IKnowPhysics

Posession stats were decent in DAL, but he was the most shletered player on the team. Hard to tell how he'd do even in medium-hard or defensive-zone assignments.

Andersen, Dell, UPL, and Tokarski? I'm in. Start cranking. Let's get this ***** started. Straight to the bottom we go.

https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/91243/vinnie-hinostroza 27 year old 5'9" journeyman through CHI, ARI, FLA, and traded back to CHI for Brad Morrison in a minor swap before this year's deadline. 5G 17A 22P in 68GP in '19-20 with ARI. Decent possession and usage. 4G 8A 12P in 17GP with CHI, after 0P in 9GP with FLA. Good corsi rate stats on both sides of the puck. Somewhat high GF/60 and HDCF/60, but unremarkable GA/60- not a shutdown winger. Granato coached him in CHI in 2017-18. Could be one of those "bottom six with offensive upside" players, but just as likely to be unremarkable.

Now it's a little too quiet.

Agreed on all counts. Steady Dman that only got better. Definitely an unsung contributor.

Massive cap room, zero NHL goalies signed, and no one better available?

Getting a lot warmer. Smith: https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/33903/reilly-smith 30 year old LW/RW with 14G 11A 25P in 53GP on a down year (22G 17A 39P on an 82GP pace), but has recorded 0.72PPG over the last four seasons. $5M AAV with one year left on the contract. Player usage and possession stats look good as a good two-way forward, including even WOWY away from top linemates Marchessault and Karlsson. Smith has the best CF/60 among VGK forwards after those two. Krebs: https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/322178/peyton-krebs Krebs is the 2019 17th overall pick C/LW 5'11" that's been lighting up the WHL (13G 30A 43P in 24GP), leading the league in assists and points, and is poised to break into the NHL. His current NHLe is 44P in 82GP. Krebs is VGK's best prospect. Krebs has not yet burned a year of his ELC, which will last three more years until after 2023-24. Hague: https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/253977/nicolas-hague Hague is the 34th overall pick from 2017. 6'6" left-shooting physical two-way defenseman. 5G 12A 17P in 52GP and decent possession stats this season playing sheltered minutes for VGK. ELC expires at the end of the season. Hague had the best CA/60 and xGA/60 among VGK defensemen. 1st round pick Best guess in the 22-28 range. Definitely worthy of consideration.

Usually, yes. The trade partner would need cap space, which could come by: The trade partner having existing cap space. The trade partner returning players' salaries to the Sabres. Sabres retaining some of Eichel's salary. The trade partner having completed a different cap-clearing trade or having a player newly on LTIR. The trade waiting until later in the season, which would pro-rate the cap hit (see also: trade deadline).

That's we've been told to believe. All goalie transactions over the past four years and the next two years were to enable the development, arrival, and inevitable contender-caliber goaltending provided by UPL. Because if he didn't do it, who else was supposed to?

Agreed. Highest market fluidity was pre-draft with immediate top picks available. Once pick ~#8 was taken, the urgency to trade him cooled a little. Now teams are clearing cap in preparation for the UFA market. Eichel's value is high-ish again, as the number of teams with available cap and number of teams looking to dump cap to build around him is higher. Once the UFA period starts, contracts are signed, and cap space becomes diminished, that fluidity will decrease again and the market for Eichel may cool slightly. Once camp is over, most teams have their rosters and cap situations set, so making big trades gets harder. If we wait and get down to one or two teams willing to make the deal, it'll be a situation of we-get-what-we-get. Competition from big-cap-space teams is what we need, and that's what we have right now. Because of this, it's likely ***** or get off the pot. But, as was always the case, we cannot sacrifice quality of return.

It's Evgeny, not Andrei. After playing only 24 NHL games before this season, Evgeny played heavily sheltered minutes in DET where he went 3G-5A-8P in 21GP. His ACL injury in 2018 basically killed his development. His stats indicate he's not a very good on the defensive side of the puck (his HDCA/60 and HDCF% are real bad), which would likely need to be his usage on the Sabre bottom-six.

***** yeah. I love our threads. Simply gorgeous. To the above, I'll add that Devon Levi could be an out-of-left-field franchise-altering piece of the Reinhart trade.

This a thread to get high on. Only earnest positivity. No negativity, no sarcasm, no backhanded compliments. Pour your hearts out about what you're liking or loving about the Sabres. What are you looking forward to? What elements are you hopeful about? What's driving even the smallest amount of hope? ============================================================================================== For me, from the top down: We have awesome and passionate fans. And while the fanbase is centered in a town that's cool as *****, literally anytime I rock Sabres gear out of town, even very far out of town, I run into more awesome Buffalo fans. We're all over. This will never change, and I can't wait for the fanbase to get rabidly crazy again. We have financially stable ownership that has a sincere interest in winning. We didn't have this for a many, many years, and I don't take that for granted. We have a pretty above average arena (certainly not among the league worst) that's going to get some cool renovations in the next decade. Roster-wise, we've been converting our player assets into futures, and these futures are starting to bear fruit. We have some excellent young players already on the roster in Dahlin, Jokiharju, Cozens, Mittelstadt, Bjork, Olofsson, and even Thompson and Asplund are showing promise again. High-grade talent is on our door step. UPL, Ruotsalainen, Power, Quinn, Peterka, Johnson, Laaksonen, Samuelsson, Bryson are all poised to make impacts in the next couple seasons. We're not anywhere close to being in salary cap hell, which will afford us all sorts of interesting opportunity and flexibility. We've apparently got a new scouting and analytics approach that, if the draft is any indication, could be very aggressive in identifying and acquiring talent. Our group of selections, even beyond the consensus 1OA, was very highly rated. Maybe league-best. I look forward to seeing this in action in the UFA period. This is the GM that landed Taylor Hall, and while Hall didn't work out under Krueger, the UFA signing itself was a swing-for-the-fences player management home run. And it's likely that this management group has likely only gotten smarter since then. We've got a new non-interim coach that has already established himself to be much, much better than our previous coach, as demonstrated in both team performance and critical individual player performance. The systems are better. The player usage is better. And now that the staff has a chance to actually hold a training camp and practices, I'm upbeat about the opportunity they now have to make a bigger positive impact. With regard to a Jack trade, Kevyn Adams seems to be doing the right thing: holding and not lowering the price. Jack is our best and most important player asset. He's going to be a great Sabre or, if that's not in the cards, I'm hopeful that he's going be leveraged for an amount of franchise-transforming future potential that is simply staggering. I love watching hockey, I love playing hockey, and I love our team.

Good idea.

Twenty five years of internet. Yeah, I've seen some pretty awful *****. [holds up twitter blasting the trade return for Reinhart] You see this? All this *****? It's not your fault. Look at me, son. It's not your fault. No, no you don't. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

34GP 13G 32A 45P in the Q, leading Shawinigan in assists, points. Good production.

Saginaw Spirit (OHL) 54GP 6G 8A 14P in '19-'20. OHL didn't play '20-'21 due to COVID.

Here's some youtube. Finding good highlights is a little tough. Played through the WJC with a fractured rib. https://www.tsn.ca/team-canada-s-devon-levi-played-through-injury-at-world-junior-championship-1.1580584

Played with Prokhor Poltapov on Krasnaya Armiya Moskva. 50GP 9G 21A 30P, 5th on the team in points. Committed to UNH next year.

Tripling down on MHL players. Bonkers.

*****.

Yep. Imagine firing most of the scouting staff, sending who's left to the WJC, and then going all-in on the tournament standouts.