Curt

What about Raymond’s skating worries you? It’s pretty great.

Big contract for a goalie. Especially one without a long track record of success as a starter.

It’s out there in the news exactly what treatments he has had. They are drugs that are in clinical trials but not yet approved for general distribution by the FDA. It’s not brand new stuff that they mixed up real quick in the back room just for Trump. Thousands of people have already had these treatments. He received a “cocktail” of two antibody treatments made by Regeneron, which are both in clical trial and have had encouraging preliminary results. He also received Remdesivir, an antiviral drug developed by Gilead Sciences. It is a previously developed drug that has been given emergency FDA approval for use against COVID. The actual effectiveness against COVID hasn’t really been proven, but it’s a safe drug that’s been around for a while and tried against other viruses.

Not that I think that Trump is trustworthy, but it seems highly unlikely that he would fake this. To fake being sick would be a 180 departure from what Trump has tried to project from the start. He has always tried to project the image of being ultra strong, energetic, healthy, and in control. Strong man stuff. In addition, the rising number of people in White House leadership who are now being confirmed as COVID positive, makes it seem even more unlikely. What is it, 10+ people now, including some members of the White House media. I really doubt that all these people are faking an outbreak. I don’t even understand why he would fake this. Why would it benefit him? What’s the hypothetical motive?

1) Rossi 2) Raymond TIER GAP 3) Perfetti 4) Jarvis 5) Lundell And honestly, I would be ok with Sanderson or Drysdale too, if Rossi and Raymond are gone. Those two D are great. Sabres need more forward prospects though, so that would still need to be address somehow.

So your order of preference would be Rossi, Jarvis, Perfetti? Where would you fit Raymond in there?

Rossi would be first choice for me too. Rossi, Raymond, Perfetti, Jarvis

I’m thinking that perhaps you are assuming they are taken earlier, but would you prefer Perfetti or Raymond to either Rossi or Jarvis?

I think this seems like good news. I hope Holtz goes too the Ducks. What are Rossi’s connections to NJ???

If Rossi and Raymond are gone, I’m all for it.

This seems reasonable. Question for those who have seen him. Does he project as someone who could play a 4th line/defensive line type of role?

Just my opinion: Quinn is a viable choice at #8, but probably wouldn’t be my preferred choice. If Rossi and Raymond are gone, and they aren’t taking a D, things get pretty tightly packed from my point of view. Lundell, Jarvis, Quinn, Amirov are very close for me.

This as a generalization may be true, but I think that’s often the wrong way to look at it. I think that when considering trading down from 8 to wherever, you need to look at the specific players who are there at 8 and who you project to be available at 10, or 12, or wherever.

Yeah, I don’t hate him. Just not one of my favorites. I tend to like players with a wide skill set, so I don’t tend to be in on “pure” goal scorers. You are right though, he isn’t really “just” a lurker/sniper type. Age is one factor. There are a lot of other things about Rossi that I like so much more. OHL generally has more goals than the WHL. It’s harder to produce points in the WHL. The OHL goals per game went way up this season. In general OHL defense was not good. This is certainly true in some cases.

They didn’t play together at ES, just on the PP. I think it helped both of them that there was another very good line for the opposition to worry about. Quinn’s skating is good. It improved a lot from the season before and that’s one reason that he was able to have such an impressive jump in production. Its not amazing but I wouldn’t be worried about his skating. I would be worried more about his age. He is super old for his draft year. He was only 4 days away from being eligible for the 2019 draft, and he maybe wouldn’t even have been drafted if he’d been eligible in 2019. He improved from last season due to improved skating and physical development. How much better is he going to get? Personally, I probably wouldn’t trade down for Quinn. If I did trade down, it would be with someone else in mind.

Really? You don’t think he has played at an NHL level the past couple season? I feel like he could be a solid bottom 6 (energy/defensive line) wing and veteran leader on most teams in the league. Not worth $6M obviously, but if he was a UFA, I would have zero problem bringing him back on a 1-2 year deal at $1-1.5M.

But sometimes they find out about things that are actually happening and tell us an hour before we would have found out anyway. That’s gotta be worth something, right?

Yeah, pretty doubtful that Amirov will be there past 25. I like him a lot. More than some guys consistently ranked in the 5-15 range.

Although I would be a little disappointed at passing on Rossi, I honestly wouldn’t be furious if Drysdale or Sanderson is the pick at #8. They are both worthy of being taken in that range. However, Buffalo REALLY needs to get some forward talent into the prospect pool. Somehow, Someway, Sometime soon.

@rakish, with the draft almost upon us, would you kindly share with us your model’s rankings for 2020 draft prospects? I would appreciate it very much. I think that normalized statistical analysis, such as what your model does, can be a useful part of prospect evaluation.

I could see it happening, but it’s not something that he has shown much interest in previously.

That was fun. I’m not sure that Trump is a good debater exactly, but he sure can talk a lot. Quantity of sounds produced is a poor substitute for substance.

Curious, what’s that?

So, debate #1 tonight. Does it matter? Is anyone actually undecided?

Two takeaways from this. 1) Is that it for Lundqvist? Do he call it a career? 2) That probably means that they will not be moving either of their young goalies.