GASabresIUFAN

Friggin Iphone spellcheck.

https://www.nhl.com/bluejackets/news/blue-jackets-2022-nhl-draft-consensus-poll-rankings/c-334744042 Let’s hope that the draft goes according to this consensus list. Getting Gauthier at 9 and Kasper at 16 would be awesome.

Acquired Bishop Signed Bloom, Rosen, Kisakov, Cedarqvist and Nadeau with Rosen, Kisakov and Cedarqvist expected to be in Rochester in the fall.

I went back and looked at my consensus board for 2016 and Nylander was 6th, Sergachev 10th, Keller 9 and Chychrun 8th. The bust Joulevi was 7th.

While not ranked here is a general run down on our prospect pool. (N) = NHL; (A) = AHL; (U )= USHL/NCAA, (C) = CHL; (E) = Europe, (R) = Russia [Based on where they finished last regular season). Goaltenders - UPL (A)*, Portillo (U) and Levi (U) Defense - Power (N), Samuelsson (N), Johnson (U), Laaksonen (A), Novikov (R), Lyckasen (E) RW - Quinn (A)*, JJP (A)*, Rosen (E)**, Nadeau (C)***, Rousek (A), Huglen (U), Sardarian (U), Pekar (A) LW - Kisakov (R)**, Poltapov (R), Bloom (C)***, Weissbach (A), Birio (A), Murray (A), Cederqvist (E)**, Marjala (C) C - Krebs (N), Costantini (U), Kozak (C), Von Barnekow (E), Konecny (E) * - projects to the NHL next season ** - signed for the AHL next season *** - signed but not yet eligible for the AHL Distribution based on regular season end league NHL - 3 AHL - 9 CHL - 4 USHL/NCAA - 6 Europe - 5 Russia - 3

Trade for Erik Johnson to be Power's partner for the next few years? I doubt they'd trade him to us but..... They may need to free up cash to keep Kadri (28g 87pts), Burakovsky (22g 61 pts) and Nichuskin (25g 52 pts),

I agree. Depending on how he and the staff have created their draft board, I think a LHD is very much on the table if one of the big 3 is still available at 16.

“I’ve seen this playbook before.” Tim Murray

Someone is signing here because “money talks”. Do you think someone like Casey DeSmith would rather stay a backup on an aging Pitt team or take a shot a being a starter on an up and coming Sabres team? Same for Comrie and maybe even Holtby. If you pay them they will come.

Isn’t timely saves the essence of good goaltending.

I guess good goaltending is important to winning Cups after all.

Mitts isn’t on the prospect list. Samuelsson will be on the list because last season was his rookie year and he is waiver exempt, but I don’t have him in my top 5 right now. That doesn’t mean I don’t love Mattias, I just don’t see him having as much upside as the 5 players listed.

I'm not going to rank all the prospects until after the draft in a few weeks. However here is a solid look at where the pipeline stands before the off-season truly begins. https://buffalonews.com/sports/sabres/sabres-prospect-depth-strong-in-rochester-elsewhere-if-top-guys-graduate-to-nhl/article_e7740b8e-f17f-11ec-986e-637b951e36d0.html As a reminder my definition of a prospects is a player 24 or younger to start the season, who is still waiver exempt. (I don't utilize a number of NHL games played as a limiting factor because players develop unevenly and can still be sent down to develop further as we saw with Thompson (106 NHL games) and Mitts (114). By this definition Krebs, Murray, and Weissbach are prospects while R2 is not. The only guy this definition puts in limbo is Cozens. He is still waiver exempt for another 30 games, but it's pretty safe to say he is a full time NHL, not a prospect. The biggest difference between Cozens and Tage/MItts is that Dylan finished his sophomore season in the NHL while Tage and Mitts finished in the AHL. Given this definition, the top of the heap is Power, Krebs, Quinn, JJP and Levi. After that the list is in flux.

Eichel really didn’t. His shooting % was basically the same his first 4 seasons and again in LV, around 10%. His only season better was his 15.9. My concern with Tage is that he was a 8% shooter prior to last season. If he can show he can repeat his effective shooting then sure give him a deal. However I’m not giving him a new deal until he shows he has actually taken his game to a new level. Compare these guys to Reinhart. His baseline is about 13% and he goes that or better every season. The one guy we should have given a long term deal we didn’t. JT Miller is similar to Reinhart. His baseline is 14 and he does that or better every year. Why am I focused on shooting %? It seems to be a great indicator of whether a goal scorer is a consistent threat or just a one year wonder. No idea where Tage falls yet so I’d rather be patient before giving him a longterm deal.

That’s the big question isn’t. Until we see him do it again he has no track record of being a consistently effective NHL player. On his first 145 NHL games Tage had 18g 17a or 35 pts Last season in 78 games he scored 38 goals. Now compare that to Olofsson, who has two 20 goal seasons in his 3 NHL seasons, yet people are trying to send him packing and re-sign Thompson for big money. I don’t get it.