GASabresIUFAN

Johnson is a Californian what did you expect?

You know I'm not a KA apologist, but I'm wondering what moves you wanted KA to make this off-season? Admittedly, I wanted more "name" players instead of Lyubishkin and Comrie (although I did mention Comrie as a value move back in early May) and I wanted him to get another young veteran forward and possibly a 4th line center. However, the forward moves weren't realistic given the development of JJP and Quinn plus the in locker room leadership of Girgensons and KO. Remember entering the off-season he had 13 forwards and 6 D under contract or control. So I ask again other than goaltender, where was he feasibly supposed to be aggressive without giving up on a prospect like Krebs or Mittelstadt? Or should be have traded VO, who was one of our best players down the stretch last year, for what?

as a winger.

on the bench. Where else when Quinn and JJP make the team?

Opening Day lineup Skinner TnT Cozens VO Mitts Tuch Asplund Girgensons KO JJP Krebs Quinn

I don’t think anyone here dislikes Dylan Cozens. Everyone seems to like Dylan the leader and Dylan the person. However, I must admit I am somewhat disappointed with Dylan the NHL player. While he improved , O thought he and Mitts would be the break outs last year instead of Thompson and the return of Skinner. Admittedly he was rushed to the NHL because of the pandemic and made substantial strides in year two becoming a nearly 40 pt player. On the positives his points, mostly scored 5 on 5, increased by nearly 50% and his takeaways increased dramatically. Still I am left wanting more. For a 6’3 guy he isn’t very physical and his shooting, to put it kindly, needs work on accuracy. Also if he is destined to be our two way center long-term he also needs to get better in the faceoff circle. He also still disappears in too many games. The good news is that he is still only 21 (22 in February). Kevin Fiala broke out at 21 with his first 20 goal season while with the Preds. I hope to see similar progress from Dylan this coming season. One decision that might help Dylan significantly is management (KA & especially DG) deciding if he is a center or winger. With TnT, Mitts, Krebs, Girgensons and even Asplund on the roster, DG could give Dylan a long look on the wing, maybe even with Thompson and Skinner. In all honesty Dylan seemed much more like the player I remembered at the World Jrs playing on the wing for Canada at this year’s World Championships. Adding Cozens to our top line would help that line defensively, while opening offensive opportunities for him. If he ends up on wing with either Mitts or Thompson, I can see him scoring 20+ and passing 55 points. If DG sticks him on a D first line centering Asplund and KO, I don’t think he gets to either 20 goals or 50 points, maybe something more like 17 and 30 for 47 pts.

That was my initial thought as well. However the Sabres are much more attuned to analytics now and Joki’s numbers frankly aren’t very good. Lyubuskin’s seem better from my look at Hockey-reference. Lyubushkin is also considerably more physical with nearly 200 hits last year. Toronto only used him 16 minutes a night while DG played Joki over 21. Maybe the goal here is to give the smaller Bryson a larger more physical partner, but it could also be to give a pure stay at home partner for Power, to enable Owen to freelance more. The comparison would be the Myers Tallinder pairing.

I’ve updated this thread title to reflect this coming season. For the analytics experts here, would you mind posting a comparison of Samuelsson, Jokiharju and Lyubushkin defensively. One camp battle I’m interested to see play out is Lyubushkin vs Jokiharju with the winner getting to be Power’s partner. I also think this is make or break season for both Bryson and Jokiharju. With good seasons, one or both could join Samuelsson, Dahlin and Power as part of the longer term core beyond their current contract status.

Many might not agree with this thought, but this is the last year KA and DG operate without any pressure on them to make the playoffs. TP will see this as a productive season if the team gets to the mid 80’s in points. However, once big $ deals are going to some of these kids, there will follow an expectation for those players to lead us to the playoffs.

I went and looked at the teams at or over the cap and most seem to be able to get under the cap when players move to LTIR. LV may still have an issue with only 16 players under contract and Florida also seems to need to dump a few million. I do wonder if there is an opportunity to upgrade Bjork. I’m also still interested in giving Stralman a contract if he is interested for added depth on D. I still think we need more veteran leadership on the backend and don’t think our depth of Fitz, Clague and Pilut are good enough if someone important gets injured. I’m kind of shocked by how many older but really good hockey players are still UFA besides Kadri and Klingberg. Stralman, Subban, Kessel, Bergeron, DeKeyser, DeHaan, Neiderreiter, and Statsny all probably have good hockey left in them especially Neiderreiter. Erod and Farrance are also still unsigned and Erod had 40 points last year. I also wonder if KA made the right deals to upgrade Fitz/Clague/Pilut and or Bjork, would he make Bishops’ contract available to the highest bidder.

The biggest question mark for the the Sabres continues to be the risk KA has taken in net. Anderson is 41 and missed substantial time last season and although he performed well, his play diminished as the season progressed. Comrie has a total of 28 games in the NHL with his 19 last season an obvious career high. In fact in the last 3 season Comrie has played 47 total games in both the AHL and NHL. That's not much work. That said I like what I saw last year in WPG. My son-in-law is a Jets fan and I watched many of their games last year. Still goaltending more than youth is the Sabres Achilles Heal. If they stay healthy and play to their potential than KA will look like a genius, but this could easily blow up in Kevyn's face and take the season down with it.

FYI: from the Athletic BUFFALO, N.Y. – Don Granato summed up the Sabres’ free-agent approach by saying, “We didn’t need to do a lot.” That may sound like an odd statement coming from the coach of a team that missed the postseason. But all you needed to do was watch what unfolded during Buffalo’s four-day development camp to understand the way Granato and Kevyn Adams are approaching this season. They signed goalie Eric Comrie and defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin to affordable deals to bolster areas of need, but otherwise, the Sabres don’t want to get in the way of their young players. “We added a lot over the last 12 months,” Granato said. “We didn’t need to add a lot in the last 12 days.”

Point made. Maybe it's different this time because we actually try to develop the talent rather than just sticking them in the NHL.

I guess that depends on your point of view. I see a team nearly ready to compete for a playoff spot with decent goaltending. I think adding a player like Compher to improve the depth on this team could be the difference between making and missing the playoffs this year. One of the things the derailed us last year was injury. Key players like Mitts, Z, VO, Samuelsson and Anderson all missed significant time or in VO's case playing through an injury that robbed him of his best asset. KO stayed healthy for the first time if 4 years. Right now our only adequate injury insurance is Hinostroza.

Defensively. Absolutely. Offensively? Probably not, but he add another young veteran with Cup winning playoff experience which we have none of on this roster.

Great attempt on nearly an impossible task. I worked on one of these in the past and I kept bogging down on prospect integration, with questions like when do Kulich and Savoie make the team and whose jobs do they take? How quickly will it take Levi to make the NHL and then assume the starter's job. My guess is the Sabres and NHL teams in general have a financial planning of sorts that does Monte Carlo simulations to help them make salary and term decisions. I like many of your assumptions, but have to quibble with a couple. I think Cozens gets another bridge deal for 2-3 years before he gets a truly big $ contract, but I love the faith in a huge breakout. I also think Mitts has a bigger season this year. I'd probably flip the estimates. I also agree that Krebs' term with the Sabres is probably very limited. I really like the work on the defense and I hope Comrie plays well enough to earn the big $ extension.

This isn't the comparison because it doesn't look at who they replaced, aka how many jobs did the GM need to fill. Stevie Y had 6 open roster spots to fill. 3F, 2D and a G. Out were Fabbri, Gagner and Vrana (and their 43 goals), plus M Staal, DeKeyser and Greiss. In came Perron, Copp, Kubalik as the forward replacements. Chariot and Maatta in on D and Husso in net. Det got younger for the most part and better at forward and in goal. The defense is still suspect. Their differential last year was -82. Even if they cut that in half with the improved offense they still aren't close to a playoff team. The Sabres needed to replace only 4 players none of which were major contributors like those replaced in Det. Out are JAGS Eakin and Hayden up front (and their 6 goals), Pysyk on defense and Tokarski in net. They are being replaced by top rookie JJP and Quinn upfront, top 4 D Lyubushkin and a goalie with actually potential in Comrie. Like Det we are seriously improved. You have to remember that KA entered the off-season with 12 forwards under contract plus RFA VO and 5 D under contract plus RFA Bryson. Other than goaltending he really didn't have to do anything to field a team (other than get to the cap floor) The Sabres differential was -58 last season. I think between Power, JJP, Quinn and full seasons from Tuch, Mitts and Krebs, we are about 40 goals improved. Now the question is Comrie and Lyubishkin enough to improve our goals against by 20 or more goals? Ottawa moved on from 8 players. At forward White, Brown, Ennis and Tierney weren't re-signed, or were traded or bought out (27 goals). On Defense Hamonic and Del Zotto are gone and in goal Gustavsson and Murray were traded. They have been replaced by DeBrincat and Giroux upfront, only rookie Sanderson on D and Talbot in goalie. The are also much improved. Behind Forsberg's goaltending they were only -39 last season. Their question is can they improve their offense behind Girous and DeBrincat to get to a positive differential. Like us they maybe be close. If I had to guess Buffalo and Ott are nearly even as teams heading into next season. Det is still a step behind unless Husso stands on his head.

He is. Lost 2 years. By the end of last season he moved up from depth player on the Gophers to key top line player. I’m expecting a big year from him.

@LGR4GM you left off Huglen, Cederqvist and Costantini who have a legit shot at being NHL depth or very good AHL players. Maybe one will surprise.

Colorado needs to get a another trade done to re-sign Kadri. How about Bjork and a 2nd for Compher and we'll retain 500K of Bjork cap hit. Colorado then waives Bjork, clearing all 3.5 mill of Compher's salary. What does this do for the Sabres you kindly ask? Well he brings Cup winning experience. He plays all 3 forward positions. He also is a better goal scorer than Hinostroza or Girgensons, He also kills penalties and solid in the faceoff circle. Isn't he going to block JJP or force Vinnie to the bench? A temporary yes and a temporary yes. I'm not 100% sold on JJP making the team. Vinnie was re-signed with a big raise for more than depth purposes. I think that he is JJP insurance as well. But who is our Zemgus Girgensons insurance? He missed all of 2020/21 and 23 games last year. As a team last season we utilized 14 forwards in 40+ games and then another 4 18 or 19 games each. Without a move like this once we get passed Vinnie our depth is Bjork, R2, Murray, and Biro. Excited? I didn't think so. If KA makes a move like this Vinnie stays at 13, JJP becomes the 14th forward and then R2, Murray, and Biro. Granted JT has only a year left on his deal, but if they can re-sign him, he and Asplund can become 2/3 of a long-term shutdown line. It's just a thought that won't happen, but it is interesting to contemplate.

This looks like one of my posts from last year at this time.

Actually the oddsmakers aren’t truly objective. Their job is to get the money flow as even as possible. They may actually know the Sabres are better than Detroit, but Detroits headline acquisitions created more buzz, and therefore more money on them, decreasing their odds. Ask yourself, which Det signing would reasonable be expected to make the Sabres out of camp? Husso, Copp? Maatta and Kubalik wouldn’t make our team. Perron has been really excellent in his 30’s but at 34 he isn’t going to to be a 50 pt player forever and it wasn’t worth blocking Quinn or JJP from making the team. Do you really think Stevie Y signs these players if he didn’t need them?

Maybe they trying to get a look at some of the FAs?

What happened to Karlsson and Nadeau?

What is the Minn-Duluth goalie’s status?