Thorny

It’s true, there might be a few moves here and there but usually the league is pretty quiet from now till camp

Batman vs Superman bro

1 Thompson 2 Skinner 3 Tuch 4 Cozens 5 Mittestadt 6 Greenway 7 Peterka 8 Krebs - - - 9 Okposo 10 Girgensons 11 Jost 12 Olofsson 13 Rousek Hinostroza fits pretty well with the bottom grouping

Assuredly Well, 2 of Jost, Olofsson, and Rousek, at least. Camp surprises notwithstanding

Shouldn’t have snuck up on them like that. Pissed them off

I know we used to be higher...11th doesn’t seem so bad after 12 years of stacked futility

I liked him. Wouldn’t have minded him back as the 13th man

I understand the idea though so I deleted my post was thinking the context was offseason change for some reason. They mostly are running it back, with the couple D adds, at least so far it seems, ya. Could still see a move but not necessarily expecting much. We’ve built year over year for the last few in total points so hopefully the same team/process with only minor tweaks (The D adds) yields a similar result and it should be in the playoffs with ~ the same of injury luck as last year Playoffs are the judgment line, I haven’t seen anything this offseason that would make me think we aren’t in a spot where we can reasonably challenge for that goal, at least.

I’m not actually a proponent of doing it one way or the other, merely a proponent of the idea that it should be acknowledged as a notable consideration in team building.

This board sucks lol Literally policing

Wow who the heck is 54? Glorified shinny I get it but damn son lol

Looked ok to me. There could be gaps in the skater rankings* that make our placing in the goalie ranking not that relevant when determining overall rank. *Like, maybe even being only a few spots ahead of some teams in some of the skater ranks actually represents quite a large gap

Lot of options you listed there. Nearly through this week without a move, a move to address G probably becomes unlikely, in my estimation. At least to the point id be actively hoping for one. Comrie and UPL are poor at what they do so I can’t really come up with a criteria for how I think KA will choose between them. On the one hand UPL has more unrealized upside so maybe him. On the other hand, Comrie was his guy/signing, and maybe he wants to give whatever the voodoo analytics were that led to Comrie being brought in in the first place another shot to pan out. Comrie also has a lot of experience being unable to advance beyond the performance required of a back up goalie, so the higher KA is on Levi, I mean KA could easily be pencilling him in for 50 given KA’s m.o., the more likely we keep Comrie imo. There’s absolutely a reasonable chance the goaltending improves to the point we can make the playoffs in spite of it. Conservatively I can hope for Levi to up his numbers slightly, allowing him to replace Anderson, and by playing more games, get us those extra points If Levi improves so much and so quickly he even surpasses the output Anderson delivered, and handles the large workload he hasn’t been tested with yet admirably, we could actually have positive results from the position. Or if say UPL extrapolates that month he had over a larger time frame/emerges as a competent back up this season, that could allow for positive output as well

In the hypothetical situation where the entire established structure of, not only the NHL, but it’s vast array of development systems and leagues surrounding kids from basically birth we’re re-built from the ground up and the game tailored to kids/players learning to play both sides, and players learned to play that way from day 1, sure, maybe handedness on D would be irrelevant. But there’s actually a real world/league at play here, unfortunately, complete with mainstay executives and coaches, complete with their established personal biases: and with all its structures and with all the grandfathered training therein, it *is*, objectively, an easier pathway to play on your proper hand. There are exceptions, they are exceptions that prove the rule. The stats don’t lie: teams make focused attempts to roster their D on their “proper” hand. The data is overwhelming. - - - The sabres are right to strive for flexibility in their defenders being able to play both sides. It’s an advantage. At the end of the day, even while nearly leading the league in this category, even as an statistical outlier they *heavily* leaned towards “proper” handedness usage on D. Only Dahlin and Bryson really did it, only Dahlin with proficiency The Sabres believe in handedness flexibility to the extent they actively prepare/allow for it and engage in the practice more than other teams: what they don’t do is believe in handedness flexibility to the tune of it being irrelevant, to the tune of there literally being no preference given the choice. All else being equal it’s still factor, it’s just not definitive.

It’s good that we can default to the numbers

It’s a good point. There hasn’t been a time Ullmark has been brought up around these parts without the automatic “do you think he’d have been that guy in buffalo?!!1” response, should be applied both ways. Clifton addition makes sense for the same reason adding a good goalie from another team does: improvement is improvement, good need not be enemy of perfect. It’s ok to improve D by adding a good player to the D unit, it’s ok to add a better goalie to improve the goaltending unit. We don’t need to roster Shesterkin to improve the D, adding a reasonable defender worked too, and we don’t need to roster an all star D to fix goalie: we can add a competent second goalie considering you need 2

He means 164 I think

His numbers are better on the left but not by a ton. Ideally he’s on the left but if him being on the right allows us to roster a better player it’s worth it because of how proficient Dahlin is on his off hand, which, for most players, IS the wrong side. Dahlin makes it work because he’s Dahlin. Some can, most can’t Adams attention to ensuring almost all of his D played almost all their minutes on their “proper” hand illustrates the level of consideration

Agree, it’s why the Skinner comps for me end rather shallowly after some similar skating elements They hound the puck similarly when Skinner is on his game but they are completely different offensive players

Bader’s prospect rank, Sabres in at 5th Rankings in each category listed in chart above

Not really

Skinner - Thompson - Tuch Mittelstadt - Cozens - Greenway Rousek - Krebs - Peterka Girgensons - Jost - Okposo Samuelsson - Dahlin Power - Clifton Stillman - Jokiharju Hellebuyck Levi (VO, Johnson, Boosh) Who wouldn’t want to see that? Gimme

Kinda see a Brayden Point type guy from the wing instead of C, a little more playmaking and a little less goal scoring

He’s been playing both sides the whole way