Curt

Where did this Kaiju nickname come from?

Do you have any data to back this up, because I'm pretty sure that the 2nd half of the season, Casey didn't play with Okposo at all and Okposo was with Girgs/Lars.

Jokiharju has exceeded expectations though. He was a late 1st, 29th overall I think. He made it to the NHL and played pretty well as a 19 year old defenseman. I don't see how that is disappointing.

This was not addition by subration. It was talent in, talent out. Just because one guy somewhere (whichever media personality it was) said Nylander has more talent doesn't make it true. Also, pure physical talent is not the only thing that matters.

I love the title of this thread “jokingly choked out”. Haha, what a funny joke! Now you are unconscious, haha!

Buffalo is going to a 3 man back line. It worked well for Ralph in the EPL.

This is interesting, a straight up prospect for prospect trade. You don’t see it very often. So, my first impressions on Jokiharju. He was young for his draft in 2017 (he just turned 20 three weeks ago). Was a late 1st round pick. Good skater, good positionally on D, good puck mover. In 2017-18 he played the whole season at 18 in the WHL, 71pts in 63 gms. In 2018-19 he split the season about 50/50 between AHL (17pts in 30gms) and NHL (12pts in 38gms) as a 19 year old. To play half the season in the NHL as a 19 year old is an accomplishment in itself. At first glance, his fancy stats look decent/good. Interestingly, he actually STARTED last season in the NHL, but after Q was fired saw his role diminished and was eventually sent to the AHL for the remainder of the season. So it looks like maybe their new coach is not a big fan of him, but Q was. Here is an article about him from last month focused on how he should have been in the NHL all season. https://thehockeywriters.com/chicago-blackhawks-should-develop-jokiharju-in-nhl/

OMG. You asserted that perhaps GM's would work together to keep salaries down by offer sheeting each others players at slightly low salaries. You said that perhaps this could be what happened (mearly speculating) in the case of Aho, with CAR GM calling MTL GM and requesting that he offer sheet Aho at $1.5M less than he was asking for. And specuated that Aho could have been played in this way. I asserted that this didn't really make sense, because why wouldn't the original team just offer the same contract that they are asking the offer sheeting team to put forth. I could not see how such an arrangement of the GM's working together would keep salaries down, as the contract would still need to be one that satisfied the player enough that he actually signs it. I still do not see this and you have not put forth any reasoning to support the idea. That's all I'm saying.

I believe the situation is that if he does not make the NHL, he is still contractually obligated to play for his Liiga team. However, he can request from his Liiga team that he be allowed to play in the AHL. It has been suggested that if he were to ask, they would probably allow it. Liiga teams do not want be seen as an organization that holds players back from chasing the NHL. It is bad publicity that would have a negative affect on future signings, plus Fins want to see other Fins succeed at the highest level.

Sabres PP last 4 seasons: 12th, 1st, 20th, 15th. It really was just the one season that it was anywhere near top of the league. I don’t think that Sheary or Mittelstadt were weapons on the PP. I honestly don’t think that Buffalo has had the offensive firepower and skill to expect a top of the league PP. Sheary, Mittelstadt, and Okposo getting plenty of PP time last season is evidence of this for me. They were scaring no one on the PP and Buffalo didn’t have better options. I completely agree with the bolded parts though.

I get you want the PP to improve, I would like it to better too, but it wasn’t THAT bad last season. It was average. It was better than the PP of 15 other teams, including Calgary, Philadelphia, Vegas, Columbus, Nashville.

So, the idea is that Aho was willing to sign cheaper with MTL than he was with CAR? The term or salary structure certainly wasn't a favor. Those were as favorable to Aho as they could possibly be. I'm honestly trying to understand what the favor was and if that is a contract CAR wanted Aho on, why they didn't just offer it to him themselves.

I think you are looking at the wrong side. The left side is teammates. Right side is opponents. So the small slivers on the left side 1-3 are Jack, Sam, and Jeff. On the right side 1-3 the bars are past the red line, which means that he spent a higher than average percentage of his ice time against the opponents 1st line.

https://dobberprospects.com/early-2020-draft-class-viewing/ This is a nice one. Gives a little blurb on each player.

How does an offer sheet help to keep salaries down though? That’s what doesn’t make sense. Why is a player going to agree to a cheaper contract via an offer sheet than he would with his original team?

Johansson may end up playing C for Buffalo, yet to be seen. Vesey has played a lot of RW, he’ll probsbly play there. I’m told Sheary has played RW before, not sure. Rodrigues plays RW just fine and I’d actually be fine with him at 3/4 C.

This article lays out a decent case for why the offer sheet was beneficial to MTL, Aho, and his agents. It does not lay out a case for why CAR would call MTL and request that they offer sheet Aho for a certain amount, as opposed to just offering Aho that contract themselves. That’s what we were discussing. You are changing the conversation. These are the things that I am talking about. One GM asking another GM to offer sheet his player. I can’t think of any reason one would do this and you haven’t provided any either.

If CAR wanted Aho at the exact contract offered by MTL, why wouldn’t they just offer it to Aho themselves? Why would Aho sign it with MTL but not with CAR? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Even if Waddel did make a call like this. Why would MTL go along with it? It’s not going to benefit them. Getting Aho on their team is what would benefit them. Why would Aho sign for less? If he was going to sign for what CAR wants, he would have signed with them earlier.

Interesting. I didn’t realize that Giroux took so many faceoffs even after moving to the wing a couple years ago. I would still say that is uncommon, but it could something that’s applied to Johansson at times.

You think players will accept less salary on an offer sheet contract than they would from their current team? It seems that Aho and his agent played MTL a bit actually. Aho got his 5 yrs, which he wanted, CAR wanted loger term. Aho got $21M in the first 12 months of the deal, and $21M over the next 4, which is significantly more valuable than if the money was evenly spread out over 5 yrs. That $21M can be invested and earn 5-10% profit over the following 4 years. And Aho didn’t have to spend the entire summer haggling with management and worrying about his contract situation.

In 2015-16? He took 278 faceoffs that season, his highest total in any of the past 7 seasons. Fewer than Jeff Skinner took for the 2018-19 Sabres. An average of about 3.75 faceoffs per game. So, yes, I can believe that he played a fair amount of C that season. Perhaps as much as half the season. That would fall under being sparingly used at C over the past 7 years. I didn’t say that he never played C and I don’t doubt that he can play C effectively. Your original assertion was that he has played C for most of his career, implying that he is primarily a C. Yet this is untrue, he has played primarily wing while only occasionally playing C. The fact that you had to go back 3 years to pick out a time when he played some C, sort of proves this point.

Could be true. I actually edited my post to add that he is still a possibility at C, but you were too quick.

Yes, low bar. I would not expect that to be true on a team with a competent middle-6, but it was unfortunately true on last seasons Sabres.

The bolded is untrue. He was only a full time C his first 2 seasons. 7 seasons ago. He has played C only sparingly since then. With that being said, Buffalo’s play may still be to play him at C, I don’t know.