DarthEbriate

Tuch and Levi, primary offspring of the Eichwalker-Samidala Trade Tree family, leaders of the Rebellion and the destruction winning of two Death Stars Cups. The storybook ending is still possible as we get to the Original Trilogy years.

For starters, and I'll say it even when he's winning Vezinas for the Sabres... it's right there in his surname. But the reason he's been poorly regarded as a product is that his performance was awful and he had some injuries along the way. If you look at Leinonen's years in the lower Liiga circuits, he's never dominating. There are a few blips of .900+, but it's rare. Ullmark (in SHL, but a 6th round pick) by comparison got into the .900s early in his J18-J20 life and stayed there, whether playing for Modo in the SHL or at the lower levels. Leinonen finally had a good (not great) season last year, but it was in Allsvenskan - 2nd tier level. His Liiga career thus far is an awful 1-10-4 with .844 sv% and 3.90 GAA. Leinonen could still become great, but he has a long way to go. For direct comparison, Niklas Kokko - the 2nd goalie taken in the 2022 draft (17 picks later by SEA) has +.900 % in almost every league he's been in (Mestis, Liiga - in 34 games, and .913 in 33 AHL games last season). His performance is that of a top goalie chosen in a draft.

Another spin on... what's the worst that could happen? Remember, no LTIR will be used because that would mean you could bring in another player (and his salary), which isn't happening. Note: This "worst that could happen" is feasible, I think, by... December 1st. Benson - McLeod - Tuch Zucker - Kulich - Thompson Krebs - Östlund - Doan Malenstyn - Danforth - Rosén IR: Norris (UBI), Greenway (UBI), Quinn (LBI) Lost to waivers: Kozak Dahlin - Kesselring Byram - Timmins Bryson - Johnson IR: Samuelsson (UBI), Power (LBI) Lost to waivers: Jones Levi UPL Lost to waivers: Lyon

I do wonder how much money Key Bank provides for the stadium name, the home and now the road decal per season. Is it enough to pay for Greenway? Only Benson? Skinner's continuing payout? Does a road decal cover a goaltender?

At this point, Benson is going to get better by being challenged by NHL-caliber defenders. He doesn’t need to work on defense at the AHL level. He doesn’t need to create chances for AHL-level finishers. Should he be LW1? Nope. But that’s the franchise’s fault, not his. Let Benson cook. Every team in the playoffs last season would’ve taken Benson on their playoff roster in a heartbeat. Minnesota would’ve put him on their 4th line because he’s short and they don’t like short kids getting schooled by Eichel and Hertl. But they should’ve offered the farm for Cozens and watched a taller kid get schooled by Eichel and Hertl.

Pegula will insist on a publicly-funded multisport/concert venue with state of the art luxury boxes to “stay competitive” as though he didn’t shave $50M in Sabres player expenses since COVID hit. Woe is us, we need a new vEEEnue!

I did read (here on ‘Space) that it has been reported that Dahlin and Muel also vouched for Wilford. He may be a good communicator and they’re comfortable with him. That’s fine. I want my players to enjoy coming to work. But I want my players to be challenged, reach their potential, and show progress. And have good Xs and Os in game. And that’s where I don’t care what contract Wilford has, I need a better person in charge of a 1OA, 1OA, and 4OA. That coach needs to be getting the most out of my most important investments. Especially if I’m trading away 2OA forwards and never putting any money in a proven goalie.

Regardless of the player he becomes, there’s a good bet that he’s Tuch’s inexpensive replacement in the top 6 next season.

I'd say more of a peak Dixon Ward. Modern: Zucker His focus determines his reality.

Re: Greenway In terms of starting lineup, he's a 4W. But, if the team does surprise (frequently leading in the 3rd period), then I see him floating up into top-9 minutes to protect the lead at the expense of Quinn. At this point, though, he's another double-salary for the production you expect from him on the scoresheet (like Girgs and Okposo before him) even if he fills a role that the team needs: some leadership/experience, muscle, and PK skill.

His owner set him up for failure from day 1 with EEE and the whole position being gifted to Adams because he was willing to gut the front office and Amerks staff. But 5 years in, he is absolutely the author of all of ours demise. Before his first season even started, he went 1-year only on good young players you could count on to play top minutes/starts: Montour, Reinhart, Ullmark -- walking them to UFA (or in Reinhart's case, to a final RFA season where Adams was already in full rebuild mode). He got super-lucky with Tage Thompson's cheap contract, coming off of injuries and basically being an AHLer at that point. ---> and wasted it by not protecting him with the likes of Eichel/Reinhart on the team. Then, still in 2020 offseason, Adams went and overpaid on ... Hall (1-yr $8M with nearly full NTCs??) and Girgensons $2.2M/year?, and in later years $3M for Okposo's final season and $4M for Greenway. All good players who perform solid roles on their team; all overpaid for a team that was in yet another rebuild. Adams set that bar himself: he'll pay over top dollar to roles that other teams are paying much less for, and... at least since after the initial 2020 wave of 1-year offers, he'll overreact and extend any young player who wants to be here to a massive deal (Power, Samuelsson, Cozens) rather than risk a bridge. If he (and Pegula) had instead built a competitive hockey team first and foremost (build around Eichel/Reinhart/Dahlin) and not go cheap, they wouldn't have to overpay because players would want to come here to win, as opposed to come here to try to undo what Adams/Pegula have done -- and be over-compensated for it.

But Ruff (and Granato -- by necessity) loves some kid lines. I do not want to see Benson-Kulich-Quinn in the top 6, but it wouldn't shock me if it happens. I would put Timmins on the 3rd D-pair, because I don't see him getting more ice time than Kesselring. Pre-preseason, I'd go: Benson - Norris - Thompson Quinn - McLeod - Tuch Zucker - Kulich - Doan Greenway - Krebs - Danforth (Malenstyn) Byram - Dahlin Power - Kesselring Samuelsson - Timmins (Jones Bryson: he wants to be here) Luukkonen Lyon

And in between (the goalie parade), they had a season of 60 and 56 points, respectively. They improved. But my point is that they are top-30 centers in the league -- either would immediately be the Sabres #1C. Add in the solid D-corps with established veterans (Hamilton 29, Severson 28, Graves 27, Siegenthaler 25, Marino 25, Brendan Smith 33. Bahl age 22 was #7 and kids Okhotyuk and Luke Hughes combined for 12 games). The Sabres "long-term" D-corps is still 2+ years from those ages and more importantly, games played. (Note: Siegenthaler and Kesselring were at similar GP levels heading into 22-23 for Siegenthaler and Kesselring this season.)

Lots of 3rd pairing d-zone defensemen don’t have great stats. But the telling one is that jump from 1:1 turnover ratio to 1:3. Those extra 40 turnovers destroyed whatever chance at fancy possession stats he had.

Except Hughes and Hischier are both high-pick 1C capable players. The Sabres don’t have that player in their lineup or in their prospect pool. (And when they broke out for a season with Ruff, the Devils blue line was a solid veteran crew with a completely healthy season from Dougie Hamilton.)

I don’t know if the steal was attempted. Simply got picked off of first.

Adams: Just like the RFAs this season, gotta save that money for next year and Skinner’s increased one-year cap hit. Jarmo: That’s not how the Cap works.

But now we need to post the goals allowed at 5-on-5 the last three seasons combined.

Do I think the Sabres make the playoffs this coming season? No. Do I think Adams has made the team better overall in his tenure? Also no. But it is too soon to write off the 25-26 season. Some core players could take a solid step forward in their development. But I consider the division and some points that will be available throughout the season. Florida will coast to the playoffs. The Leafs may be a one-line team now, which can always fall apart if folks get injured but not too injured to LTIR for reinforcements. Boston will likely decide to tank by December. Detroit could as well. The Habs are prime candidates to regress a bit in the standings (and still improve overall). The Sabres could (very, very very unlikely) find themselves competitive for an 8 seed through no fault merit of their own.

If Luukkonen can't recover his second-half of 2023-24 self, then yes. Lyon will give you solid backup numbers, but that's better than Luukkonen has been with the exception of that one half-season (December/January excellence, and otherwise fairly consistent). A point on that consistency in 23-24, Luukkonen had a quality start rate of 67%. He was consistently solid, a few duds, and two excellent months where the team should have won more games. Thus far it appears to be the anomaly, however. But if he can be that goalie again for 50 starts.... Hope is the best strategy in the history of ever.

McLeod and Zucker had great seasons to reach 106 combined points, but if Mitts had remained a Sabre at his scoring pace (.758 ppg would've gotten him to 60 points), he'd have made up the 7-point difference of Skinner's shortfall. Offensively, those two pairs were a push. (But McLeod and Zucker offer much more to the team overall. Though it could've been nice to have another non-rookie center in the lineup last year from the get-go.) Norris has outscored Cozens in points per game. That's good. But while Mitts/McLeod stay healthy and ppg could be reliable, with Norris it's not a useful measure. Because of his health, Norris has never outscored Cozens. His average season is well below Cozens' offensive output and his best season is 13 points shy of Cozens' high; even if you combine Norris' 8-game season with his best season it's shy of Cozens' 68-point campaign. It's why Ottawa wanted Cozens for the playoff push: he plays night-in and -out, despite his well-documented flaws. Kulich has not matched Olofsson… yet. Kulich has the potential to outdo anything Olofsson ever did (VO's shot, center, all-around game, 1st round talent) -- but last season he did not replace the offense. When Olofsson skates 14:00+/game as Kulich did last season, he's been a 40-point player. Kulich should get to .5 ppg this year, especially if he's going to skate with TNT or Tuch at 5-on-5, but last season he was .39 ppg and only 29 points.

They have to really, really hunker down defensively (the roster should be better at it than in years previously. Instead of Granato teaching them to play defense, it's a bunch of new guys.) However, none of these moves are goalies, which probably makes the greatest impact by an individual in terms of being hard to play against. What I do see in that list is that in nearly every instance it's a downgrade in points scored, the exceptions being Danforth, Byram (EJ never got 1st pair/Dahlin time), and Kesselring.

We just have to wait 2 more seasons until that core is 24-29. Then we'll reap all the reaped benefits of... this....

What is the likelihood that Montreal gets back in this season without a substantial improvement in goal differential— like a +25 in goal differential? Of note: GM Holland went to Edmonton and built the oldest team in the league (including Perry) around McDavid and Draisaitl. Their only flaw is they ran into a better and more balanced team in back-to-back years. I’d say hire Holland, but the Sabres do not have two MVP centers, nor could they afford to pay Holland and the final year of those coaching contracts. Someday, there’s a good chance all of the Sabres current top 6 d-men play games in their age 30 season. There’s a good chance that none of them play that age 30 season for the Sabres.