GASabresIUFAN

https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/2023-24-nhl-team-preview-buffalo-sabres Daily Faceoff Sabres Preview.

Nhl.com preview of the Sabres https://www.nhl.com/news/buffalo-sabres-2023-24-season-preview

People don’t say this is a small team. They says it’s a transition team that isn’t very physical and can be hemmed in their own zone with physical forechecking. KA agrees and brought in Johnson, Clifton, and Greenway to help change those facts. What they do say is that most of our top prospects are smaller players. Here is a look at the top skaters from the last 3 drafts. Heights and weights listed when drafted. Our top 5 prospects are smaller forwards - Benson 5’9” 163, Savoie 5’9” 179, Östlund 5’10 163, Kulich 5’11” 172, and Rosen 5’11” 156. At forward we also have smaller forwards Kisakov (5’10” 150), Poltapov (5’11” 176), and Kozak (5’11” 173) in the pipeline. The forward group isn’t exclusively small, but talent wise the majority are smaller. The exceptions are Neuchev (6’2 165), Nadeau (6’2 204), and Wahlberg (6’3” 194). Defense is another matter. Power (6’6” 218). Strbak (6’2” 205), McCarthy (6’2” 185), Komarov (6’3” 188) and Novikov (6’3” 207) are all huge. Only Lindgren (5’11 173) is on the smaller side.

Does anyone know if the Sabres direct sports app on roku will carry the games for Sabres.com? The app has all the interviews and highlight packages on Sabres TV from the website.

I think DG’s thought right now (subject to change of course) is that he has 3 top flight scoring centers in TNT, Cozens and Mitts and he wants to insure each one has at least one top flight winger to play with. DG/KA believe they can therefore build 3 scoring lines which would make the Sabres extremely hard go defend. The only problem, as I mentioned above, is how do you allocate VO, Greenway, and Rousek?

I like this better, but how would you allocate VO, Greenway and Rousek? VO feel like a square peg for a round hole. Greenway as Tuch’s replacement on the top line?

I saw the comment on Mitts as well. Last season Mitts flourished centering the top line and playing wing on both the Cozens line and the top line. He struggled on the 3rd line when he played without as talented of players. A Rousek Mitts Greenway line looks ok on paper, but I wonder if it would cause Mitts the same problem as last year? Fairburn also wrote the following in the Athletic: https://theathletic.com/4883295/2023/09/21/buffalo-sabres-tage-thompson-training-camp/

CC has improved each year since he got his first cup of coffee with the Bruins. I wonder if seeing how a smaller but effective NHL D like CC will help Bryson?

What happened to Mr. Underhill’s American Express card?

I wouldn’t read anything into first day pairings or lines. This is a lineup about getting to see how the top prospects look with established players not about who will be playing with whom when the season begins. We will get a better feel for the end product once some of the kids start getting sent down or returned to their junior teams. I do agree that the D pairings were a little surprising and I do see the basis for these pairings, but I worry Clifton isn’t ready for 24 minutes a game.

After my initial post on this thread, I tried to think why KA might have had a conversation about Zegras. This is what I came up with. Zegras is 22 with back to back 20g 60p+ seasons with a terrible Ana team. He is an RFA. Mitts is 24 and coming off his first 55p+ season and has one season left at 2.5. Both are similar size and play C and Wing. Lets say Mitts has great year and scores 65 pts or better this season, how much will it cost to retain him? 7 mill? More? Long-term, if the Sabres could have Zegras locked up for this coming season at 7 for 7, would they be better off getting him than keeping the older and somewhat less productive Mitts at a similar cost after this season? Who has more upside going forward, Mitts or Zegras? Given that backdrop, I can understand if KA asked about Ana about Zegras during his Bush trade discussions.

Why would a team with a top flight offense, that was the youngest in the NHL, and has the deepest forward pipeline in the NHL have any interest in going after an expensive young veteran forward that is duplicative of what‘s already here? The two moves that may need to be done still are finding a partner for Power if Clifton struggles in that role and finding a veteran backup for Levi if (when?) UPL/Comrie underperform again.

I hear they are signing Kane

Thanks I’ll try that. I have an app, but it’s hard to use

Goo goo dolls

Other than "the Beast" this team needs much better nicknames.

I think he was going for Mel Tucker, in order to get “cat” photos. Serious question. What is the easiest way to get a hi res photo down to posting size?

Giroux, Cecconi, Fortunato, Fiddler-Schultz, Dom Mersch, Panocha, Nick Savoie, Slaggert, Warren, Cooley and Jandric.

Great post! Mel Tucker also?

Between @dudacek and @Brawndo how can people get a thread in edge wise?

All - between NHL, AHL and ECHL contracts.

Not really. If we trade away UPL or Comrie without getting a goalie in return, the organization would be down to 5 goalies. That doesn’t work.

Nice goal, and it should have been the goal last year.

Counting from the beginning or the end?