dudacek

I think Granato has been exactly the right coach to finish this season. He's found a way to let the fans and the players enjoy hockey again. He's erased the doubts that were creeping in about Dahlin, resurrected Casey Mittelstadt's career, uncovered startling things about Sam Reinhart and kindled hope for a half-dozen youngsters. He's also won about as many games as one could reasonably expect given the situation and the talent he was handed. None of these things mean he is the right coach to take this team into next season. Or the wrong one.

He's spent the past month playing on the first line with Sam Reinhart, who is good and recently has been on fire. Jeff has scored 3 goals in 17 games. I think that if a player can only rise above JAG status if he is nailed to the hip of one of the best players in the world, he's still a JAG. Here's an interesting frame of reference: Casey Mittelstadt put up 17 goals and 22 assists in his first 114 NHL games and was sent to the minors. Jeff has 24 goals and 17 assists in his past 126 games.

Granato took over a broken team after 12 straight losses, then the team lost 6 more. When did this team stop being Krueger's and start being Granato's? He is playing three rookie defencemen, two of his three 'veterans' are 21 and 20. All three of his captains and both his goalies are injured His starting goalie hadn't won an NHL game in five years and his backup hasn't established himself as a starter in the AHL yet His 1st line centre hasn't played centre in years. His 2nd line centre played in the minors last year and entered the year with 17 career goals. He's regularly dressing 4-6 players (Sheahan, Rieder, Bjork, Caggiula, Eakin, and Irwin) who have been healthy scratches this year and could be classified as borderline NHLers He's also leaning on 8 more who weren't in the NHL at all last year. Even after dropping three straight, he's 7/8/2 in the past month. How much better do you think another coach could have done? (This is an honest question, not an endorsement of Granato.)

He does, and I like him. It's very early.

I think many Sabres needed to discover they are capable of making risky plays at this level. How do you reach your limits without being able to explore them? I do agree the risk will have to be dialed back at some point, but what I'm increasingly seeing is that the Sabres don't have enough horses up front to maintain this style. Casey and Sam have combined for 20 goals in the past month. The other 10 forwards have 21. Jack should make a difference. But Bjork, Skinner, Caggiula, Rieder and Sheahan are JAGs and Thompson, Asplund and R2 might be too. That's too many.

Good catch on Cozens. I multiplied by 10, rather than 8 for some reason. Fixed in the original post. For the other, I went back a month, so the March 31 game is included.

So 3 points with the goalie pulled? I have him with 4G and 2A on the PP, 15 points overall, in the past 16 games. https://www.espn.com/nhl/player/gamelog/_/id/3114722/sam-reinhart

Great post. The bolded is the crux of the debate and we won't know until we see it play out. Another one to chew on: what if playing Cozens on Jack's wing accelerates Dylan's offensive development in such a way that he becomes Reinhart's equal as Jack's sidekick almost immediately? It's pretty well acknowledged wing is an easier position to play and I find it easier to see Dylan jumping from a 30-point 3C to a 60-point 1RW than I do to a 50-point 2C. By the overthinking comment, I meant not paying enough attention to how well Sam is actually playing centre; it's not like he's been pretty good, it's that he's producing like a legit 1C. We carry the baggage of the Sam-to-centre history, and the 'Dylan needs to become our 2C' projections. Sam's play should be changing that. If we had flipped RW Sam Reinhart for C Tom Ranheim a month back and Ranheim had played like Reinhart is, moving Ranheim to the wing when Eichel returns would not have been a consideration. I expect Cozens to become a top 6 forward. I do not expect Cozens to be a 2C on a playoff team next year. How much of that is projecting for Cozens, and how much is thinking Mittelstadt's past month is a mirage? Generally speaking how many points do you expect from each of them next year?

Expect, no. I think there is a chance and I hope it happens. It depends on a lot of factors: Dahlin's contract, what happens with Reinhart and Risto, who ends up with Seattle in the expansion draft, and how his injury affects his market value. Also his mindset: does he have unfinished business here, or is he ready for a reset? Cap space isn't infinite and the Sabres may see Borgen and/or Samuelsson as ready to take over his role at a cheaper price and choose to spend money elsewhere.

You won't find many players who combined his level of excellence on the ice with his commitment to the franchise and to Buffalo. A true all-time Sabre, whose number needs to be retired.

I think you have to differentiate between the first half of his time here when he was playing pretty well and not producing goals and the second half when he was lost and/or had given up.

You guys are thinking too hard based on an outdated set of premises. The obvious 2C solution is right there in front of you. https://buffalonews.com/sports/sabres/sam-reinharts-successful-transition-to-center-strengthens-sabres-depth/article_4adf77ba-a82c-11eb-8f1f-2bf1703a4b5e.html Moving Reinhart off the right wing equates to taking the restrictor plate off a sports car. Playing down the middle has given him more room to distribute the puck to his teammates. “What I really like about him, Sam is not only a great goal scorer, he has more room to find different pockets because he’s not wedged against the wall half the game,” Granato said. “He can move east-west, left-right, and he has a creative side to him as well, very deceptive and creative player. He has more opportunity offensively in that position. I feel we’ve seen that and we’ve been able to take advantage of that. As he’s re-acclimated to that position, he shows signs of continuing to get better and more dangerous.”

Forgive me for using pace, which I know can frequently be misleading, but I think this discussion needs some context. I think the first numbers are generally an indication of what we could reasonably expect next year. The 2nd show what each player has accomplished in their current role under the current system. Over 82, based on this season's pace: Mittelstadt 21/21/42/-20 Cozens 9/21/30/-17 Over 82, based on this month's pace: Mittelstadt 40/26/66/+31 Cozens 0/56/56/-7 (*Edited from original post for math) Given the upheaval this season and the youth of each player I don't think we can use this season to effectively predict next, but Cozens has shown nothing to indicate he is capable of being a 2nd-line centre next season. Mittelstadt maybe but the sample size is very small.

We can ice this team (minus whoever goes to Seattle) in September: Skinner Eichel Reinhart Olofsson Cozens Ruotsalainen Asplund Mittelstadt Thompson Bjork Girgensons Eakin Okposo Dahlin Jokiharju Samuelsson Ristolainen Bryson Borgen Miller with approximately $8-15 million in cap space to sign two goalies and make any upgrades. Actual cap space is $31.5 million. I'd project ~ $20 million of that to RFAs Reinhart and Dahlin (a lot), Jokiharju and Mitts (affordable bridges), Asplund and Borgen (dirt cheap)

At the start of this season, I considered Cozens, Ruotsalainen, Mitts, Asplund, Thompson, Samuelsson, Borgen, Bryson and UPL prospects. That's now literally half our lineup. Since January we've lost or benched 11 veteran regulars — Eichel, Hall, Staal, Montour, Miller, Eakin, Lazar, McCabe, Okposo, Hutton and Ullmark — and added one, Bjork. It's really hard to compare what is happening now to the Krueger era. This is simply not the same team.

Im a little surprised that your preference is to go into next year with Cozens and Mitts as 2/3. This is given your strongly expressed feelings about the foolishness of crossing your fingers with Casey/Mojo as the 2C last year and Hutton as your 2G this year. Have you really seen enough good things from Dylan and Casey to feel comfortable with that?

I think you have to start Skinner with Jack and cross your fingers, even though I personally don't believe Skinner can rekindle the magic. The RW will ideally be a new acquisition with enough smarts to play on the first line and bring a physical edge. I really like the concept of Sam and Dylan on line two. I'm OK with Victor there with them at LW in pencil, but certainly open to other ideas. Casey and Little Rasmus seem to make each other better, so I start with that and probably Tage as well, although Tage shouldn't get too comfortable. Girgensons and Okposo anchor line 4. I'm not adverse to moving either up the line-up as needed. I quite like R2. Because of his smarts and his shot, he defaults into being on Jack's right to start until we get a better 1RW and looks to push Skinner down the lineup and/or make Victor or Tage expendable when we do. He defaults to 4C if he doesn't. Bjork is behind R2 in my pecking order. He's my 13th forward if we make a move, but otherwise on Zemgus flank as 4LW to start

I go: Jack Sam Casey I think Casey is better with options on either side than playing along the boards and is holding his weight at centre defensively. He is proving right now that he might be capable of being a 2C, and as Roy-style 3C I think he's ready to shine. Next step for Dylan is to add offence to his game and think that can happen best short-term in a top-6 RW role, even though I eventually want him at centre. It's tempting to put his speed and muscle with Jack, but I think he'd have better chemistry with Sam, plus they can kinda alternate in the centre role.

I noticed Caggiula getting more attention in the 2nd half last night. I wonder if this is part of the ongoing "let's see what we have," a commentary on Thompson's play, or an attempt to rebalance the lines. The bottom 3 RWs are certainly different players. The Cozens line was not good last night, IMO

It's an interesting question. There is no doubt the Sam we've seen over the past month is the best option for 2C on the franchise. He's about to finish the most productive month by a Sabre centre not named Jack Eichel in a decade. Yes, better than any month recorded by O'Reilly. Dylan Cozens has gone 14 straight games without a goal and has 1 in his past 23. He will get better, but over the year, he's produced at under a 30-point pace. Casey Mittelstadt's numbers are damn good this past month — ROR level, but are we really OK starting next year with him as our 2C given what he did prior to April? Sam's track record at centre is short too, but he's a proven NHL first-liner who has played some of his best hockey since being moved to centre. My personal opinion is 2C is probably the 4th-most important role on the team after 1C, 1D and starting goalie. Sam is our 2nd-best forward. Pending other line-up changes, he starts next year at 2C for me.

Of course. We rarely have enough information to ever really know about the off-ice decision-making.

I don't think there is any mystery to the bold. Johansson was traded because he was poised to become a UFA and the Sabres don't see him in their future plans. They are going with UPL in Rochester next year and Tokarski is under contract and more than capable of being his battery mate down there. And, after this year, there is no way the Sabres should be going into next season with Johansson as the back-up. As to the rest, I think it is very evident the Sabres have been using the finish of this season to observe and develop their youngsters by using them in as many situations as possible.

What do you think is Bjork's upside?

I think it's less to do with Olofsson playing on one of our top two lines and more to do with how he ranks among our forwards in ability and ice time. At the moment, he's being used as our top winger — averaging around 18 minutes a game the past month — and maybe our #3F after Sam and Casey. That needs to be closer to 15 minutes and #6-7F.

I just want to love and be loved. (And be entertained by my hockey team) 😘