Curt

What a relief that must have been to you!

Agree completely with the 2nd paragraph. 3rd paragraph: Tuch does seem like a galvanizing force that brings everyone together and if becomes captain that definitely is my hope as well. He just may be the right guy to captain this team at this moment.

What do the Sabres do if they win the No 1 slot? Draft the top player on their board. What if they win the No 2 slot? Draft the top player on their board. How does it change KA’s off-season game plan? It probably doesn’t. Are any of the prospects NHL ready? It’s probably not best for any of them to go straight to the NHL. Is Wright the dynamic center the forward group needs? Dynamic? I don’t think so. More like steady and effective. Would KA consider trading down a slot or two to add more draft capital or a player? I doubt it very much.

What do you mean by the bolded? Do you mean in the NHL or do you mean in the AHL? If a Russian prospect wants to stay in Russian until he is NHL ready, that doesn’t really bother me. Draft the better prospect. I don’t care if he ever plays in Rochester.

To base the entirety of a prospect ranking on statistics probably is not the smartest. I have heard the Nemec’s point production is unheard of for 18 year olds in the Slovak league, but I would have a bunch of questions about that. What sample size are we working with? How many top prospects really play in the Slovak league? Are 18 year olds normally given an opportunity to play big mins and shine in that league? Does Nemec’s team play a normal style of play or is it particularly offensive? Has style of play/number of goals in the Slovak league changed recently? Although it’s nice to try to distill everything down to a single number, there is a lot of context that Bader’s model does not necessarily capture.

Totally, and this is where I imagine having a good, trusting environment within your scout team makes a big difference. You want guys to feel that they can ardently advocate for what they believe, even if it’s against the grain, without worrying that it might come back to bite them. In 2016, was Forten worried that if he pounded the table too hard for McAvoy, Sabres took him, and it turned out to be a mistake 2 years down the road, that he would get canned or demoted? Did it feel safer to just say your piece, but not over the top push it in a way that would put you on the hook? With xGMTM, I could almost see that.

It was kind of supposed to be. The depth of talent is pretty good, but Wright and Lambert were supposed to be really good guys at the very top of this draft and both were a bit disappointing this season. That took a bit of the luster off of it. These things are fluid.

Echoing what others have said, the pipeline and the progress of Sabres prospects is looking to be in very good shape. It just looks like by random chance there won’t be any new prospects joining Rochester next season. It will probably swing the opposite way for Rochester in 2023-24, with several new prospects joining the team.

Isak Rosen is not coming over to Rochester as far as I know. No 18-19 year olds straight out of the draft will be heading straight to the AHL. That almost never happens. With all possible respect. I believe that the prospect you are referring to is Tyson Kozak, not Novak or Nozak, center in the WHL.

Offhand, 2004 draft with Ovechkin-Malkin considered the no doubt 1-2 and both franchise type players. They turned out as expected.

I understand what you are saying, and I think that does happen, but 2-3 years ago people were already saying that the 2023 draft was going to be crazy good.

Well, when you get 25 goals and 61 points over 3 seasons in exchange for $18M the contract will look pretty bad. I wouldn’t call that bandwagon jumping, it’s just the way it is. I think that all along people respected Kyle as a person. The only thing about Okposo for C is that it would be a very short term thing. I don’t really like that. Kyle is a great mentor and resource for the young players on this team, but he will not be a leader of the next Buffalo Sabres cup contender. Should it be Tuch? The stories of his demeanor and how he treats people are really nice. Seems like a fine choice, but I’m not in the room. If for whatever reason, he doesn’t want it or management doesn’t think it’s the right time, I don’t really care if they leave it vacant for another year.

To me: Your first definition is just called rebuilding. Your second is tanking.

Regardless of whether I agree or not, McKenzie’s list is the best we have as far as an estimation of what range players might actually get drafted in. It helps form an idea of who might be there at 9, at 16, at 30ish, at 41.

I don’t disagree. I’m interested for when Bob McKenzie’s scouts list comes out. I think that’s the best insight into NHL draft lists that we get. Be careful though, if Lamereoux turns out better than Nazar, someone might dig up this thread 5 years from now and call you out. 😯

Maybe Nazar at 16 by the looks of it. I think this draft is going to be a little crazy. Could be a lot of surprises.

Can you name some examples of teams that really tanked since the currentish form of the lottery was implemented? I guess that would be the 2016 draft.

This is an old thread from 5 years ago, before Botterill was even hired. No one thinks we will hire a hockey ops president right now. @nfreeman @SDS @spndnchz Can we please get this thread closed up or something?

Kyle is a gem. Keep him in Buffalo forever.

Every time someone digs up a thread that’s more than a few months old the mods here point out that that’s bad and it’s better to start a new topic. A poster digging up a 5 year old thread to point out where a fellow poster was wrong about something is very weird behavior. I would think this and generally point it out no matter who it was. ”Unnecessary. That’s all.” Thats probably how I would also describe it.

I can understand the desire to have someone in the media, with close contact to sources come here and contribute regularly. That would be great. However, I think it does a disservice to the people who are here every day to advocate that we bend over backwards to coddle such a person and/or ignore bad or strange behavior. I have not been here nearly as long as some. Perhaps in the past JW was a cordial contributor. What I have seen is mostly what you describe above. Sometimes condescending and often thinned skinned. Very sensitive to any questioning and a general air that we are lucky to receive any small piece of information gifted to us. Just my personal takeaway.

Yes, I understood. It was a joke. I just don’t like the NFL very much.

The NBA does use a draft lottery.

But for me, the lottery addresses I problem. It works to combat blatant tanking like some teams were doing for McDavid. Tanking in that manner is just an embarrassment for the league. I guess we’ll see how well it works next season when Bedard is there for the tanking (pun intended).

I think you are calling it wrong. Posters here do not regularly cruise 5 year old threads at 3am looking for posts that they can use to slam on another poster. It’s impressive really.