Drag0nDan
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Posts posted by Drag0nDan
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40 minutes ago, Thorny said:
I was kinda hoping he got it, but if he has to hold his team hostage to do it, as he seemed to be earlier in the year, it just cheapens the whole thing so it sorta tarnishes it. But he’s been picking it up of late
He's definitely fading - but he still leads his team in goals and is a monster on the power play. The two years at 9.5M for a winger approaching 40 is probably more of a concern. But what he hurts them on the cap, he probably makes up for in tickets and merchandise etc.
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5 hours ago, xzy89c1 said:
we need four new players that are tough to play against and hold their teammates accountable. we are soft as marshmallows. Agree with most of OP. Power needs some coaching. All our D does. We have no plan in d zone.
Power needs fewer minutes and a concentration on D zone. With RD and BB now, he will not see the PP.
I kinda liked byram as the wing opposite tage tbh.
Ideally id see it as
JJP - Quinn - Cozens - Tuch - Power JJP and Quinn on opposite sides, cozens in the middle, tuch down low, power at QB
Tage - Skinner (or Benson... potentially not on roster) - Greenway - Byram - Dahlin Tage and Byram on walls, Skinner down low, Greenway working net front rebounds and high slot, dahlin at QB
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2 hours ago, Archie Lee said:
I can’t believe anyone is seriously wanting to move on from Power after one season where nearly the entire team fell short of expectations, as individuals and a group.
The one thing that Adams could do to signal that expectations are changing is to replace Granato with an experienced NHL head coach with a multi year track record of 45+ win playoff seasons. There are a handful currently available and likely to be more when the season ends and after some 1st rd playoff failures. Personally, I wish Granato had been provided more to work with this year. That would make the decision easier. As is, it will take a new and experiences head coach to raise organizational expectations and fan optimism.
Oh i don't want to - it was just the first post in the thread.
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On 3/31/2024 at 10:26 AM, WhenWillItEnd66 said:
This team is in need of a come to hockey God makeover. Here is my list of players that need to go immediately:
Jost - Ahl player only
Girgs- sorry guy, you bring nothing to the table
Olofsson - should have been gone last year.
Power - pipe dream I know but he is an embarrassment to the man card. His end of season chat need to start with "Grow a pair"
Skinner - time for him to move on. Slow, lazy, defensive liability.
Comrie - just not needed, nor good
Krebs - not good as 3rd liner just not enough talent. Not to mention we need a good flush of players.
What do you think??
Power's contract is going to limit suitors, and require money coming back. Usually that results in... the berglunds and sobotkas of the world.
I personally would like to see power with a new coaching staff before i'd be willing to write him off.
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I don't think tuch and thompson need to play this big heavy game because they are large. But my god could they play a little less soft?
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I can't remember exactly, but i feel like they were jawing up the ice too so it was definitely a cheap shot.
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I'm for buying him out. No spreadsheets needed really. I'm not listing anyone as "untouchable" but... to just keep bringing back people and not shaking up the roster is a little wild to me when the team never wins anything. It makes signing a FA wing/center challenging since the top 6 has tuch, skinner, jjp, quinn, cozens, thompson- with benson also right in the mix.
Players I'd like to move on from - Krebs, Girgs, VO, Skinner, Robinson, Jokiharju, Clifton. Honestly I'm open to Tuch too. His contract is cheap and that has value to a team trying to maybe shed salary.
As for filling in those spots? I don't think you can just plug in prospects and expect to improve. Maybe 1 or 2? But somethings gotta give here. You need to find NHL talent, and you need to use a deep prospect pool to get it. You have too many puck moving lefties (dahlin, power, byram) - so move johnson somehow. You have too many forwards at the same ages - you need to move some to try and add talent into the top-6. There's not enough room on a roster for kulich, rosen, Östlund, wahlberg, savoie, whomever else you want to throw in there.
Top 6 needs a shake-up badly, and the bottom 6 probably feels like a better home for someone like cozens until he can prove otherwise. They also need... considerably more toughness. And not people to hit and fight, but a coaching staff that makes these guys fight through checks, skate back on defense, backcheck effectively, etc. Not to mention... playing faster. This team is fast, but they play slow.
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2 hours ago, Pimlach said:
Granato has done all the good he can do.
He is a one-on-one players coach. In this role he can get individual players to be better.
He does not have an NHL system. The BS about putting in defense after they learn offense was rubbish. You all see the results.
He cannot coach special teams, and he cannot find anyone else that can.
His game day coaching, adjustments, use of timeouts, handling of goalies - all below the NHL standard.
His coaching staff is lousy. Mike Weber and Michael Peca left Rochester for NHL positions, and Granato stayed with his band of misfits. The Power Play speaks for itself and that alone is a fireable offense.
Granato is nice but he s stale. Imlach, Bowman, Muckler, and Ruff could all be mean. It is time for mean. At some point mean will become stale, but this team needs a kick in the ass to shift their mindset.
They need to care. They need to be able to play physically. Whats the point of making the playoffs if when we get there we get absolutely smashed in actual playoff hockey. And its not just... "hitting". Its fighting through checks, fighting through sticks, playing with jam, getting pucks to the net, backskating hard, backchecking more effectively.
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1 hour ago, Pimlach said:
Was this before the first period started? If so then it really says a lot about the coaches getting these guys ready and about the team leadership, or lack of.
Especially when Cozens talks to the press about winning over the fans. I hated to hear him talk about their side and the fans side. It should never get to that.
Before the first period. Me and my 3 buddies were yelling and cheering and they came out and just side eyed us. Dahlin gave me a nod at least? Like I get wanting to have some level of focus but it felt like there was nobody who remotely cared.
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I was in the tunnel as they came out - and wow. There is like 0 enthusiasm. The lady told us to be loud so we were going nuts and they came out just stunned that anyone at all seemed to care.
3 minutes ago, MISabresFan said:More inept than listening to or watching in the past Rob Ray score goals
Rob ray was actually very sweet with a couple little girls before the game in that same line 😄
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Just now, matter2003 said:
The building will be packed once they start winning again. That's how it works.
Yeah - the problem is a lot of the STH's are already brokers. They hold on to them to potentially make money when the team is better.
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5 hours ago, Doohickie said:
And even if we win all three, Washington is 4 points ahead of us with three games in hand. Hard to imagine catching both them and Tampa who is 9 points ahead of us.
At least Washington plays a bunch of games on the road where they haven't been very good.
Both teams have 5 game road trips out west, and lets be honest. Both teams are probably going to be out of it after that.
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My friend is a ticket broker, he moves the vast majority of his (I've used his tickets a few times this season). But he also probably already has this license, so i doubt it would change anything.
Without the brokers they do have? I'm not really sure how many STH's they would have. It's a pretty bad scene, and its worse because the team is so bad.
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2 minutes ago, WhenWillItEnd66 said:
We do not need another Puck moving defenseman. We need a defensive defenseman that can hit, be hard to play against without breaking.
The team is bad! They NEED to a shake-up across most of the roster.
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26 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:
Byram is so young, but 2 years ago he played great in the playoffs for Colorado. So, without concussions, he could be one of those good-to-very-good D-men at an accelerated age. He has those worrying concussions, but when you watched his entire playoff run 2 years ago, he looked like he could be a star on the back end.
Pluse he's a player. An actual Player who had at least one great playoff run individually, he's not another 'draft pick' that we can look forward to in a few years. He's a guy that has injury issues, but has had some great games as a young guy that we get to see play now.
Plus Mitts, is he better than Cozens or Tage? To me, when everyone is healthy, I think ultimately he is the 3rd center on this team, which means he isn't going to be a guy that gets 1st line Power play time for the rest of his career. I guess Mitts "may" deserver $6-$7m per year, but I don't want to give that to a 3rd guy who is likely to get closer to 3rd line minutes.
It also seems like there are a LOT of posters here criticizing the Sabres for thinking Cozens and Tage were better than they were, making the case they simply had 'career' years.....can't the same thinking be applied to Mitts this year? Difference is, Tage's 'career' year was almost 50 goals. Cozens was 30+ goals when he was 22. Mitts current season 'could' be a career year when he is on a 20 goal pace already at his age 25 season.
As for the D-group....Maybe Dahlin wears down with his heavy minutes. Power too. Samuelsson is injured all the time. Maybe, MAYBE bringing in another young, highly regarded guy...you can reduce the minutes of everyone (spreading them out among the whole group) and make them all better/less likely to be injured.
I'm trying to look at this in a positive way. The negative thinking (I got negative in a BIG way with Cozens earlier this season) and the negativity of this board finally got to me about 2 weeks ago and I'm choosing to look at the positive side of things.
I mean... Mittelstadt has never scored even 16 goals in a season, Cozens and tage have both put up 30+. Been a rough year with injuries, shooting % down, and just a lack of an identity.
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18 minutes ago, seer775 said:
Byram is averaging 37 games per season.
He'd be a great hockey player if he, yknow, played hockey.
But he doesn't. He's at the Doctor's office.
Our top scorer was lost to a broken 3rd pair Defensman.
Explain how that is good.
He's played 55 games in his age 22 season. And even with his injuries - he has already scored more points than mittelstadt did through his age 22 season... as a puck-moving defenseman.
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20 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
Understatement imo. It was the worst I've seen this season for any team and totally favoured Florida.
I don't fault him at all. I like the emotion and I'm sure the players do too. We need more of that. I was actually thinking in the first period I'd end up writing "why is Granato so passive with those refs, can you imagine what Brind'Amour or Torts would have done?" but then he exploded in the third after bottling it in so long I guess so scrap that draft post 🙂
Donny must have used the F word big time. Those refs need a disciplinary hearing.
I mean... to make a brutally bad call. Then to DOUBLE DOWN and throw a bench minor on top of it? Just awful.
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13 hours ago, Sabres Fan in NS said:
Not to derail the interesting conversation happening in here, but there is some Sweedish dude on the left hand coast of Canada that maybe would / should be a trade target, if in fact he is on the market.
Considering we're probably a no-go on literally every NMC/M-NTC etc. These are the types of players you have to take a long hard look at.
It's going to probably take a Center, a top prospect, and a 1st round pick. They may ask for more, but i don't see anyone dealing much more than that. Great player but you have to pay him. Considering we're likely in the lottery i'd wait until the offseason to deal a 1st round pick.
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On 2/16/2024 at 2:06 PM, mjd1001 said:
Ok. Blow the team up. Change coaches. Change GM's. They all may be valid points. But maybe its simpler than that.
What is wrong/different with this team compared to last year's team, which was 1 point away from the playoffs?
-This team is allowing less goals than last year. They are now middle-of-the-pack and actually improving the last few weeks. They have a goalie who not only has pretty good numbers, he passes the 'eye test' also.
Scoring is the problem but:
-Peterka is doing better than last year. Skinner is basically giving you close to the scoring of last year. Dahlin has less assists but is scoring more goals. Mitts is better offensively. Greenway and Okposo are better offensively.
Basically, this team is equal to, or BETTER than last years team in MOST ways other than: Thompson scoring, Cozens scoring, and Tuch Scoring (Tuch isn't as big of an issue as the other 2, and it may be related to injury with him.) VO is off also, but his play is made up for basically by Peterka, and few think/thought VO was long for this team anyway.
So yea, the results aren't what anyone wants....but its not the whole team. Much of the team is equal to last year or BETTER. The question may not be how or why to make wholesale changes, or blow everything up....but rather how/why are Thompson, Cozens, maybe Tuch and Power issues.
I don't want to blow the whole team up yet....I don't want to make major changes yet. I want to fix Tage, Cozens, and Power (mostly) as those guys are 3 of your 'core 4 or 5'.
If a coaching change or GM change 'fixes' those guys, then great. But I know when people say we have waited and endured 'too long' and just want 'something to be done', I'm not quite sure what coach...or GM...comes in here and just makes those guys better. Because, while the rest of the team is 'flawed', overall they are giving you want they did last year or in some cases are better than last year.
I think quinn will be a good piece for next year, and you likely expect benson to improve. I'd be willing to buy-out skinner if it is reasonable. Tuch has trade value if you don't go that route.
Skinner-Thompson-Tuch - Needs a shakeup somewhere. Skinner buy out only makes sense if you trade for someone or sign someone. A superstar forward is what is really needed.
Quinn-Cozens-JJP - Cozens needs to play better but they never got much time together either.
Benson-Mitts-??? - I don't know that you want to graduate a minors player here but if not, someone with some jam who can score.
???-???-Greenway - Need shut down players who can contribute offensively. See no reason to look at players like ZG, Krebs, Okposo. These are the types of players who don't have NTCs or they're more limited.
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Dahlin
Power
Johnson
Muel
Jokiharju
Open to trading a jokiharju, and i don't see anyone else in the pipeline who's going to contribute so figuring out how to improve, and add righties will be big.
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UPL and Levi
I don't see a reason to keep levi in the minors, but i see the side wanting a backup. I think levi getting games in rochester will help, and ideally he's ready to rock for like 30 next year. He was handled very poorly this year.
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16 hours ago, xzy89c1 said:
and krebs gets to play with him and we criticize krebs.
I've yet to see krebs really bring anything to the table. He isn't fast enough, the skills he had don't really pop, loses the puck on the walls pretty consistently, doesn't forecheck or backcheck that well, hes just a dude.
I'm fine lumping him in with Z, KO, EJ, etc. I'd probably buy out skinner, clifton probably too. I'd contemplate moving tuch or Greenway.
Roster needs a serious shakeup, and they will most likely need to make a splash in FA as well as make a couple of trades. Can't keep just rolling in new rookies and hoping they'll pop off, when they're consistently too small and slow to make an impact as rookies.
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I'm pretty much done with him. Getting Tage to a 40 goal scorer, and unlocking dahlin are great. But the team is maddeningly inconsistent with their effort night to night. They also seem to sulk quite a bit when things don't go right. And this guy doesn't get them rallied, seemingly ever. They start poor, and they'll probably lose.
I don't think they need someone to like... discipline them. I just think someone who can get them going to start every game, and has answers when the effort isn't there.
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9 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:
So who is the no.1 center on this team?
Candidate no. 1. - He leads the team is points, assists, and +/- and his line scored 3 of 6 even strength goals (and was partially on the line for a 4th).
Candidate no. 2 - Is 7th in points, tied for 3rd in goals and has the worst +/- on any forward on the team by a whopping -7.
Candidate no. 3 - Is 6th in points, 8th in goals and has the second worst +/- on any forward on the team.
Let’s trade Candidate No.1
Contract has to be taken into consideration 🙂
Theoretically the compensation for candidate 1 would likely be the largest as well by looking at this. Though i think tage would probably get you the most based solely off averaging 40 goals over 2 seasons before this bust year.
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10 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:
Can’t wait for KA to give out another big contract for a player with one good year.
There is no doubt UPL is having a great year, but he isn’t anywhere close to an Ullmark comparison. Ullmark was good in the AHL and was good for 3 years in the NHL before he walked. UPL was bad in the minors and bad in the NHL for the last 3 years before this season.
This is a guy you give a 3 year bridge deal too. Make sure that he is actually good before committing long-term especially with Levi in the organization. Think Cal Petersen and his terrible contract. The Sabres can’t afford anymore 1 year wonders like Cozens, Power, and Mule.
I tend to agree. Just feels too early to lock him in. 75 games, and probably more bad than good games.
Lately watching him i feel like he has turned a corner in some regards. He's confidently using his large frame to take away a lot of net. He's redirecting rebounds to the walls much more than in the past. His glove has become a bit of an asset. He's also seeming to read the play faster to take away the net.
I could see why you would extend him - but I'm with you. Just need to see it more to fully buy in.
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1 hour ago, Doohickie said:
I hope Kevyn has learned from the Ullmark situation:
- Don't let a good goalie get away.
- Looking at Boston: Just because you have a good goalie doesn't mean you shouldn't have another good goalie.
Yup - Swayman and Ullmark are a really nice tandem. Able to keep both rested and ready, and let the chips fall how they may. You tend to want to ride one goalie in the playoffs, but having two options is nice. I hope Buffalo is able to get some level of consistency with UPL and Levi in the next year.
Ovechkin pursuit of Gretzky career goal record
in The Aud Club
Posted
Right - if you aren't going to compete for a cup... at least ovechkin gives you somewhat of a reason to go.