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2019 Off Season


sweetlou

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2 hours ago, Thorny said:

Skinner’s 5’11 on hockey DB tho 

Oh, he's definitely a player Botterill approves of. ;)  Just wondering (rather tongue in cheek) whether having to fill an extra LW slot might find us seeing him pick up a guy that's 6' 0.125" because there aren't any worthy 5'10"ers still available.

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6 minutes ago, Formerly Allan in MD said:

I'd rather have a risky hire with an interesting resume than a "safe" hire like Housley and his predecessor were.

Housley was a risky hire, as a first time NHL head coach. 

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36 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

He was generally regarded as the next successful assistant to move up to HC at the time.  Not all that risky.

His only lengthy head coaching experience was high school.  Very risky hire for a young team.

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On 05/15/2019 at 1:02 AM, Doohickie said:

He was generally regarded as the next successful assistant to move up to HC at the time.  Not all that risky.

Actually, it was extremely risky and most all of the arguments in his favor were that the Nashville D loved playing for him.

That a bunch of experienced & talented guys who'd been playing together (for the most part) since we'll before he got there happened to have loved to play for him didn't really mean much when the next job was to actually lead less experienced guys that had to learn to play against the experienced ones.  He'd been successful at HS and in 1 youth tournament.  Rolston had a stronger resume coming in.  How'd that work out?

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35 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

I guess the point is that it's not a science.  People are warming up to Krueger but will be talking about him the same way we talk about every post-Ruff coach in a year or two?  Who knows?

Other then Ruff, the longest consecutive tenure of any Sabres coach is Mucker at 268 games. Bowman coached 240 games in his second stint ( 369 total over 3 periods), and Floyd Smith also made it to 240 (241 total games).  So if Krueger can make it through 3 seasons we could be on to something.

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  • 3 weeks later...

@nfreeman

i’m not sure goaltending is a real major issue.  It is not championship caliber but it wasn’t the main reason we gave up so many goals in the second half.  The defense was the culprit; both the forwards back checking and how our top 6 played each night. Besides a 2nd line center, this is where the team needs the most positive change.  

I have said from the outset that I wasn’t a big fan of the coaching hire.  That said, I’ve liked what he has said so far and if his ability to create strong relationships with players gets them to give maximum effort (no Deadpool jokes) on the ice that Jbot will look like a genius and I’ll be happily wrong.  Krueger is right about one thing, this team needs to be tougher to play against.  We need more guys willing to bang in the corners to get control of pucks.  When Larsson and Girgensons are your most physical forwards your team is lacking in that dept.

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6 hours ago, Marchand'sNose said:

If your off-season plan includes Bogosian or Okposo on the 2019-20 roster, then you need to discard this plan immediately and try again. 

How would you jettison either player? Nobody should be willing to touch Okposo with a ten foot pole. 

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41 minutes ago, #freejame said:

How would you jettison either player? Nobody should be willing to touch Okposo with a ten foot pole. 

Agreed.  I would be extremely surprised if either player was not on the 2019-20 roster.  Honestly, they are both good enough to play on a good NHL team in a bottom 6/3rd pair role.

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Just now, Zamboni said:

Any word on Pominville? I suspect he’s not signing a one year deal with Buffalo. I wonder if he feels he has one year left in him or if he’ll retire...

In Krueger promo clip on the Sabres website they show Krueger meeting him in the weight room.

Didn't look like a guy ready to step away.

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16 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

@nfreeman

i’m not sure goaltending is a real major issue.  It is not championship caliber but it wasn’t the main reason we gave up so many goals in the second half.  The defense was the culprit; both the forwards back checking and how our top 6 played each night. Besides a 2nd line center, this is where the team needs the most positive change.  

I have said from the outset that I wasn’t a big fan of the coaching hire.  That said, I’ve liked what he has said so far and if his ability to create strong relationships with players gets them to give maximum effort (no Deadpool jokes) on the ice that Jbot will look like a genius and I’ll be happily wrong.  Krueger is right about one thing, this team needs to be tougher to play against.  We need more guys willing to bang in the corners to get control of pucks.  When Larsson and Girgensons are your most physical forwards your team is lacking in that dept.

Well, I sure hope you're right, but I thought their goaltending pretty much nose-dived in the 2nd half of last season.  I thought they were getting (probably unsustainable) top-5 goaltending early in the season and by the 2nd half they were getting bottom-10 goaltending.

I agree that the defense also fell apart, and that it's reasonable to think that better D will have help the goaltending, hopefully resulting in a magical Krueger defense-goaltending synergistic feedback loop -- but I really think it needs to start with better play in net.

 

1 hour ago, Zamboni said:

Any word on Pominville? I suspect he’s not signing a one year deal with Buffalo. I wonder if he feels he has one year left in him or if he’ll retire...

I don't see how they can bring him back.  He looked completely out of gas to me as the season wore on.  If the kids aren't ready to provide 2ndary scoring, then I'd rather try to find some speed and potential elsewhere.  We know what Pommer is and the ceiling is pretty low at this point IMHO.

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Botterill on WGR right now saying Olofsson, Nylander, Smith all going to get long looks to start in Buffalo next year.

Also said Asplund might not be quite as close but he’s rising fast and might force his way into the conversation as well.

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7 hours ago, #freejame said:

How would you jettison either player? Nobody should be willing to touch Okposo with a ten foot pole. 

 

By trading for some other team's salary cap albatross in order to give all involved players a new change of scenery. Buying them out or relegating them to the minors may also be alternate emergency options. The point is that both need to go if our dead-man-walking GM ever intends to change the losing culture on this roster. Okposo and Bogosian have been with the team for the past 3 seasons in which the franchise has been underachieving. They represent the veteran leadership of this club and have done a pretty miserable job of "leading." Bogo is still a capable NHL 3rd pair D and Okposo a capable NHL 4th line wing, so both will have some minimal value to another club with a strong leadership core intact...but clearly not to this one any longer. 

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So what comes next?

We got our coach, we kept our sniper. 

We have 2 1st rounders and $20 million in cap space to play with over the next three weeks.

That’s some real ammunition.

How are we going to make our team better?

 

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2 minutes ago, dudacek said:

So what comes next?

We got our coach, we kept our sniper. 

We have 2 1st rounders and $20 million in cap space to play with over the next three weeks.

That’s some real ammunition.

How are we going to make our team better?

 

Can you provide a link or a breakdown yourself of the upcoming cap space? We are now at ~$11m for this off-season, correct?

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