Curt

I went with Mittelstadt and Samuelsson. I feel like with a healthy offseason and season Mittelstadt is going to put up 50+ points. He has been producing at a 40ish point clip the past couple years but has been in and out of the lineup so much that it’s been hard to notice and I think it’s also made it hard for him to get comfortable. I think with a good offseason of training and continued health (fingers crossed) he will be ready to rock and roll. I’m thinking 20+ goals and 30+ assists. Samuelsson I think will just show how absolutely solid he is going to be and will give more offense than you would expect too. I’m thinking he plays 1st pair, #1 PK mins, gets 2-4 goals and 25-30 assists while playing really solid defense.

I try not to get too influenced by any one stretch of play from a really young player. These guys are all learning right now and they are going to have ups and downs. I want this team to win like everyone else, but I’m also super interested to how these guys grow together over the next couple years. I know! I’ve opened that thread a couple times, but can’t decide who to vote for!

I don’t agree with 3. Maybe he wants to go to St. Louis, but that’s far from certain. Maybe he wants to play with his brother in Ottawa. I also don’t believe that Ottawa projects to be a terribly run franchise going forward. They have been doing a fine job of building up their team over the past 3-4 years.

It depends on if Krebs comes along or not. Right now I like the skating, the hands, and the attitude, both on and off ice. However, the shot and the decision making hasn’t been good. I think there is a chance he improves on those, but also a chance he doesn’t. I still like him alright. Had to make choices when doing this.

I think as it sits right now, the plan is for Anderson and Comrie to split starts. UPL isn’t guaranteed ANY NHL time. He isn’t being mentioned as part of the plan for this season when the GM talks.

I selected 3rd line C and the 47-55 point one. In reality I think he will be in a 2/3 line C role with plenty of shut down responsibilities, and I think he will put up something in the 45-50 point range, prorated for 82 games.

I believe it means that if he doesn’t ends up getting enough NHL time during the season to get to $275k, they will cut him a check to make up the difference at season’s end.

Thank you 🙏🏼 For Tuch, basically projecting that he tops out around a 50 point guy, and signs a bit of a hometown deal. He’ll be 30 by that time will be a good middle 6 guy for Buffalo, but not a star. Comrie, just a hopeful guess really. UPL, washout, backup for a season but wasn’t very good, back to the AHL or wherever. Levi, what Taro said.

Even if a player is strictly a stay at home defenseman, they can’t really be any good if they are no good at getting the puck back from the other team. It’s not very helpful to be out there hitting people and blocking shots while the other team is able to just shoot at goal over and over again. They don’t need to be skilled passers or puck rushers, but you need to be able to gain possession and at least make a short pass to a teammate to start the breakout.

Well, you are posting in a thread about the prospect pool, saying that the prospect pool doesn’t matter until they are good NHL players. That’s true in a sense, but it’s not really a discussion about the prospect pool. Honestly, I don’t know that the Sabres will be much better next season than they were this past season. I think they will be, but it’s uncertain. However, again that doesn’t really have much to do with the prospect pool. I’m saying that it is different this time, not because of good vibes, but because the pool is a lot deeper than past groups.

I’m going to stress a few points. The prospect pool and the NHL team are not the same thing. The prospect pool can be good while the NHL team is bad, because the prospects aren’t playing in the NHL. You don’t need to believe me, but I’m telling you that the Sabres current group of young NHLers + prospects is much deeper than anything they have had in the past decade. If you only care about the NHL team and don’t care about the prospect pool then you don’t need to post in a thread about the prospect pool.

You can kind of do this, but you need a 2 lines, IMPO, that you feel good about rolling out against opponents top offensive players.

He can stay on as an AHLer indefinitely, but he is about to be 24 and, yes, he is running out of time to show he is anything more.

This is true enough. But I’d argue that we are 4 years past the 2018 draft and Dahlin and Samuelsson are pretty much locks to be good NHL players. Same with Cozens from 2019, and all 5 other prospects from that draft are still in play. 2020 gives us Quinn and Peterka who both are basically certain to at least make the NHL and are trending for much more than that.

Thanks. It’s really just a lot of guesses. This team is so young that the variables are endless. At this point I don’t expect this to be correct. I believe in Cozens as a worker who will steadily improve, and I think the organization values greatly what he brings off the ice too. I could see them committing to him. I hope Comrie earns that too, but it might not take any great feat. Husso got a bigger contract than that this offseason after just 40 games of above average results.

Thank you 🙏🏼. I plan on keeping it updated over time.

1. Ottawa for sure. Detroit and Buffalo are close for me. Both Comrie and Husso experienced NHL success for the first time last season. Both are the same age. Husso had a larger sample size. If you look at each guys previous several seasons, I don’t really get the impression that you are expressing though. I know Comrie bounced around a couple teams but it’s Comrie who was more consistently good in the AHL. Husso seems to have alternated good and poor seasons for the past several years. I’m not seeing a steady progression leading to him being an NHL starter. In his 3 previous seasons, his save percentages were 0.893, 0.909, and 0.871. Those range from below average to putrid, and most of that was in the AHL. Im not seeing the development that you are talking about and I have very little faith that Husso is even an average starting goalie. Comrie outperformed him, but didn’t play nearly as much. I’m not sure if either of them are more than a one year fluke.

Just curious, do you see Husso much more of a sure thing than Comrie? If yes, why? Personally, I don’t see much difference between the two. Certainly not enough to justify the difference in financial commitment. I know that Husso played more games, but ~40 games of track record vs ~20 games of track record doesn’t seem significant.

Welcome to July on a Sabres forum. Lol

I disagree with bolded. You are saying that you found it one one site, so all the other sites on the internet must be basically the same. Disagree. It doesn’t really matter though. Don’t worry about it.

Not surprised that you had to go back to 2014-15 lists that included Eichel/Reinhart to find it. There are dozens (100s?) of sites the create lists like this. If you google “Sabres #1 prospects ranking” you are bound to get a few hits. I was looking more for a look at one or two of the more reputable sites year over year. Not that you need to do that, but you made an assertion, I disagree with it, and you have provided anything that changes my mind.

Didn’t live through it, but looking at the drafts, the 80, 81, 84, 85, and 87 (apart from Turgeon) drafts look brutal. Looks like there couldn’t have been enough talent coming through to supplement the players taken in 82-83. I know I’m crafting my own narrative but that’s why I feel pretty good about the current team. They already have a group of young veterans in place (Skinner, Thompson, Tuch, Olofsson, Cozens, Mittelstadt, Asplund, Dahlin, Jokiharju) and they are currently folding in a group of high end prospects to the NHL team (Quinn, Peterka, Krebs, Samuelsson, Power). Then they have a huge number of prospects, literally 20+, following them up in the next 3-4 years. Not all of those 20+ will make it in the NHL, but I’m confident that several will.

I see a wide path towards success for the Sabres. I’m optimistic yet I also realize there are ways for it to go wrong. What went wrong for that group in the mid-late 80s?

What did happen during those years? Whats the cautionary take away? To me it looks like there was a lot of crappy drafting surrounding the 83 and 83 drafts. Is there a lot more to it than that?

Agree, the fans should cherish Crosby. His like is not often seen. I imagine that if I was a penguins fan, seeing Crosby in another sweater would be hard to see. For the fans, and players too, it’s more than that. There is a strong emotional element.