dudacek

Would we really want any of those guys dressing over Benson or Zucker in a middle-six role? Looking at the Sabres roster and their off-season moves, I can't see them having any interest in the leftovers. They have 13 NHL forwards, 8 NHL defencemen and 3 NHL goalies, which is already over the roster limit. I think they have pretty obviously left space for a top 6 winger if they can swing a deal for one, but that will be via trade. If a trade or trades don't happen, maybe they sign one more depth guy just before camp to force Kulich and Rosen to crawl over somebody to be the first call-up?

It's really interesting to see how the prospect-watchers outside the Buffalo bubble are reacting to Benson's rookie season. Any excitement about him playing a full NHL season at 18 seems to be getting swallowed up by "only 30 points" and "only because he plays for Buffalo" You can find plenty of prospect watchers touting guys who didn't play in the NHL last year over Benson: guys like Leonard, Danielson and Gabe Perreault. Even a Benson-booster like Scott Wheeler has dropped him down his prospect list. I'd expect to see a lot of "30 points at 18? Imagine how good he will be next year". Instead, there seems to be a "expect more of the same" vibe, or even a streak of "I wouldn't be surprised if he takes a step back." Really intriguing season coming for him.

I started checking out skating speed after our shopping spree in free agency. I was little surprised to discover that Tage ranked in the 74th percentile in speed bursts and his top speed is in the 82nd percentile. Dude is faster than he looks. Also: 2022 Healthy Thompson: 253 shots, 15.0 shooting percentage, 38 goals 2023 Healthy Thompson: 295 shots, 15.9 shooting percentage, 47 goals 2024 Thompson hurts his hand: 246 shots, 11.8 shooting percentage 29 goals @mjd1001 did a nice breakdown a few weeks back of how a hand injury created an outlier season for Austin Matthews due to a loss of shot accuracy, and I'm pretty certain that's exactly what happened to Tage. For two full years before the hand injury Tage was a pretty consistent 40-goal scorer After Feb . 1 this year (about two months after he broke his hand) Thompson played 32 games and scored 17 goals. So hand gets healthy, and he climbs right back to his 40-goal form. Three years is a pretty lengthy sample for an NHL player. I'm pretty sure Tage is the man.

And while Malenstyn and McLeod were cheap salary-wise, they weren't exactly that when it came to acquisition cost. The cap has really upped the awareness about the value of cheap contracts.

Perhaps. You can easily slide Hughes, Hischier and Haula in for Thompson, Cozens and McLeod to start. I think Lindy's history is to utilize the pieces he's given and I think part of why he took the job is Kevyn's promise to provide him with the pieces he thought this team was missing. I think he got fired for having a contending team morph into a team with 3 rookie defencemen and some of the worst goaltending the NHL.

To start, I'm sorta looking at the lineup less in terms of lines, and more in terms of situations. I think these guys are going to get leaned on a ton by Lindy: Thompson as the go-to goal scorer, 1st-line centre and top PP weapon (Briere) Cozens and Tuch as all-situations players (Drury, Roy) McLeod and Malenstyn as the primary stoppers and PK anchors (Hecht and Gaustad) I think these guys will looked to first to provide more offence, as long as they can be responsible defensively Quinn, Peterka (Vanek, Afinogenov) I think these guys will looked to first to provide more defence, as long as they chip in a few goals Greenway, Lafferty (Grier, Mair) I think these guys will be charged with filling in the holes and keeping the above 4 accountable Benson, Zucker, Aube-Kubel, Krebs (Pominville, Kotalik, Kaleta, Paille) What I like about this is the every player has someone below him on the depth chart pushing for his ice time and Ruff will not hesitate to give it to him. Quinn can join Tuch and Cozens, or even vault over them. Malenstyn can lose time to Greenway, or Greenway to Aube-Kubel. Peterka gets sloppy, up comes Zucker. Benson can (and probably will) push past just about anybody. There appears to be a lot of situational options, a lot of replaceable parts and a lot of accountability baked in.

People talk about the Sabres having to overpay, and being able to get guys like Malenstyn for 4th-rounders. To me, Lafferty and Aube-Kubel are proof that not even the Sabres have to overpay to get guys like Malenstyn. To me this trade wasn't so much about being able to get guys "like" Malenstyn, it was about getting Malenstyn himself. The price suggests to me that Beck was an actual target and they don't see him as just a Patrick Kaleta/Adam Mair type 12/13th forward.

There is absolutely nothing in this guy’s pro resume to suggest he has ever or should ever play a prominent role. He’s a defensive and forechecking specialist who got a little over 14 minutes a night in his one NHL season and played with similar players pretty much exclusively. He has no offensive pedigree. There’s a reason he’s been pencilled in on the 4th line of pretty much every lineup you guys have drafted. But given the price we gave up, should we expecting more? Is it possible Lindy sees him in the Grier/Hecht mold and drops him in beside more skilled players for grit and glue? Will he be a Gaustad type piece, out there for every crucial own-zone draw and playing every third shift when we’re trying to protect a lead? I referenced Dakota Joshua earlier in the thread. Like Malenstyn, Joshua didn’t make the NHL until he was 26. He put up 23 points in his first full season to Beck’s 21. Like Malenstyn, he had no offensive pedigree whatsoever - he was a bottom 6er in the AHL who maxed out with 9 goals. Like Malenstyn, he earned his NHL shot with a great physical presence over a lengthy AHL playoff run. I’m really curious as to how Beck will be deployed and what he does with the opportunity. You don’t make the kind of investment in a player the Sabres did if you’re planning to utilize him like Riley Sheahan or Curtis Lazar.

…If Thompson Tuch Cozens and Quinn provide the backbone of 2 legitimate NHL top 6 lines …if the new depth pieces up front provide Lindy with the “tools” he wanted and Adams with the identity shift he sought …if Dahlin, Power, Byram and Samuelsson play to their pedigrees …if Lukkonnen and/or Levi supply the same level of goaltending the team got last year. I’ll go as far as saying that if any 3 of these things happen, the team will make the playoffs. If all 4 happen, the team will be legitimately good.

Canadian health care is funded nationally but administered provincially so I can’t speak for the entire country. Here in B.C., that’s not really an option and I believe that’s pretty standard nationwide. People get around that by going south of the border. A defining principle of the system is access to health should not be limited by an individual’s means. Speaking strictly for myself and my family I have been grateful for the unfettered access to excellent care without ever having to worry about a personal monetary cost. I simply do not hear people complaining about paying for taxes for our health system. They do complain about waiting and access. The resources available do not cover the need here, which I suspect is also the case in the US, it’s just that the gap is manifested in different areas. That said, in either country, the stories on the margins do not reflect the experience of most.

If I remember things correctly, peak Lindy back in the day didn’t really have a conventional 4th line. That line on the depth chart was more about where he kept his “tools” Gaustad was the “4th-line centre”, but he didn’t really anchor a line that got rolled over every 4th shift. Instead he was used situationally: big draws, times when we need a stop, plugging in for a less-defensive guy on a higher line as needed. Mair was the scud: he got sent out when Lindy wanted pound a forecheck. Peters sat on the bench until his “skills” were needed. I think we’d be shocked to see what little time these 3 were on the ice together. There was no “top 6” either; 5-on-5, the co-captains were usually out with “3rd-liners”: Briere/Hecht, Drury/Grier. Nobody was saying “Kotalik can’t play on the 3rd line.” Those teams had Kotalik, Connolly, Roy, Vanek, Afinogenov, Dumont, Pominville all in the mix for 5 spots and top nine minutes. Again, Lindy deployed them situationally based on health and performance. They competed against each other for ice time. Its not the same mix of players and Lindy is not the same coach, but I wouldn’t get to invested in a heirarchy-style depth chart. I don’t think that’s how the coach thinks, and he’ll always be tinkering. I think the pre-game opening night lineup chart won’t be much more than starting point.

Guys like Dylan Holloway, Warren Foegele and Evan Rodrigues were playing on the 2nd line in the Stanley Cup final. Tuch is the 9th highest scoring RW in the NHL over the past 2 seasons. He also clicks all the intangible boxes: big, fast, defensively responsible, high character He is a legit top 6 wing on any team in the league and first line on most.

We are at that point in the off-season where the roster shuffle is mostly done, we’ve gotten over our initial disappointment about the moves, and if you squint you can see it all coming together. July - the best time to be a Sabre fan. 😁

The fancy stuff is good for perspective, but ultimately it’s the goals for and against that are the only things that matter.

Just thinking about this a little more. I don’t expect many goals from Malenstyn. But maybe his hitting causes a few pucks to be coughed up that get turned into goals that we weren’t getting from the guys who are gone. Maybe Byram joins the rush in way that Johnson and Johnson didn’t and more goals get created as a result. Maybe McLeod gets the puck out of our zone and up the ice quicker than Okposo ever did leading to more offensive zone time and more goals from those chances. There’s a lot more to consider than “this guy usually gets this many”. But I think there’s still merit to discussing whether or not we have enough finishers.

Well, I guess the nut of this is true - Casey’s playmaking certainly helped drive offence - but I wouldn’t call it smoke and mirrors. The discussion is about replacing goals so we are talking about goals. 🤷 Personally, I don’t think Quinn, Olofsson or Skinner’s goal totals last year were artificially inflated by Casey. Nor do I think not having him is going to cause a reduction in the totals we should expect this year from Quinn, Zucker or McLeod. Of course there are many other elements at play in the overall offensive potential of the team and Casey’s 33 assists are among them.

It's not they are untouchable, it's that it is really hard to think of a deal that provides the kind of certitude I need to abandon the promise these two offer. Yes, it's the old mystery box conundrum, but I've seen Nikolaj Ehlers. I like him, but I don't see him as bringing me to the promised land. (And to be clear, my promised land is a lengthy run of cup contention, not one year of playoffs) Unlike most here, I still cling to the idea that Adams' plan has not already failed. I feel like I'm too far up the mountain to stop the climb. I'd like to see the best of what these kids have to offer before I give up on them. Foolish maybe, but that's where I am.

This I agree with. I'd take that a step further and say the same would hold true for most coaches, because he works hard and pays attention to the little things. The only way he doesn't have the coach in his corner is if the coach is fixated on a size/strength/bullying game that virtually no plays any more. I think the question for Benson this year rest more with opportunity. As the roster sits right now, he's either got a spot in the top six, or on a 3rd line with a decent centre in McLeod. Under those circumstances, I expect his point totals to rise. If the Sabres add a top 6 winger though, he is the most likely candidate to see a resulting drop in opportunities. I absolutely love the way the kid plays hockey because he already plays like a reliable 3rd-line vet. I'm really curious how much offensive upside is there and how quickly it will emerge because we only caught glimpses of it last year.

No, I see a long-term contender if Adams is right about Thompson Quinn Peterka Cozens Power Byram Samuelsson and one of UPL/Levi. I’m comfortable I know who Dahlin and Tuch are, the rest are open questions. My point is the time for patience for most of these guys is past. This is the season where most of them have to stop being “really good some day” and show us who they are.

This is what the "no-blockng" thing in Granato's 1st 2 full seasons was all about: force-feeding the first wave (Dahlin, Thompson) the experience, setting them up to lead when the 2nd wave arrives. Which — according to the 200 games thing — should start happening right about now, assuming he was right about the players he's bet on. God, I hope he was right because I can't take another 4-year reset.

The 6 or 8 being Quinn, Peterka, Benson, Power, Samuelsson, Byram, and Krebs? Not if you actually buy in to the 200 games thing. If you do, Krebs is no different than Lafferty. Also, Byram and Samuelsson are shy in terms of games played because of injury, but these guys are entering their 5th year pro. They've been around. The 3rd or 4th year breakout is a real, demonstrable thing. To me, the fact we have 6 or 8 of these guys should not be cause for trepidation, it should be cause for hope. I pulled the roster of the 08/09 Chicago Blackhawks, the year where the Hawks moved from non-playoff team to contender. These are their top 15 scorers and their ages. Havlat 27 Kane 19 Toews 20 Versteeg 22 Campbell 29 Ladd 22 Bolland 22 Sharp 26 Keith 25 Barker 22 Byfuglien 23 Seabrook 23 Brouwer 23 Fraser 23 Eager 24 It can be done.

The "stars" of the Sabres system are Power, Quinn, Peterka, Benson and Levi and they're already here. The strength of the next group is not on the high end, it's the depth. Anyone waiting for our system to save us is going to be disappointed.

I read years ago that NHL executives see the 200-game mark as roughly the point where a player has enough NHL repetition to where he should be able to "get it", as in age stops being an excuse. My eye test agrees. Our core players Thompson, Tuch, Cozens and Dahlin are well past that. Peterka, Byram, Power, Samuelsson will be passing that mark this year. Support players like Zucker, Jokiharju, Laffery, Clifton, McLeod and Greenway are by and large veterans By mid-season, Benson and Quinn should be the only "kids" on the roster. The time for development is past for this team. It's time for this group to grow up and be what they can be.

Quinn and Cozens don't need a catalyst. I expect that line to be good regardless of its 3rd component. Over the course of a full season adding 20 to 25 goals is just a matter of each player scoring one more goal. Or Cozens, Thompson and Tuch splitting the difference between last year's totals and what they scored the year before. It's not that hard. As for your overall plan, agree wholeheartedly with adding a legitimate top 6 winger. And I'm not worried about the bumpdown, or clearing space. We're going to need 14 NHL forwards over the course of the season. Right now we have 13. Starting the season with Aube-Kubel and Krebs in the press box and having them available to rotate in as injury and performance demand is a good thing.

Personally, I'm not very high on Rosen, for the same reasons I'm not very high on Farabee. My point is not that Rosen is good therefore we don't need Farabee, it's that I don't like Farabee as a player for the same reasons I don't like Rosen as a prospect. He's not good enough to be a good top 6er and not complete enough to be good middle-sixer, at least given the players we already have and the type of roster I'd like to see them build.