LGR4GM

To quote Sparta, "if"

Changed the ***** title because this place can't handle the word linchpin.

It is somewhat hilarious to me you don't question Cooley or Gunther being in the NHL at their ages or games played but have gone on a literal crusade to put Zach Benson in the AHL this year. before you mention their points, you don't think Zach Benson can match their points in his age 20 season? Ok. Let's find out. And before you come back with nonsense, Gunther had 30pts his 20yr old season when you take out pp points and since Buffalo runs one of the dumbest pp, I'm only looking at even strength scoring. Amazing how incompetent this coaching staff is. Thompson - 448 games Tuch - 536 games Norris - 239 games Zucker - 770 games Benson - 146 games Kulich - 63 games

Jiri Kulich had a decent rookie year at the age of 20. With 62games, 15g, and 9a, that's fairly solid with a 0.387ppg and a 0.242gpg as a rookie. He played 352 5v5 mins with Thompson this past year and they were pretty good together. 54.76xgf% and 53.15hdcf%. Interestingly Kulich was 3rd on the team in xgf% after Benson and Thompson at 50.91xgf%. As you can see Kulich's xgf drops down away from Thompson. Part of that is that half the minutes away from Thompson were played with Quinn who was not good last year, those 161mins with Quinn are 44.36xgf%. Kulich also has the 2nd best cf% on the team (if you just want to look at shots for and against) with a 51.62cf%. Basically Kulich at worst was a neural level player in terms of his contributions and for a 20yr old rookie, that's not bad at all. There's your numbers. He's one of the top guys in xgf, hdcf, and cf on the Sabres. Part of that comes down to deployment and linemates for sure. We also should note that teams will key in on Kulich's strengths more this season since they have tape on him. He only has 63 NHL games played, which means he is very inexperienced. At 21, it is hard to gauge what we should be expecting from Kulich. Peterka went from 32pts to 50 between years. That is a 36% increase which for Kulich puts him at 33pts in 62 games or 43pts if we ramp that up to a full 82 game season. If Kulich had played 77 games like JJP, he would have had 29pts (JJP had 32 his rookie year). Would you be happy if Jiri Kulich at his age and experience managed to be a net positive level player overall with 43pts in 82games this season? That would be like 23g, 20a just to make it easier. If he manages that, is Buffalo a playoff team? Are you content with that level of progress from him?

I think Terry is pressuring the city to fund or help fund upgrades or a new arena which is why the county walked away. The state and county already gave Pegula almost 1 Billion for his football stadium. But my point is that since Terry hasn't gotten the city to agree to anything, he isn't saying anything.

Even without the edit, this looks like the lamest, most unimaginative corporate BS ever. To call it cookie cutter would be an insult to cookies and cutters. It looks like what would happen if I asked AI "can you show me two rich white guys unveiling something" this is exactly what you would get. I've seen vanilla ice cream less vanilla than this *****. Yes, I know it doesn't matter. It is just amusing to me.

I hope there is video of this. I see reports of pyrotechnics and terry in a keybank hockey helmet.

AI gave me the same thing roughly

Instead of the concept of Kassian we have the: Supposition of Samuelsson

Zach Benson is fine.

No one is putting him in the top 6 yet either. Not sure I've seen 1 lineup that has RW Josh Doan in the top 6.

That's not true, no matter how much Adams has tried to use it as an excuse.

Zach Benson doesn't need the AHL.

God for once I just want Forton to prove me wrong, just once.

There isn't enough experience, good enough goaltending, or good enough coaching to be a playoff team. Unless something magical happens, we will miss for the 15th year in a row and come in around 85pts.

I do want to say yet again, I don't think Doan will replace Peterka.

in all seriousness there is enough evidence right now to suggest saying "Doan is replaceable" and implying he's a JAG is very much incorrect. I don't think guys who forecheck like Doan are a dime a dozen but I do think NHL teams and NHL fans have a really hard time recognizing the skill and valuing it appropriately.

They don't move. Byram mentioned that right after he got here. Tage sits at the half wall, Dahlin moves around the point. There's no high to low or low to high movement of players. They don't rotate around.

JJ Peterka as a 21yr old rookie: 12g, 20a, 77games, 0.416ppg Kulich has 0.381ppg, just noting the how close Kulich was to producing at Peterka's level. Kulich is also 3 months younger. Not saying he will produce at Peterka's level but we should compare apples to apples and rookies to rookies. We can have a discussion somewhere else about it being a downgrade and trading away a more finished product. Doan has 0.452ppg (but he's 23 so take that into account)

I personally don't think that is the key at all to playoffs. The key is getting even average NHL goaltending.

15g, 25a would be my rough guestimate as to his 80% but we don't have enough data.

He's been called a throw in, a 4th liner, a grinder, a late bloomer, a good checker, inexperienced, an unknown, good, bad. But what is he? First let us start with the games played, 62. That is barely enough to call it a sample and to put that in perspective, Zach Benson has 146, Jiri Kulich has 63. This is to say, Josh Doan has a bit of a mystery box to him because there isn't multiple seasons to look at. Now let me get this out of the way here, that is a problem and it is a reason why the Peterka trade has major flaws. The Sabres traded a forward with 238 games and his forward replacement has 62games. Now that we have acknowledged the experience and sample questions, let's look at what we do have in those 62 games. Really quickly, can this not become another "Adams is stupid" thread? I get it, 62 games and 23yrs old, there's some hope and some projection in there. But every thread is Adams is dumb and idk, can we focus on the player? Just asking. Josh Doan last year on Utah HC ranked 2nd in xGF% at 5v5 with a 61.45xgf%. The only player above him was Yamamoto who only had 133 5v5 minutes, compared to Doan's 600mins. Same for HDCF% where Doan has a 63.02hdcf%. Now zone starts can impact this for sure even though hockey is free flowing and there are a ton of on the fly changes (525), it does help to see who is getting helped most. Doan has 102ozone, 154nzone, and 74dzone starts. By far he started in the neutral zone most with a slight lean into the o over the d zone. I don't think that split would over produce his xGF or HDCF. The next part is how much offense was Doan creating? xGF% tells us the split between but not what was being created. In order to do that, we need to adjust for TOI especially for a first year player in Doan. xGF/60 puts Doan at 3rd on the Utah HC, behind Yamamoto and Hayton, with 3.08xGF/60. For reference, JJ Peterka was at 2.62xGF/60. Now remember those numbers are certainly influenced by systems and team play. Buffalo was bad at sustaining pressure and instead created most of the offense off of the rush (Peterka was really good at that). The Sabres have 0 player over 2.85xGF/60 (Kulich) and that shows you that the system itself is having an impact. But Doan was creating offense for Utah but it just was not clicking or turning into points. Which brings us to PDO or "luck" as some call it. PDO measures PDO=(Shots For/Goals For×100)+(Shots Against/Saves×100) and if you are at 100, you are average, below or above is just that, below average or above average. Peterka had a 1.032PDO, the highest on the Sabres. Many look at McLeod and say he was lucky, he was but only 1.020. Doan on the other hand falls at 0.990 which suggest we see positive regression from him. Now this isn't to toss Peterka under the bus, we are looking at 5v5 specifically and Peterka will be making up for lost 5v5 production with PP production on a team that doesn't run the 24th PP in the league (Utah was 10th in pp%). It is more or less looking at Doan's stats and showing a comparable to understand what Analytics might have been talking to Adams about. I say Analytics because like the McLeod trade, the underlying numbers here seem to indicate at least some intent. AGAIN, I am not saying Doan is better than Peterka, I am merely giving you Peterka's Sabres' numbers for some context. With all of that said about Doan, his good 61.45xgf%, his fairly even zone starts, his 63.02hdcf%, 3.08xGF/60, and a bit below average PDO, the question is what will Doan actually be. After what is effectively 1 NHL season over two years, he has stats that average to 15.9g and 21.2a per 82gp. That's about a typical 3rd line player. At 23yrs old coming off of 1 season, is there an offensive jump to have? Will he get more TOI in Buffalo? He's going to at minimum slot behind Tuch and Thompson on the right but could still end up with McLeod as his center. In the end, the underlying stats look good but they are based on a 62 game sample on a team that plays far better overall hockey than Buffalo's run and gun style. My conclusion, there's enough here to make me believe that Doan has 20g, 30a potential and could be a legit 2nd line winger in his prime (26-30), but again, Adams is gambling because he already had a legit 2nd line winger in Peterka. Doan plays better defense. Peterka seems to score more goals (especially off the rush). Doan could also end up as a 10g, 15a type of guy which in the grand scheme of things would really require him to play elite defense to help balance this trade. In the end, we will certainly know a lot more about Doan after this season in Buffalo. My prediction? he'll have around 14g, 26a if he locks down a 3rd line role for all 82 games.

Keeping Wilford is like getting Lewis Hamilton to drive your Indie Car but putting a stock civic engine (wilford) in it and then being like "idk why he can't win!?!?"