PerreaultForever

Nice to finally have a hockey team again isn't it? Now we can spend our time on pointless arguments about size and attitude. Question: Is the current Sabres roster (players and prospects all) in your opinion big enough? or tough enough if you want to get picayune and separate that. Cause that is the real question. You know my answer, what's yours?

Can't disagree with any of this. Also think Cozens needs to keep getting stronger (which I think he will) not because he is soft or weak but because of the style he plays demands it.

Seemed like every game of their's I've seen had Swayman in it and I know they shocked the announcers by playing Swayman back to back last 2 games before their little break here. Swayman definitely seems to be #1 of the two.

lol, that is really weird to me. You have some fine looking toilets wherever you live................. Farm boys that's what we need. One year we were pretty good in high school hockey and won the city (Hamilton) championship. Went on to play the provincial regionals and met this team from the rural area around Hagersville and all these guys were freaking huge. Arms like our thighs from pitching those hay bails I guess. We were far more skilled and fast but they just pummeled us. They were all built like brick sh*thouses. Marty McSorley country.

Oh ya, we definitely have a long way to go, and everything depends on the Rochester guys becoming at least decent NHL players but I think the tear down and futility pointlessness aspect is over. There's no more reliance on one star savior, it's a TEAM concept now and that imo is a better approach. Adams I think has successfully torn down the old rotting structure and now we are pouring concrete and starting to build it back up. As long as they keep adding piece by piece and don't rush it we will finally be a real hockey team again.

You're purposely ignoring my comment So yes, obviously genetics is only one thing and not a guarantee, it's a combination of things. There are always exceptions to every rule but overall you can tell but you have to look at the whole package, you have to consider EVERYTHING and if you have players ranked similar in skills, I'm taking the bigger meaner ones cause we need more of that.

Mitts is soft as butter.

Exactly. Forsberg is a great example. He was strong and powerful.

The ship is righted, it still needs sails and a full crew........... We are at least pointed in the right direction.

Oh come on, there's all kinds of ways to project their future "size". I worked with Dave Andreychuk's dad, for example. One look at "Big Julie" and you knew Dave was going to be "Big Dave". (At this age he is the spitting image of his father too). This is why you hire scouts as well as analysts. Go meet the families, watch how they train, look at their work habits etc etc all of which aids you in your projections of who and what they will become.

You get a sense of which they will go though even at that age. Mitts for example. You're drafting him you know he isn't going to be "big". Arguing this is, I agree, "stupid".

Yes, we might be trending in the right direction but to this point he's not wrong. We do need to get bigger.

Yup, agreed in full. Back to Rochester when Mitts comes back.

Especially in the 3rd. When the intensity picks up he looks a step behind and even confused. I'm starting to think that theory that he is a really slow thinker might have some merit.

I think the state of team now indicates that the old core was rotten as some of us suspected for years. The ship finally seems to be righted.

I think you're dead wrong on this. I want them to play the full season in Rochester. We can call them up end of the year for look sees but that's about it. They are fixing this team and the culture, but we need to be patient and go with this. There are 2 mistakes they can make now and shouldn't. 1. calling up young guys now rather than letting them develop properly and 2. the Murray trade away your picks and prospects for now route. Big NO to both.

Don't take offense at this, but I really wish you'd stop equating height with size. When I talk about size (and I think this holds for most people) I'm talking about shoulders, chest, muscle mass. Overall body not height. Now many big guys are also tall, but that's not the main criteria. As we used to say back in the olden days guys built like a brick sh*thouse.

Personally, I'm putting VO back with Tage and going Skinner Mitts Tuch. I just see that as a better fit, and although Skinner has been ok with Tage's line, I think the original VO Tage Asplund line was better. I would caution the Mitts excitement though. I need to see it before I'm convinced he's actually a top center. The body of work is quite small at this point. not yet.

Linus doesn't inspire confidence now. Just ask the Bruins who have barely used him so far. I personally wouldn't call him up . Development development development.

Amazing what a little decent goaltending can do for you . Somehow this team has to learn to step it up in 3rd periods though. They brought the intensity period 3 and we were flat. This does not bode well for later in the year. Dahlin was horrific in the 3rd and just looked confused. Also question who was out there at the end. Like we couldn't decide if we wanted to play PP or PK. imo that was a mess. Still, all a big bag of whatever cause we won, and that is satisfying. Even a little push back around the net, nice to see. We have things to improve on, but we look like a hockey team now. It's a start.

Oh I don't think so. Nobody's going to be unhappy if we ditch Miller and say, call up Samuelson for the end of the year or another move where a young player comes in for some scrub we ship out. It's pretty much a non issue anyway as we have few people anyone will want at the deadline. and the retreads like Caguila and Hagg and so on all know they are not in the long term plans here. They're not complete idiots.

Ya imo neither was ready at that time and their time in Rochester did them wonders. The shift to center has also helped a lot for Thompson, it suits his style. Now Asplund is another story. I liked him in the preseason ages ago and even suggested Ralph try an all Swedish line when we had Johanson. Maybe he wasn't totally ready back then, but I think the potential was there. Skinner is Skinner. I still don't like lots of things he does and doesn't do but as we are stuck with him hopefully Granato turns him back into a 20 goal scorer.

Stronger positional play, speed, and much better passing. but most importantly, going to the net. Yes, it's the coaching.

So I guess double digits is the cut off point as they still had to play with 9 guys out.

I'm not sure that's true for us. With Tage unexpectedly converted and adding Krebs suddenly we're not as thin at C as we thought we were. No guarantees obviously, but if Krebs is the real deal and Cozens continues his development as a 2 way shut down center, pretty soon Mitts will be fighting to hold onto a roster spot. Not saying we shouldn't look at adding more young prospect centers, just that it's not as dire and urgent as it appeared. My personal view is BPA is the approach overall but in later rounds I would lean towards more size and grit. We tend to look towards speedy small guys that might overcome their size deficiency with their talent, and it can work to some extent, but I think if we do become a playoff team with tons of young talent I want some maybe less talented grit we can call up when needed. Rather have our own younger guys than trading for some has been grit like Toronto did with Simmons etc. and, (I will keep saying this forever :)) always draft a goalie.