Jorcus

I think you have to factor Peterka and Quinn contract upgrades in all of this.

If you are talking goal production it should not be too hard to replace Casey Mittelstadt. He only scored 18 goals this season. He does a lot of things well but producing goals very often has not been one of them. Tied for 148th place in the NHL with 80 games played. This has been his best year ever.

There were a number of issues for the slow start but to my eye Thompson was not right from the get go. It was more than his slow start issues. What I saw was that he was not skating very well. I wondered if this all went back to the back injury he took later in the year before. He seemed slow and stiff. For some reason he was overhandling the puck and giving it up often. I never heard a reporter ask why he was playing on the first PK unit. Then he gets his hand broke blocking a shot on the PK. Tuch was also having issues in the first part of the season and the Sabres schedule was a bit front end loaded. By December Tuch looked like he needed some time off. By the last third of the season those two players started coming around. Thompson was skating better, not great but better, Tuch found his rhythm. and they started to play a bit better. Not well enough but not as bad. You have to think KO was aware this was never going to go well in NOV/DEC without those two guys in top form. The Sabres waived the white flag on the playoffs when they traded KO. Not that he was that important but with no NHL return it was a give away. The Casey trade was more impactful in the short run against the Sabres but at least least there was a return for better or worse. There were a number of issues for the slow start but to my eye Thompson was not right from the get go. It was more than his slow start issues. What I saw was that he was not skating very well. I wondered if this all went back to the back injury he took later in the year before. He seemed slow and stiff. For some reason he was overhandling the puck and giving it up often. I never heard a reporter ask why he was playing on the first PK unit. Then he gets his hand broke blocking a shot on the PK. Tuch was also having issues in the first part of the season and the Sabres schedule was a bit front end loaded. By December Tuch looked like he needed some time off. By the last third of the season those two players started coming around. Thompson was skating better, not great but better, Tuch found his rhythm. and they started to play a bit better. Not well enough but not as bad. You have to think KO was aware this was never going to go well in NOV/DEC without those two guys in top form. The Sabres waived the white flag on the playoffs when they traded KO. Not that he was that important but with no NHL return it was a give away. The Casey trade was more impactful in the short run against the Sabres but at least least there was a return for better or worse.

Canucks are a unique team. Shots on goal for the playoffs shots goals 18 /4 19 /3 24 /5 29 /1 20 /1 21 /4 12 /2 18 /1 21 /1

The Amerks lost to a team with younger players on the ice and less high level draft picks. They lost because Syracuse played a better positional team game. They intercepted pass after pass clogged the blue line and gave the Amerks few high danger chances. Often during the series there were 2 or 3 Amerks in the places where one should be. They had trouble clearing the D zone. A lot of that was on the forwards who never seemed to have an exit structure. On the night you needed Levi the most he was not the better goalie. It's not to say that there are not solid players on this team that are going to be good NHL Players. I like most of them but the talent did not come through. It was very disappointing. The young guys schooled in this series.

I could blame the Sabres for a lot of things but moving on From Even Rodrigues is not one of them. He is a hard tryer but never has been a high output scorer. His best season was in Pittsburgh were he scored 43 points in 82 games. That did enough to get him a decent contract with Florida. He is just a cog in the Panther line up. I don't think we would have wanted to wait the 7 or 8 NHL seasons for him to get to where he is today. There are a lot of guys like him. To me he is an older Peyton Krebs.

They don't seem to call charging like they used to. Ducking a check on the wall (if it was a duck) is bad form but anything to stop the Truba's goon moves are welcome.

If there was an NHL reshuffle draft and I was allowed to take any player in the NHL MacKinnon is number one without a doubt. After so much time off the ice I don't think Landeskog could be effective even if he did get back.

The first paragraph is a myth. The Amerks in general are about the same as any other AHL team age wise. They have a few very young players because they are high draft picks but they had more older players on the ice than Syracuse did last night. If you include Levi Amerks had 7 players who were born after 2000. Syracuse had 9. We also had 3 very old AHL players on the ice (born in 1994 or before) in Prow, Jobst, and Mersch where Syracuse had 1 in Walcott. Syracuse has almost no Grade A prospects because Tampa has been good and they have traded many first round picks away. At the end of the day it was our older players that won the game last night. They started to skate and jamb the net. Biro, Rousek and Murray were the ones who pulled this game out for Amerks.

Seth Appert keeps telling us that Syracuse is is an older team with more experience, Is it true? Not according to Elite prospects. Average age Amerks 24.45, Syracuse 24.15 NHL games played Amerks 417 Syracuse 436 AHL games played Amerks 4591, Syracuse 4537 It's true at the moment we are playing young forwards and 1 young D man. But we can not go on with the idea that Syracuse is some old grizzled AHL roster.

This is almost exactly the way I am seeing it. The Amerks can not seem to to put a line together that the Crunch can not handle. I was hoping to see someone on the Ice that is hard for them to stop. Rosen has flashed at times during the games. Like you said not a constant threat. As much as Östlund looks like he is going to be something at the moment he is not really helping that much, because he has not played with the other Amerks enough. By the end of double overtime Wahlburg looked like he was cooked. Bad ice double OT in AHL playoffs will open the eye's of any young newcomer. I know Kulich is better than what he is showing. He gets a lot of attention from the Crunch. Once in awhile he gets his shot off even under duress. No matter what unless the forwards play better in the D zone they are done. Levi can only do so much. The forwards can not get puck position, they make weak passes to exit when they do. The stick work to stop passes is poor. No one is aggressive on the puck. This is mostly a 5 on 5 problem the PK seems ok but they are playing the older guys on that.

Not only did Levi play well he got run. The one on the power play should have been called against the Crunch.

Plus they got away with a trip right after that one.

I don't know what will happen but I keep thinking that 1 or 2 Amerks have to come up to start the season. For all the talk of player development Benson skipped the line. He played well but I just wonder about the messaging to the other players who are working on the game in Rochester. I am thinking if you are not going to to bring Kulich or Rosen up you have to trade them. There is going to be a bottleneck of NHL talent in Rochester that you can't bring up because there are no spots. 100 Games in the AHL for first round picks should be enough to decide what you are going to do. If you jump these two again then they have to go. My guess is they are not going to get into another Benson situation with Savoie. As much as Benson played well for his age he did not produce that well for his position on the team. That is not his fault or a knock on him, it was hoisted on him because Quinn was not available and they did not address that issue with a better NHL player. I am thinking they will bring Kulich up to replace VO on a third or fourth line.

Does his super power enable him to figure out my insurance plan?

That may be true and too be fair to Appert he does not have the stability of a line up that an NHL team has. Young players in and out of the line up are not going to look the same as a team that has pretty much the same core of players year after year. You can see a lot of positioning errors in the Amerks and probably every other team in the AHL that plays a lot of young skaters.

Watching Rochester in the D zone vs Buffalo in the D zone is like night and day. Buffalo moves the puck smartly behind the net and the forwards will attack the the man with the puck. Rochester plays a very passive defense that closes into a tight box and waves sticks at players. The only reason Rochester is where they are right now is Levi, and the best D man they have is Nikita Novikov. What steal the Sabres got by drafting him in the 6th round. The expectation was he wanted to stay in Russia but when war breaks out plans change. Lindy is going to take him over Johnson because we have a lot of players like Johnson but we don't have big shut down D men like Nikita.

The Leafs have had the same problem for years. They can never seem to get a defensive core together. They have 1 good D man in Reilly, 1 decent 1 in McCabe and beyond that they are wasteland. The forwards can't play the way they want to because they have to cover up for the D. Lyubushkin played over 17 min in a playoff game for them last night. Did he ever pay 17 min a game for us? Maybe, but night after night against the Bruins just wasn't going to work. In goals against in the East we were 5th this year only behind Florida, Carolina, Boston, and the Rangers. Considering how bad our D was the third of the year it really is an amazing turnaround and gives hope that there are better things ahead. So like you I do not see the comparison to the Leafs who are forward heavy but D man weak.

JJP's best assets are his skating and endurance. He is better when there is a flow of the game up and down the ice. When placed in a stationary power play those assets are compromised playing catch and hoping to see a hole to shoot. They did try to move more with the second PP unit but it never really clicked with who was playing on it. I would love to see JJ back with Quinn. If that happens his assist rate will go up for certain. I liked the fact he shot the puck any time he had an open chance. He gave up percentage for attempts. I would hope he could convert a few more of his breakaway chances. He sure gets enough of them.

What if he gets an offer sheet of 4.2 Million for 4 years? In return we would only get a second round pick. Would you match? I would have to say yes. There are some desperate teams out there. It might happen.

That type of Hockey. Nashville is a good team loaded with veterans who can play just about anyway they want to. They are doing what they need to to win and I get that. When you get down to only a few chances each way for a period it's way different than watching Florida Tampa. A low scoring game with lots of chances.

Canucks out shoot the Preds 18 to 15 Ugh. I hope there is a few more chances in Nashville.

Lots of goaltender running in that game. Tkachuck throws an elbow on the first goal and gets away with it. Stamkos does a swan dive on Bobrovsky later in the game. I thought there was a rule about avoiding goalie contact? I guess if you are checked the rule is waived and you can do what you want.

I think Olafsson Is not a very fast skater and would have trouble getting back into plays on reverse transition. Have to give him credit for making it to the NHL as 7th rounder. Not many do. He did manage to play better D this year but never could get the overall game going. I hope he lands in a spot that will use him in a better way than we did this year.

Sounds like he eventually got the question with the answer of a banger 4th line to lean on people. I expect the search is on to fill those rolls.