Robviously

Sabres could add her to the roster and I'm not sure we'd notice the difference.

Plus Girgensons was 2 years younger during this first season in the AHL, and he made the jump straight from the USHL (not the top pro league in Finland). Armia's underwhelming North American debut is disconcerting.

Your views are intriguing to me and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Great play and a great win for Rochester. They came back from down 3-0.

I wouldn't even do it to manipulate draft position. The Amerks have won 10 of their last 13 and are back on track for the playoffs now. Let them stay down there and learn how to win before we bring them back to the NHL to get their butts kicked again. Manipulating draft position is just a bonus.

I think Reinhart is the guy for us if we draft no.1. If we draft 2nd and he's gone, I'm not sure what we do. Everyone gushes about Ekblad but we are dying for first line forwards. Do we pass to take Bennett? Take Ekblad and try to trade Risto or Zadarov for a young forward? Try to trade down a couple spots to take Dal Colle or Draisaitl? And then all of this depends on if we have the Islanders pick this year. I'd be thrilled with Ekblad at no.2 overall if I knew we were getting Dal Colle or Draisaitl at no.5. It gets complicated fast.

Possibly. Murray could easily justify shipping him out too this Summer based on his record this year. I'd like to give him a shot as the no.1 just to satisfy my curiosity. If he's a total disaster, next year is pretty much the perfect time to have a disastrous season anyway. And if he's good, that would be fun to watch too after seeing him struggle for a couple years. We're both grumpy as f### though.

Just to blow everyone's mind if you've been following this thread, I like "Concept of Big Goalie" too. Like I was really hoping we hit the jackpot with Connor Knapp. Lieuwen and Hackett too. I was talking about the Sabres trading for Magnus Hellberg from Nashville last year (I guess they still could since he's not having a spectacular year in the AHL this year). But then when I'm watching the games and I never really think about how big the goalies are. I notice rebounds, reflexes, lateral movements, positioning, vision -- basically everything else.

I really like "re-drafts" when you imagine how a draft would have gone a year after it actually took place. If you re-rank the guys we drafted last June: I have Zadarov, Risto, Compher, Baptiste, then Possler or Hurley, and then Bailey or Peterson. For 2012, it's Girgensons, McCabe, and then Grigorenko. And it'll probably scramble around even more in 12 more months. Draft order and prospect rankings pretty much de-couple immediately after the draft is over.

Thank you for this. Spectacular.

Russia was up 2-0, but T.J. Oshie won it with a last second field goal. That's how I remember it anyway. It was pretty early and I was pretty tired.

The HockeysFuture ratings aren't all that helpful. Check out what they have for Buffalo: Ruhwedel has a higher ceiling than Girgensons? And apparently so does Catenacci? Huh? I know coming up with talent ceilings and "probabilities of success" for 18 year olds is basically a fool's errand, but you're going to have to completely reassess each prospect every year from the time they're drafted. I kinda feel like HF just picks "safe" rankings for everyone and doesn't update them all that much.

Are you kidding? The lack of Sabres games to talk about is going to increase the dysfunction by a factor of 10.

The Buffalo News wisely put a poster-size picture of Zemgus scoring his goal against Sweden in the paper today. Brian Duff ‏@duffersabres 24m My kids are loving the poster size photo of @zemgus94 first Olympic goal in @TheBuffaloNews #Sabres #keeper pic.twitter.com/uBsG5NMzQ1 Spectacular uniforms in this photo. Even Nike couldn't ruin these.

Yes, if the ***only thing*** you know about a goalie is his height, I'm sorry to say you have basically nothing to evaluate. It's not that important compared to everything else. Especially with 5'10" since it isn't that far outside the norm. Hasek and Thomas are 5'11". I keep bringing up "if he was 2" taller" because if he's 6' I'm pretty sure no one would be making the "he's too short to play in the NHL" comments. It's 2 inches, but if his height started with a "6", he'd be past the magical cutoff. As for "what if he was 6'2"?", who knows? The Sabres already have some tall guys toiling away in the minors. The argument was that 5'10" is too short, so that's what I'm addressing. I've also said (roughly 800 times) that his height is a hindrance (even bolded it above since you apparently forgot or didn't read that far) and that ideally he'd be taller. That is not incompatible with saying he could be OK at the height he is because I think other traits are much more important.

If you need to misread what I'm saying to make a point, knock yourself out. You're going into politics, right? It's not irrelevant, but it's a MUCH smaller factor than a bunch of other factors. If you only knew one thing about a goalie and it was his height, would you know anything? Nope. He's 5'10". That's short for an NHL goalie, so that's all anyone talks about. Great. Now look at a ruler and consider what 2 inches actually looks like in real life. If, from the bottom of his foot to the top of his head, we stretched Enroth by 2 inches, is he a significantly different goalie? I doubt it. His stature is a hindrance but it will ultimately come down to everything else.

No, I'm not. I'm saying that it's a MUCH less important factor than several other factors that will ultimately decide how he does in the NHL and that fixating only on height is silly. If the only thing I know about a goalie is his height, then I basically don't know anything.

No, seriously, this IS my point. You ARE making it for me. Please stop. We already know goalies roughly his size can be successful in the NHL, sometimes wildly successful. His height is not the deciding factor, but it is literally the ONLY factor that some posters want to talk about. If he's good, his height won't be a big deal. If he's not good, it won't matter if he's a foot taller. Height is more important for skaters than it is for goalies because of (a) reach and (b) it gives you a bigger frame to pack muscle onto. The latter is more important. I would want every skater on my team to be heavier and stronger for the one on one puck battles in the corner before I wanted both goalies to be slightly taller to take up more room in the net.

Thanks for coming back to accidentally make the point that I'm making. Muggsy Bogues is proof that you can still succeed without prototypical size. There are countless examples of this. The Bills passed on the QB that just won the Super Bowl because they thought he was too short. That's the problem with letting one trait dominate all your thinking. Enroth is 1-2 inches shorter than Hasek and Tim Thomas. Is that ideal? Nope. But from a practical standpoint, is that what's going to make or break him? Not even close. Of all the positions in hockey, goaltending is the one where being 1-2 inches shorter or taller makes the least difference. But he's 1 inch shorter than the guys who won Stanley Cups, Vezina Trophies, and Hart Trophies. Let's make ALL the analysis about that. Because that's smart.

I'd make everyone on the Sabres 4 inches taller if I could, but I don't think it's going to have a significant effect on Enroth's play. Plenty of tall goalies get drafted and amount to absolutely nothing. Of all the positions in hockey, goalie is probably the one where I'd put the least emphasis on size. Vision, reflexes, rebounds, positioning, poise -- we're only fixated on height because it's the easiest thing to point to. Tim Thomas is also 5'11". He's had a pretty solid career. Good Lord. The argument is not "Enroth is another Hasek." The argument is that if he's good, his height won't hold him back because he's not much different in height than one of the best of all-time.

If none of Enroth's traits are in Hasek's universe, then *that* is why he won't succeed. The notion that his height immediately disqualifies him is completely ridiculous.

Yes, I really want to make the argument that his height isn't the problem. Saying he can't do it because he's an inch or two shorter than some of the best of all-time is lazy. I don't think magically making Enroth 3 inches taller overnight would make him an NHL stud. If he's not going to make it, it'll be because of rebounds, positioning, shooters knowing his tendencies, his confidence, etc. It *won't* be because of his height.

Way to miss the point. If Hasek was the best ever at 5'11", then you can't say Enroth's height is a major issue if he's 5'10".

Hasek was arguably the greatest goalie of all-time and was 5'11" tall. Jhonas Enroth can never be a good NHL goalie because he's 5'10". #Logic

Draisaitl was playing against his peers but the rest of the German team wasn't. He was the best player on an outmatched German team and still put up 6 points in 6 games. It's tough to criticize a guy for that. What would he have done if he'd been on Team USA? His stock is probably falling but I really don't think it should be. If he's the guy we end up drafting, he's still our best draft prospect since Vanek.