RochesterExpat

How did that go in...?

Kisakov with the nice forecheck.

Did anyone catch which Sabre chased down the icing to get it called off 2 minutes ago? Was that Rosen? Whoever it was has some serious wheels.

Well I cursed his shutout clearly.

This is a big game for Suchanek. I think he's going to be the one to watch as far as contract potentials are concerned. I think if he plays well he gets a contract.

I have video now. It just launched.

I don't think Dunleavy is bad at his job at all. I think the problem is following in the footsteps of RJ coupled with trying to sell a terrible product for too long. I guess you could argue that not being able to sell a dumpster fire makes him bad at the job, but I don't know how you maintain enthusiasm over an 82 game season (plus his off-ice work) for a team that's just not fun to watch. I am very hopeful he has his own breakout season this year 🙂 Caught in a landslide...

I respect that. I certainly think they'll be more competitive than any of the pre-season rankings have them. I'm not sold that they'll make the playoffs because there are a lot of unknowns going into this season and I generally err on the side of caution. I do have faith in Adams/Granato though. I should have phrased it with "people won't be rioting in the streets if Buffalo doesn't make the playoffs this season" as opposed to saying no one believes they won't. I don't expect Buffalo to be mathematically eliminated from contention with 11 games still remaining on the schedule like last year. I think if that happens again people will be justifiably upset, but I can't imagine even those among us who believe Buffalo will make the playoffs are going to be burning jerseys if the Sabres are still playing meaningful games at the start of April. I think most of us have a pretty healthy perspective on where the team is at.

100% People are excited and they should be. We have organically grown (free-range, grass-fed) talent with roster players that want to be here. We aren’t trying to cobble a roster together around players who lost their love for the game or who clearly don’t want to play for the organization. We aren’t trying to force a roster to work with near-sighted coaches and managers who are more worried about their jobs than building a future. We aren’t making bad trades or forcing players down awful development paths anymore. No one expects Buffalo to make the playoffs, but we expect the team to be fun to watch and that’s enough for most of us. For a lot of the past decade the team wasn’t fun to watch. Part of that was the team itself wasn’t having fun and it showed. The rebirth of Jeff Skinner started when he smiled last year. His iconic ear-to-ear smile that was literally gone from his face for a year+ returned. When I saw that I started to believe. We have Savoie, Bloom, Kulich, Rosen, Cederqvist, Kozak and Kisakov playing in this prospect challenge as signed prospects. That’s not counting our signed prospects who couldn’t make it: Östlund and Nadeau. Or our AHL players: Weissbach, Pekar, Rousek or Laaksonen. Or the graduates of Power, Quinn and Peterka and any of our 20+ unsigned prospects. We have our first and three seconds in the next draft. That is an absolutely insane amount of talent. We aren’t dependent on one player to pan out anymore. If/when this team is ready to push for a playoff position, we have the capital to make trades for missing pieces. For the first time in a long time it’s a good spot for Buffalo to be.

Kulich deserved the ENG after this game.

Yikes. Not a good momentum shift.

Kisakov is playing completely differently from last night. Definitely more promising.

I'm leaning toward it as well. I think it's the right decision if he continues this at camp. Something to think about, but he's going to turn 20 this season. He will ELC slide a year in Rochester this season whereas next he won't. I'm sure Buffalo is aware of that.

Was that Holtz or Nemec with the cannon of a shot?

Cederqvist showing some strength so far. That goal as well as the earlier drive to the net. Good stuff to see.

Hell of a hustle from Kulich. That was a super smart hockey play by... whoever Ritchie is.

More like having nothing better to do at SeaTac made me question the 1OA pick because he made mistakes I just don't expect a 1OA pick to make in a meaningless scrimmage.

Sorry, it started with "something seemed weird to me about his play yesterday" evolving to "I wonder if I can answer this by looking at old games" only to find it repeating itself. So then I started reading scouting reports. Those were all placing him between 7 and 25th if they were written pre-Olympics. Even more interesting, a lot of writers had him falling from pre-season rankings (especially analytics-based ones) until his selection for the Olympics. That led me to see what I could find from his Olympic performance which was just disappointing. That led to me just being confused and then trying to formulate it into a post. I have no doubt that he'll be a future power forward and he'll play for years in the NHL because he has the size, speed and hands. I just don't see him long-term as the justifiable 1OA pick. I have zero problem being wrong with this because I have no skin in the game. Like I said, I am not a Montreal fan, but I'm not biased against Montreal either. It's not like he was drafted by Toronto. I also recognize that all draft picks are gambles and projecting them is incredibly difficult. I find it funny the biggest justification for Slavkovsky's draft position is his size and physical maturity, but he's going to be coached by Martin St Louis--a player who was undrafted and ignored for years because of his size. Granted it was a different era, but there is something fitting about it. This is absolutely true and I didn't want to judge Slafkovsky off one game. Hence this weird deep dive I went on which, frankly, was made possible by traveling for work this week and being incredibly bored courtesy of airlines being reliably unreliable. Wish I could say they dominated. Rosen was invisible for the first half of the game, or when he was visible you wished he wasn't--but then started to have an impact including the nice blocked shot at the end. Take that for what you will. Kisakov had a few good plays, but had a few misplays as well. He played with Savoie and Weissbach and wasn't on the level of either of them, frankly. Savoie looked like the real deal as far as his passing and skating goes. His play with Weissbach made Weissbach look solid. But he didn't dominate the ice.

I'm going to put this in this thread I guess as opposed to the GDT, but Slafkovsky's play yesterday bothered me. He is talented and it showed by his ability to dominate the ice, but he dominated in a way that I don't think translates to NHL hockey and I don't believe he has the "awareness" of an NHL-ready player. At least not in the manner of a 1OA pick. This was essentially a juniors game where he was likely the strongest person on the ice and that's the only reason he stood out--at least positively. When he got stood up on his net drive because he was skating with his head down (as noted by everyone--even the commentary) it really stood out to me and thus sparked this random deep dive. To be clear, I never paid attention to him pre-draft, so I went and watched a bunch of highlights video of him as well as every shift from whole games and, frankly, he skates with his head down all the time when he has the puck and is using any kind of edge. Seriously, just go watch any of his play. It's crazy. It's near suicidal in the NHL. This is a sample "highlight"... this is not a good play to translate to the NHL, I'm sorry: Watch the rest of the video if you want and tell me that's 1OA material. This was last night as we all remember: It's the same concept. Head down and going to the middle. I guess in Finnish Juniors you can get away with it though. And, yes, the Montreal media and fans are bragging about Slafkovsky being a "solid" (and therefore invincible player), but if this is how you play hockey, you are not going to last long in the league. Ask Eric Lindros. Here is a quote from a Montreal's SB Nation on the play above, "Of course, cutting into the middle of the ice in that manner isn’t always the best idea, but it made for a heck of a highlight the way his would-be checker bounced right off him. He’s incredibly strong on his feet, and as his awareness improves, that should continue to be a major asset for him." Let me rephrase that, "Ok that was a stupid play but look at what a cool highlight it made as he stood up a hit against a bubble ECHL/AHL player. Big man strong." Don't believe me? Even JFresh called it out but the response he got was, well, spicy. He also just makes plays that don't translate whatsoever to the NHL. In fact, in that video, he's not even close to the best player on the ice. He spends half the time just watching the puck. It's almost like lazy hockey(?)--I don't know the word. Hell, Montreal's media is pushing these as "highlights" from yesterday. That's an unnecessary offensive zone turnover by an impatient player. Also, he puts his head down twice when using his edges and then sets himself up for an easy finishing hit by a real NHL defenseman. Is there a real highlight? Sure. Is that really a highlight of Slafkovsky or just a "wtf is Buffalo doing here?" Also, I'd argue it's more of a highlight of Mesar for pinching in perfectly on the open lane. Mesar was underrated in this game. But that's a different story. I went and read scouting reports on Slafkovsky as well. I could pretty much summarize them all as "won MVP at the Olympics. Is a big, strong player with silky smooth hands and a great shot. Skating is okay/good/average/improving (seriously there is no consensus on this one). Decision making needs work." Why is the last item listed last in every scouting report? Is this just an example of drafting on size and strength? If so, that's terrible. Even his Olympic performance doesn't look that impressive to me after watching videos. 2 of his 7 goals were just examples of terrible goaltending (1st goal against Finland the goalie just left the puck in front of him, 2nd goal against Finland was possibly screened but the goalie was horribly positioned and Slafkovsky had other, better plays than throwing the puck on the net). Which goes back to... these Olympic rosters were not that strong. Look up the scoring leaders. Look up the goalies. It's also worth noting that he had zero assists in seven outings. Of his four other goals? Two came in the Bronze medal game. One was an inaccurate saucer pass that deflected off a defenseman's stick and into the net by sheer luck. The other was an empty net goal. One goal against Sweden during the 4-1 group loss was a bouncing puck he honestly took a lucky swing at and was the result of lazy Swedish play--probably due to having a 4-0 lead with under 2 minutes left. His goal against Team USA was a properly good goal. I'd argue the goal against Latvia was elite because he came off the bench and intercepted the puck, went to the net, and scored, but it's not a play that would work in the NHL where players play defense and goalies can read shots from the top of the circles. It was also dangerously close to too many men (as in, I had to go frame-by-frame to see if it was a missed call or not). Two of seven goals were solid. He had tons of ice time. He had 24 shots, most of which weren't very smart shots, but he had a shooting percentage of 30% because of luck. He had zero assists. Granted, he had one assist in three games during the Olympic qualifier. In a 5-1 win against Poland. Of course he had zero goals so his one assist was his only point in three outings, but that's the same stat line as Zemgus Girgensons during the OGQ, so that's good for him. Slafkovsky had six shots in those three games. Two in each game (weirdly all in the first periods). I realize he is 18 and on the younger side, but if I were a Montreal fan I'd be really concerned about his selection. Do I think he will play in the NHL? Sure. After all, Nail Yakupov still played 350 games. Am I saying he is going to be a "bust?" Unlikely. Will he live up to be 1OA? I would wager money that's a no. In fact, I'd go so far as to say in 4 years, if there is a 2022 re-draft, he is outside of the top 10. Size only gets you so far. So can someone tell me why he was the 1OA pick? Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Kozak is going to be interesting to follow. He played like a man on fire with something to prove and had a lot of patience/control/intelligence (not sure the descriptor, but it was evident some prospects were rushing things in an attempt to impress). Savoie is fast as hell.

It's early enough I could start the smoker. You might be on to something.

So what am I supposed to do for the next 9 1/2 hours...? Work?

Listen, I'm sure she'll understand that we don't need the "college fund" for the kid after this one pays out.

Not sure what you’re asking, but different bookies will have different lines updated at different intervals. If you are wondering if your betting line will change after you made it, a bet is a bet. Even if the line shifts to 100, your original bet at 77.5 is the bet you made.

The 14 year old in me is upset that we're not playing Boston. I'd like to see us face off against the tandem of Bussi and Dyck. Who knows? Maybe Dyck is the real deal and can some day write his autobiography on his NHL career: "The Chronicles of Reid Dyck." Alright, I'll show myself out. Thanks everyone.