quinn. Havent really seen the fantasy predictions yet, but I’m kinda curious if the rest of the league has noticed. I certainly don’t hear his name much outside Buffalo fandom.

Watched a pod of of 6 or 8 orcas rub themselves on a beach about 30 feet from where we sitting. They flipped over and scratched their backs along the rocks as they repeatedly swam past.

I'm not arguing anything. I was genuinely curious as to which group you preferred.