Jorcus
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Posts posted by Jorcus
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1 hour ago, JoeSchmoe said:
I'll summarize what I said in the posts I made above.
1- Trade picks and prospects to get a guy who can replace Mittelstadt's production.
2- Stay out of the bargain bin, and spend the necessary $$$$ to pick up legitimate NHL players to replace Girgensons, Robertson, Jost, KO, & VO.
If they do both of these, they will get more goals next season.
Adams said he's in win now mode. Let's see if he puts his money where his mouth is.
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.
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2 hours ago, thewookie1 said:
Begs to question who is the culprit or culprits.
I doubt its Cozens or Thompson for as much as their seasons started rocky; Cozens was over playing the puck and Thompson always starts a bit slow but got injured when he started to get grooving.
Dahlin isn't the issue because he's shown a million times that he's willing to block shots, throw and receive hits, etc.
Its very unusual as a whole; perhaps the pressure of the drought is getting to them and when the injuries started they just lost their oomph
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.
2 hours ago, thewookie1 said:Begs to question who is the culprit or culprits.
I doubt its Cozens or Thompson for as much as their seasons started rocky; Cozens was over playing the puck and Thompson always starts a bit slow but got injured when he started to get grooving.
Dahlin isn't the issue because he's shown a million times that he's willing to block shots, throw and receive hits, etc.
Its very unusual as a whole; perhaps the pressure of the drought is getting to them and when the injuries started they just lost their oomph
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.
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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
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2 hours ago, Pimlach said:
I must assume you are embellishing this.
The Rochester club has some potential NHL talent in Levi, Novikov, R Johnson, Rosen, Kulich, Östlund, and Walhberg - and more are coming with Savoie.
They didn't win in the playoffs, maybe because their opponent had more and better AHL lifers. I am ok with that. It is easier to fix that problem than it is to find that many good prospects - even if many are "the same" - we had to trade ROR (R Johnson), Eichel (Östlund), Reinhart (Levi and Kulich), and Risto (Rosen) to get these guys. Plus we lost Montour and Linus.
Look at the caliber of players that left here. We need to hit on a few of these kids, and rushing them is not the best way.
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.
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11 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
Remember when the Sabres decided they had no use for E-Rod?
Remember when they decided Montour was garbage and had to go?
Wonderful management we've had over the years and when you watch these guys filling their roles in solid fashion on other teams you have to come to realize it's never been the players (as a whole), it's always been the coaching. This is why Ruff excites me and gives me a little hope. No, he's not the best coach but he's a real NHL coach. We haven't actually had a real experienced NHL coach since.......well, since Ruff. (I don't count Nolan V2 cause that was a screw job tank and no coach could deal with that).
Looks like Bruins will be out in 5.
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.
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2 minutes ago, inkman said:
Just pure comedy
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.
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1 hour ago, French Collection said:
4 straight goals after falling behind 3-0.
I am pulling for them, not because of Mitts, MacKinnon is my favourite non Sabres player. The way he gallops around like a fire hydrant on skates just gets me out of my seat.
Nichushkin is a beast. He has become what his draft potential claimed he could be.
It’s been quiet on the Landeskog front, there was a chance he could come back. Drouin would help a bit too.
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.
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6 hours ago, thewookie1 said:
Quite honestly the Amerks are an oddity in the AHL since they are very much akin to what the AHL is supposed to be, a developmental league. A lot of youngsters (19 to 26) with NHL aspirations and a few vets to shepherd them along. During the regular season it works for the most part because player are constantly getting sent down/called up and thus keeps teams developing primarily.
The AHL playoffs are a different animal altogether. Whereas the NHL becomes less likely to make calls than usual but still generally resembles normal NHL play. The AHL playoffs turn into a no holds bar cage match and the Amerks aren’t exactly equipped to dominate a competition where skills mean less than how good you might be at playing dirty. This series has been much like the Bears series last year. A team of career AHLers and tweeners with a couple youngsters versus Rochester’s team of youngsters led by a few career AHLers and tweeners. As such they get bullied year round but whereas in the regular season they can use their speed and skill as well as PP to fight back; the playoffs practically let teams wrestle which is both absurd and unfair to the Amerks and multiple similar teams. A fast player can’t skate away if the opposing player can trip him without penalty. It’s why teams like the Hershey Bears are always near the top of the league; half of them are lifers that know this is their Stanley Cup and the other half are either being called up or developed for a future call up. When their NHL teams are eliminated, suddenly their teams play max experience allowed and while typically less refined in skill have a lot of pent up anger at the youngsters on the opposing side. Add to that refs that pretend to be blind and you get the Amerks struggles because they are more rule abiding and meant for the NHL versus pure AHL success.
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.
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10 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:
Some AHL teams play few prospects and fill rosters with older players who are good and strong but are not going to the NHL other than in a fill-in role. That is what Hershey is. Syracuse is sort of like that too. Rochester is committed to development so it's a young roster with new players getting added in midseason. So try to take that into account while you watch your highlights.
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.
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11 hours ago, dudacek said:
Some impressions of those prospects after the 3 games:
Rousek is the probably the best forward on the Amerks right now, but doesn’t look fast or strong enough to play the same game in the NHL.
Kulich is MIA. He just hasn’t done anything noticeable.
I want to like Rosen. His feet and his hands are the most noticeable on the team and he’s not timid or irresponsible. But it’s maddening how infrequently he applies his will on the game, he’s got more to give, but he’s content to let it come to him.
Östlund’s lack of strength means he has faded as the clutching and grabbing has escalated. But he sees the game better and plays it faster than anyone else down there. Based just on these 3 games, he projects the best of the big 3, when you account for his lack of AHL experience.
Anton Wahlberg doesn’t know how good he can be yet. His effectiveness wavers because he’s 18 and it shows. But he is a physical specimen who can skate and he wants to make a difference.
When the going got tougher Ryan Johnson seemed to play better. He’s ability to move the puck to safety shone, rather than wilted under the heavy fire.
Novikov has got some heavy feet, but his attitude is every inch what the Sabres lack. He sees the game very well and pushes first.
Levi has simply been fantastic. Technically poised, cool under fire and athletic. Easily the best player on the ice for either team.
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.
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Not only did Levi play well he got run. The one on the power play should have been called against the Crunch.
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Just now, K-9 said:
How many stupid penalties by the Amerks? That last one by Weissbach was as dumb as they come.
Plus they got away with a trip right after that one.
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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.
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3 hours ago, Doohickie said:
A little local flavor from Dallas. Bally Sports is still televising the games in this market, with local commercials. This one is by a health care chain and depicts Jake Oettinger as a superhero:
Does his super power enable him to figure out my insurance plan?
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12 hours ago, dudacek said:
I’m pretty sure Granato and Appert were on record as playing the same system.
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.
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2 hours ago, pi2000 said:
He looked better in Buffalo than he does in Rochester.
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.
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2 hours ago, Archie Lee said:
I have issues with our roster construction, but strongly disagree we are headed in the Leafs direction (setting aside the obvious, which is that we should be so lucky as to have a team that has been as good as the Leafs the past 5-6 years). We are built from the back end out. Our young D and goalies are, potentially, dramatically better than anything the Leafs have had during this stretch. Also, I think many of our top players (Dahlin, Byram, Cozens, Thompson, Tuch, Benson) do have more jam/grit in them than Toronto’s big 4. Our guys just haven’t been provided with the down the line-up toughness that allows the higher in the line-up guys to be a-holes and get away with it.
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.
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50 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:
JJP had a good year. He went from 12g and 20a to 28g and 22a at the ripe old age of 22. He was durable playing all 82 games this season, the only Sabre to do so followed closely by Dahlin with 81gp.
Lets take a look at his GF%, xGF%, HDCF%, and xGF/60 (goals for %, expected goals for %, high danger corsi for %, and expected goals per 60mins of toi)
At 5v5: 57.01gf% (2nd), 51.46xGF% (2nd), 48.84hdcf% (3rd), and 2.75xGF/60 (2nd). JJP was one of the best forwards on the team this past season and outside of Quinn having a higher xGF/60 the other players above him are gone (Mitts and Okposo). While ever Sabre needs to better at hdcf% and should be under Ruff, JJP took advantage of his opportunities and we see that reflected in his 28goals this season.
PP stats: 68.75GF% (8th), 81.63xGF% (8th), 75.76HDCF% (8th), and 5.1xGF/60 (8th). Once again we find one of our better producers just turning into muck on the pp. There is so much evidence the pp is just total ***** and should be burned and never spoken of again that the fact they did nothing all year to address it is... something. Why did this happen to JJP and Benson? Hard to say but it could be that the 2nd pp unit was just nowhere near as good as Tuch, Thompson, Cozens, Skinner and Okposo all come out looking better. I think for me it says that like Benson there is more scoring to unlock here and we should be able to next season.
Final thought on the numbers is that once the line of JJP - Tage - Tuch was put in place they managed 156min toi and in that time managed a 72.22GF% while only having an xGF of 43.95. Interestingly that xGF goes over 50% when it is JJP with just Tage and when it is JJP with just Tuch in the limited minutes those players were paired together. I think there could be a case that the xGF% is low because they used their really good shooting skills more than relying on HD chances which would have pumped up the xGF more. It is a time when talent is beating out chances and to be honest, that might continue. JJP only shot at 12.4% so he isn't some crazy sniper with an unsustainable number (Reinhart shot 24.5% on a career avg of 13.6% for example, buyer beware).
Peterka had about as good of a second season under the circumstances as we could have hoped for. He was solid defensively while being quite good offensively to the point he replaced Jeff Skinner. I think there is still more though and getting more pucks to HD areas will help some of the imbalance we see between actual and expected goals. Yes good shooters will outperform their xGF regularly but in JJP case, I want to see the uptick in assists I think he can generate. Still it appears as though JJP himself can get to the good shooting areas and convert. I hope it continues and I hope he continues to improve. He added 18 more points this past season, 16 of those goals, so there is a good chance that with more scoring and a better system his assists totals rocket up as well. I don't think looking at him as a 25g, 35a guy is too crazy. What a great 2nd round pick he is and what a great move up to get him (traded 38 and 100 to get up to 34).
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.
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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.
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1 hour ago, PerreaultForever said:
"ugh" as in you don't like that type of hockey or "ugh" as in you think Canucks were bad?
You don't think Nashville played good defensive hockey?
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.
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5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
Nashville played a really really good playoff game tonight. Lauzon was the guy Seattle got from Boston and then traded him away for a 2nd rounder I think because they liked Borgen better (?) In any event I'm thinking both teams have regrets on the guy. We should have traded a 2nd rounder for him and added a sweetener if needed. Guy is a hit machine and exactly what we could have used.
Games in Nashville should be crazy.
Canucks out shoot the Preds 18 to 15 Ugh. I hope there is a few more chances in Nashville.
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9 hours ago, GoPuckYourself said:
How is that not goaltender interference? Tkachuk fell on top of Vasilefsky's back.
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.
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34 minutes ago, triumph_communes said:
Lindy is about coaching to players strengths and finding their own role. Not shoving square pegs into round holes. He said as much himself today and his history in Buffalo coaching has plenty of examples
Skinner usually had issues playing into a system. He has a chance
Oloffson is exactly the type of player that Ruff would get the most out of. Not saying we need him, but he wouldn’t be so invisible like he has been lately. Just because they cheat into him on the PP doesn’t mean everything should fall apart.
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.
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41 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:
I'm kinda waiting for a question about team toughness, nothing yet.
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.
UFAs Sabres may want to sign
in The Aud Club
Posted
I think you have to factor Peterka and Quinn contract upgrades in all of this.