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sabresparaavida

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Posts posted by sabresparaavida

  1. 2 minutes ago, Mr. Allen said:

    You put him ahead of Savoi and Kulich? 

    Definitely ahead of Savoie. They played on the same line and Benson outproduced Savoie, while bringing a better defensive game.  
    Kulich is a more interesting question, he’s shown a lot of development over the last year, with a great world juniors and a strong. AHL campaign. But I think overall, Benson gets the slight nod. 

  2. I like the draft a lot. Benson should fit into the emerging top 6 of the future, and may end up being Skinner’s eventual replacement.  I don’t think his size will be too much of an issue as we should still have Cozens, Thompson, and Tuch in the top 6, as well as average sized players in Quinn and JJP who should round it out. (Obviously a number of other prospects will be vying for top 6 minutes in the next few years)

    Wahlberg should fit in nicely as a 3 or 4C for us in the future. He’ll bring some size to our bottom six and will have the skill to keep up with the skilled wingers that don’t make the top 6. 
     

    Strbak was a great pick, and I see him developing into a solid stay at home Dman, either as a 4 or 5D. It’ll take some time for him to get there though, so we need to add another Dman this offseason. 
     

    McCarthy also has a shot at becoming a bottom pairing defenseman for the Sabres, or at least Quality depth. Local kid that probably fits the wanting of on be here bill. 
     

    I like the shot at the goalie, he’s got an outside shot at becoming something. Nice to see the goalie pipeline getting stocked back up. 
     

    Not much opinion on the rest, but I like what we came away with. Excited for free agency and seeing if we can get some help on defense, but this is a good start to the offseason. 

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  3. Im thinking its going to be one of Quinn/ JJP. They both are going to be more settled into the league next year with more strength built up. Cozens may take another step this year, and each of them being better is going to reflect in each other's stats sheets. JJP just won the best forward at the world championships and put up a stat line nearly identical to Cozens from the year before. Quinn's development path so far also indicates he has the potential to explode in his second year. If all goes right, they could produce like an average first line. 

  4. In my opinion, to make this a good or great offseason, KA still needs to upgrade the Defense. Adding one 4/5 D would make this a good offseason (Graves, Mayfield, Soucy, trade candidates, etc). Adding 2 would make it a great offseason and fix the team's biggest current weakness. Something like 

    Samuelsson-Dahlin

    Power-Graves

    Soucy-Jokiharju

    Stillman-Boosh

    Would give us a great defense, and would leave goaltending as the only area of concern (a concern I hope is soon lifted by Levi). 

  5. 36 minutes ago, Derrico said:

    An 8 year deal only eats 2 ufa years no?

     

    I kind of like the way this Dahlin situation is working out if he signs for 8 years now.  3 year bridge and then 8 year deal.  We’re only projected to pay maybe $2 mil more per season (10 vs 6) and get to eat a bunch more ufa years.  
     

    What’s the risk of going 3 years now with Owen and then 8 after that similar to Dahlin? Do we feel the cap is going to skyrocket and that’s the concern cine extension in 3 years?  The bridge and then long term deal would give us essentially 12 years of Owen rather than 9.  

    The risk is the contract he would likely require post bridge. While Power could be signed now for 7-8 mil on a long term deal, if we wait 3 years on a bridge, that could jump to 11 if he develops how we want him to. That money could cost us an important player during those 9 years.

    • Like (+1) 1
  6. 4 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

    Is Graves worth it though, is he truly a Top 4 defensively skewed Dman

     

    very disappointed that he isn’t related to Adam Graves 

    He is the UFA that I’d love to see the Sabres go for. He’s been playing ~19-21 minutes a game over the past 4 seasons, a reasonable amount of playing time for a 4D. He blocks shots, he hits, and the last four seasons has put up a respectable 26, 15, 28, and 26 points. His Corsi for numbers are not great, 44%, 49%, 47%, 47%, but it is clear that the Avalanche and Devils both viewed him as a mainly defensive player, as his defensive zone starts made up 58-65% of his starts over the past four years. This also likely explains to some extent the lower corsi numbers. 

    • Like (+1) 3
  7. 21 hours ago, Eleven said:

    I don't think he played enough without injury to be properly evaluated AND I don't think it matters.  Comrie is an unknown.  If you feel that Hart is a B+ goalie or that Hellebyuck is an A+ goalie, you have to bring them in over an unknown.  Yes, there is a somewhat small chance that Comrie could turn out to be better than Hart, and yes, there is a minuscule chance that he could turn out to be better than Hellebyuck, but the Sabres are no longer at the stage where they should be kicking tires.  They need to buy a good car now.  If they know they can get a good or great one, they should do so, even if it means that the model still in development at the factory is abandoned.

    Just want to expand on the car analogy real quick. 
     

    If players are cars that you can buy and sell, goalies would be more like the used car market. And for these used car sales, you aren’t allowed to test drive the car, nor look under the hood before you buy. You could buy an expensive classic car like Hellebuyck, but you could break down driving it home, it could have rust in the engine block, or it might drive just fine. With Goalies, there is no knowing that the car will be good or great. 
     

    Just look at the goalies that changed teams  last year. 
     

    Samsonov and Georgiev were both bad in 21/22, but were top 10 in save percentage last year. 
    Husso, Campbell, Comrie all played horrible after putting up good numbers.

    Some, like Hill and Vanaceck, performed similarly to before switching teams.

    And if you believe that these goalies were unproven, and that because Helle has been more consistent than them he will continue to be, you may be mistaken. 
     

    The best comp for Hellebuyck, assuming he switched teams, of the past few years would probably be Phillip Grubauer. It’s not an exact fit, as Helle played more games each season. However, before going to the Kraken, Grubauer’s worst season save percentage was .916, which happens to be Hellebuyck’s career average. Grubauer was 30 when he switched to the Kraken, as Helle is 30 now. Since switching to the Kraken, Grubauer has not beaten .890. 
     

    While we could get Hellebuyck, he could be elite, average, below average, or downright awful. There is no guarantee that he will be good or great, but Winnipeg will want to be paid as such, and he will want to be paid for his next contract based on his success with Winnipeg. In my mind, it is unlikely that he will be worth the combination of assets and cap that he will require.

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  8. I would not make this trade.

    Levi has shown a lot of potential, and by all accounts is extremely mentally tough. He’s young enough that he can develop in the Sabres system and learn how to play in the NHL behind this Sabres team. He has a couple cheap years left, and after those years, his next contract will likely be cheaper than Helle. (Even if Levi plays at an elite level, it would be for 2 years instead of the 8 years of solid to elite play)The Sabres will be able to build around Levi better. 
     

    Hellebuyck is also 30 and bears a lot of risk, as who knows how much longer he will be productive. Maybe he’ll play another 5 or 7 years at a good level, maybe it’s 2. 
     

    All of those factors might be acceptable if we were guaranteed top 10 goalie play for 3 or so years, but goalies that switch teams are far from consistent with their play. We could trade for Hellebuyck and very well end up with an expensive below average goalie, and that is not a risk I want to take.

    • Like (+1) 2
  9. 13 minutes ago, Thorny said:

    Saying you can’t “win” a rental without winning the cup doesn’t jive from a fan’s perspective, nor a business perspective.

    Speaking as a fan, there was immeasurable benefit in winning merely 2 rounds in 2006. 

    From a business perspective, the owners lining their pockets with the revenue from a few rounds of home playoff games is a *substantial* benefit.

    Not to mention the potential team building, experience based benefit of a long playoff run. It’s harder to quantify this aspect but for a GM who so prioritizes culture, one would be hard-pressed to deny it.

    We wouldn’t really be “renting” Hellebuyck, it’s a full year term. We’d simply be rostering him.

    Speaking as a Raptors fan, I can certainly tell you the Kawhi deal was WELL worth it LONG before we got that title 


     

    Responding to the bolded, speaking from an outside perspective, I’d disagree. And even if that’s the case, the Sabres and Raptors are/were in wildly different situations. Before Kawhi came, the Raptors had made 5 straight playoffs, winning at least 1 round in each of the last 3. If they won 2 series and lost to Philly in the conference finals, the addition of Kawhi would be viewed as a disappointment. 
     

    And if we’re discussing the benefit of a long playoff run, we should have seen an improved Toronto team after Kawhi relative to before Kawhi, which is not the case, they won 1 series the next season, and didn’t qualify the year after. 

  10. 1 hour ago, Eleven said:

    So let's be more concrete about it.  Considering that the Sabres have no depth at D, who is the "franchise-altering star," worth trading a defenseman for, who will be available around pick 20?  

    You know who you get in the 20s in the NHL draft?  JOKIHARJU HIMSELF. Pick 29, 2017.  And then he took three-four years to make the NHL as a regular player.

    NEW MATERIAL ON EDIT

    Let's say that I'm pushing too hard by turning a completely hypothetical and fantasy-minded trade of Joker for 20 into 29 instead.  Let's just say that.  I'll indulge.  Here are the last 5 20th overalls.  

    2022:  Ivan Miroshnichenko, RW.  I'm almost mad that I had to type that.  Not yet in the NHL.

    2021:  Jesper Wallstedt, G.  Not yet in the NHL.

    2020:  Shakir Mukhamadullin, D.  Not yet in the NHL.  

    2019:  Ville Heinola, D.  In the AHL, but has played a grand total of 27 NHL games over THREE YEARS.

    2018:  Rasmus Kupari, C.  Bounces between the NHL and AHL STILL, FIVE YEARS LATER.

    Just for fun, let's go back one more year--Joker's year.  2017:  Robert Thomas, C.  He is finally regularly in the NHL, but I don't think you could even name his team without looking it up.  Not a "franchise-altering player."

    In other words, Joker IS THE DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH at the end of the first round.  He's as good as it gets there.  It is incredibly unlikely that the Sabres will find a "franchise-altering player" at pick 13 (which they already have), much less at pick 20 or below.  It is completely over-valuing a lottery ticket, as @Weave aptly puts it, to think so. 

    Would you bet your $800K house on a 1/1000 chance of winning only $1M?  No.  But that's the equivalent of this proposal.  High risk and low reward.

    OLD MATERIAL RESUMES

    If this type of thinking were to prevail, I'd be dead before the Sabres were in the playoffs again.

    Is Robert Thomas “franchise altering”? No, but he has been roughly a ppg player the past 2 seasons. He’s a low end 1C/high end 2C which is more valuable than Jokiharju. Also, I’d assume most on this board know who he played for, as he was who most were hoping we got when they announced ROR was traded. 
     

    I’m not saying we should trade Jokiharju, but your data for 20 OA is more like a 1 in 3 get a better player than Jokiharju in 3/4 years, as the other few picks haven’t had enough time to determine what they’ll be. With your house analogy, if Jokiharju is worth 800k, it’d be more like 1/1000 chance you get 2.5 million, 3% you get 1.5-2 million, 20% you get 1 million, 10%you get between 500k-900k, 15% you get between 0-500k and ~50% you get nothing. 

  11. 23 hours ago, sweetlou said:

    Back to Hellebuyck idea...

    If I would have asked anyone of you two years ago, would you trade Reinhart for Hellebuyck everyone would have said yes.

    So in Reinhart you got Levi and pick (Kulich).

    So if I asked you now would you trade Levi and (pick/prospect) Savoi, why would you not do that?

    Agreed Hellebuyck would have have to have an extension in place of 6-7 years in order for me to make move.

    Hellebuyck makes this team a playoff team every year he is here.  Why are we putting are hopes that a prospect will work out?

    There is a reason Goalies do not get that big of a return. Goalies are fickle, each year can bring about large differences in performance, especially when switching systems. It is unlikely that Helle would perform similarly in Buffalo than he did in Winnipeg. While we may still get an above average goalie, or possibly still elite, we also could get below average.

    Some goalie comparisons of goalies that switched teams last year:

    2021-2022.                       2022-2023

    kuemper 5th in sv%, .920.   22nd in sv%, .909

    Husso 7th, .919.            44th, .896

    Georgiev 48th .897.       8th .919

    Samsonov 50th .896.      7th .919

    Campbell  18th .914.     87th .888

     

    While there are some goalies that did not change as much, they tended to be middling goalies (Vanaceck, Hill). 

    Goalies have too much uncertainty, that it is not worth sending a big package for one, we do not know how Helle would perform in the Buffalo system. If you can get him for a 2nd+3rd or something like that, sure, but I wouldn’t pay much more for a goalie.

     

  12. 3 hours ago, Eleven said:

    I am mathematically eliminated with only 58 total possible points.  I had a COL-NYR final, so, yeah, about that...

    There are a lot of people with 340+ possible points.  The second round should give us some separation.

     

    I have a possible 309 points but am also mathematically eliminated at this point. The bracket in first has the same winners as me, with only one game wrong so far, I can’t catch up to them.

    Edit: I called 3 series perfectly (Knights,  Devils, Stars), but I picked Boston, Colorado, and Lightning. 
    I have Edmonton over Carolina in the finals.

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