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DarthEbriate

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  3. Training Camp Waivers

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

    So Gilmour, Lazar, Thompson and Dea are still up.  Interesting.

    I haven't seen a Dea game/highlight yet. How has he looked?

    Lazar as a 4 makes sense given last game. But with Olofsson making it on a wing, does that leave Thompson as the top winger in the AHL this year? Because I don't see Thompson as a 4.

  10. GDT: Toronto at Buffalo, 9/21/19 7pm, MSG WGR

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    Re: my comment above and the Larry and Z converrsation. I think they're both on the opening night roster. I still like Larry a bunch. Z and me... we're more complicated. But, I want to see who can hack it with them, and who can be the callup if they get hurt (or traded to a contender at the deadline if someone loses their best 4th liner to injury). Is it still Okposo (who then gets PP time), or is it Lazar (who gets to PK), or is it Ruotsalainen or Smith, or even Cozens, etc.?

  13. Phase II Training Camp Lines

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    23 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

    If Vesey ends up on Eichel's wing to start the season....

    gif... But, they have off-season chemistry!

    I still think we get to a 1-2 combo of: Skinner-Eichel-Olofsson; Johansson-Mittelstadt-Reinhart or Olofsson-Eichel-Reinhart; Skinner-Mittelstadt-Johansson. Depending on how well Reino can manage a line.

    Then Vesey-Asplund-Rodrigues and Girgs-Larry-Okposo (so we have PKers) on the big roster.

  14. Phase II Training Camp Lines

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    12 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

    As for the second group: I put everyone I don't expect to make the team in bold. These are players I would be shocked or annoyed if they made the team. I put players I could see missing out in italics. Really in this list only Mitts, Okposo and McCabe are locks. Honestly I wish Okposo the best but unless he has a magical renaissance he's probably just taking up space.

    Me too. I like Okposo. I get scared for him when he stands up for his teammates and gets clocked in the head. But darn if he isn't a passionate hockey player.

    Okposo had 14G last year, 7 PPG. One further year from his prime, but also one further year from his ICU medical scare. Maybe he's closer to 20 if he's not stapled to the 4th line with Girgs/Larry. Maybe a Smith/Mitts/Okposo protected-minutes 3rd line, plus 2nd PP unit gets Okposo back closer to 20? Like an 18-18-36 on the season?

    The major upgrades we need this year are for our middle six to each pick up 3-4 more goals on the season. In the case of Sobotka --> ???, it should be from 5G to 15G, which would be immensely important.

  16. Jimmy “Dishes” Vesey - future star or the next Sheary?

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    First off, he needs to start going by James. This double names ending in y just isn't doing it for me. It's like calling James Cagney Jimmy Cagney. Or he's gotta go by "The Veese" if James isn't his real first name.

    Star? No. Another Sheary? No. But he has the potential to be a 2/3 winger for a few seasons in his prime where he's a 20-goal scorer with the bulk of his goals at even strength. We had that in Pominville but he couldn't keep it going for a full season any longer. But someone with Hecht or Stafford production (not necessarily Hecht's all around game) --- that's an improvement from what we've had recently.

    But before we worry, I'd like to see some combinations with Skinner-Eichel-RW in the preseason. Can Vesey or Olofsson make it work?

  17. The Sabres Center Conundrum

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    39 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

    The elite 2C's will cost too much. The really good ones you won't likely pry away. And the decent ones won't likely upgrade your team enough to make that difference you hope to get. All that and...the timing has to be just right. Catch a team when they're as desperate as you are while having the right pieces each other needs.

    I don't think JBot would consider an elite 2C. It's too much investment from our draft capital.

    But... an up-and-comer who's blocked, or a guy who's just starting the downward slope and has been displaced by that up-and-comer. Those are likely to be offseason/draft day trades, because every GM goes full conservative "We're in it to win" in-season until the deadline when it'd be too late to make a difference if we're scuffling all season.

    The desperation is important. Winnipeg has been knocking on the door for years. Now, potentially no Byfuglien? But if I'm Winniipeg who am I willing to give up and keep my main guys for now and the future? Little?

  18. The Sabres Center Conundrum

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    51 minutes ago, triumph_communes said:

    What I don’t get is analytics people who were saying during the win streak that it was a fluke this is a trash team who also said we need to trade for a 2C at that moment to fix things.

    Where if the team is trash there is no single fix to it. Our defense and goalies were bad last year too and marginally improved by trade. Trading the farm for another 2C, even if realistic (it wasn’t nobody trades 2Cs), would have been putting all our money on a sick horse.  

    Hypocritical point of view I think. 

    At the time (early in the year), our goalies were doing well. Maybe unsustainable as well, but the wheels hadn't come off and the top line was still chugging along. I don't care for Duchene necessarily, but even early in the year Ottawa could've said "sure, we'll take a 1st and a couple prospects (Guhle?)" and we'd have had a legitimate center to play. It definitely would have given the team the confidence boost that this season we were invested. He still could've ended up a rental and we'd be right where we are now, minus Montour. But all the same, that's when it would have made sense initially.

    It certainly needed addressing in the offseason if Johansson isn't centering a line. (And I say all this with very high hopes for Mitts and Cozens.)

     

     

     

  19. The Sabres Center Conundrum

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    Great list @Randall Flagg. Thanks for doing the legwork for us slackers.

    2 hours ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

    That's not really the issue here. The real issue is ....how many of those 2C's could you actually get away from those teams and not turn their team into ours?

    This is it. If I'm a GM, who among those players am I willing to give up for Ristolainen that would be a legit 2C for the Sabres?

    Now -- JBot caused the 2C mess by trading ROR. And there was a supposed stopgap, but he retired. As soon as Berglund left, that's when we needed to make the move. We got to first place in the league (unsustainable), and even then we knew Mitts was not 2C level (yet) and we were solely a one-line team. It would have meant moving a first-round pick. But hey -- maybe that's when we trade to a team that got off to horrid start and had a rental 2C for the remainder of 2018-19 season.

    Regardless... for the short-term, we shall see. Long-term, I still like Mitts and Cozens. I need to see more from Mitts, but I'm OK with him being a 2C when he's 23-24 years old if he builds year after year with time and coaching. But that's.... never my mind on where I am. What am I doing?

    It's true. All of it. We don't have an NHL-caliber 2C on our roster for this season. That's on JBot.

  21. Tage-ing the Thompson: Expectations

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    29 minutes ago, dudacek said:

    Tage’s inability to protect the puck was his chief drawback, but his size is not a detriment in that area any more than it was for Jean Beliveau or Mario Lemieux. It should be an asset if he adds strength and the NHL game slows down for him.

    If Tage can add 40lbs to get to Lemieux's size and learn to use his wingspan to protect ala those two or Jagr, then that'll be fantastic. Then he's a top 6 scoring winger and can ride shotgun to Eichel, Mitts, Reino, or Cozens for 10 years.

  23. Tage-ing the Thompson: Expectations

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    He's trying to bulk up, and that's good. But it'll take time to fill out when he's 6'6, then there's the side of learning how to use that muscle effectively. He plays like a dangler, but with that much wingspan he won't be consistently effective. Tage needs to transfer to the AHL Academy this season, before the harvest, so he can hunker down and play balanced 5-on-5 minutes and pad his stats with the PP. I'm thinking 2nd line RW. Once he has a couple seasons of all-around game and is in the 6'6" 220# range, then we can talk. This could mean he's moved in a trade or lost in expansion, but everything I saw last season shows me he's not ready for the NHL except the velocity of his shot. (And Olofsson is going to destroy him in competition for a winger spot.)

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