2022 NHL Draft Rankings

[Buffalonill]

7 minutes ago, spndnchz said:

I’d be careful about using the word “us”

Noted 

[Curt]

3 hours ago, Buffalonill said:

These are all question marks all of them could be wingers .

Tage is ok for a 3rd line center 

 

 

Any C you draft would also be a question mark.  Prospects are question marks.

We have several C question marks, yes, that’s true.

When it comes to young RHD, we don’t even have question marks, we have Jokiharju and nothing else.

[Digger]

32 minutes ago, WildCard said:

That proves the point though. A hockey team is only as good as the sum of its parts. You need good players everywhere, a generational player somewhere specifically is nice but far from necessary and even further from being guaranteed as a contender. 

Yes agreed.  Hockey needs more than just a couple of great players to have sustainable success.  The Oilers are a great example with Draisaitl and McDavid in the top 3 scoring race but the team not being balanced with adequate defense and goal-tending.

In hindsight we did better with Hasek as our star goalie and an average team.

[woods-racer]

32 minutes ago, Digger said:

Yes agreed.  Hockey needs more than just a couple of great players to have sustainable success.  The Oilers are a great example with Draisaitl and McDavid in the top 3 scoring race but the team not being balanced with adequate defense and goal-tending.

In hindsight we did better with Hasek as our star goalie and an average team.

An above average team. Without Hasek they would just make the playoff's. 

[Sabres Fan in NS]

10 hours ago, woods-racer said:

An above average team. Without Hasek they would just make the playoff's. 

I think he may have been referring to the early Hasek years where the team was talented, but I would say not above average.  Without Hasek I doubt they make the playoffs.  I'm not counting 1993 when Hasek didn't play much, if I recal correctly, until the playoff and only while Fuhr was hurt.

In 1994, 1995 and 1996 they were pretty terrible.  In 1997 they were not very talented and very hard working and Hasek was really at the top of his game. 1998 and 1999 speak for themselves.  I agree with you those teams were above average by a lot and would have made the playoff without Hasek.  I don't think they make the ECF and SCF in 1998 and 1999 without Hasek.

[LGR4GM]

Anyways back to drafting...

Marco Kasper is a player I enjoy watching. I think there's a 2nd line center there. 

[French Collection]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

Anyways back to drafting...

Marco Kasper is a player I enjoy watching. I think there's a 2nd line center there. 

Yeah, this guy has caught my attention too. There is not a lot of hype about him, just that he is good at many things.

He has left home at a young age to move to a foreign country to pursue his dream. He hasn’t been called up to the SHL but I suspect an import rule may prevent this from happening.

The Sabres will have 2 late first round picks and this guy would add centre depth. Let him develop and he could blossom into the next Jochen Hecht.

The Sabres had success with the last Austrian they drafted.

[DarthEbriate]

20 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Depends on where they draft and what is available in that 5-8 range. 

^This.

It's always best available player (based on your GM/scouting) and this season the Sabres will in all likelihood draft 1st, 2nd, or 5th-8th. (Unless a goalie goes supernova for them in the second half.) And there's a really, really good chance the highest-rated player available when they pick will be one of the top-rated defencemen who happens to shoot right. And it just so happens that's a position of need in the pipeline. It's the perfect storm.

18 hours ago, Buffalonill said:

You aren't going to win games with out a number 1 center .

Two of them. But you don't need to draft them exclusively in the top 10 to find a 1st line center. You just need them to play like a 1st line center by the time they're done developing and when the playoffs roll around.

From the Sabres' perspective, they need one of Cozens, Mitts, Krebs, Thompson to develop into a 10-year/800GP inarguable top-six center (preferably all with Buffalo). And then in this draft or 2023 or 2024 they need another center of that quality. And there are 8 picks (currently) in the first two rounds the next two drafts. They'll pick some centers. Then, the fun is in finding out what happens.

[Taro T]

3 hours ago, The Ghost of Doohickie said:

I think he may have been referring to the early Hasek years where the team was talented, but I would say not above average.  Without Hasek I doubt they make the playoffs.  I'm not counting 1993 when Hasek didn't play much, if I recal correctly, until the playoff and only while Fuhr was hurt.

In 1994, 1995 and 1996 they were pretty terrible.  In 1997 they were not very talented and very hard working and Hasek was really at the top of his game. 1998 and 1999 speak for themselves.  I agree with you those teams were above average by a lot and would have made the playoff without Hasek.  I don't think they make the ECF and SCF in 1998 and 1999 without Hasek.

The problem in '94 was injuries.  They were so thin at C due to injuries that they wouldn't let Derek Plante go to the Olympics.  That was also Hasek's NHL coming out party.

The '95 team wasn't terrible but it was seriously overly expensive for the results it garnered & EVERYONE with any value except LaFontaine & Hasek was traded away for prospects & picks which led to a really talent deficient team the next year which was the origin of the "hardest working team in hockey" moniker.  That was the only truly goonish Sabres team ever & people loved them even though they lost A LOT.

[Buffalonill]

1 hour ago, DarthEbriate said:

^This.

It's always best available player (based on your GM/scouting) and this season the Sabres will in all likelihood draft 1st, 2nd, or 5th-8th. (Unless a goalie goes supernova for them in the second half.) And there's a really, really good chance the highest-rated player available when they pick will be one of the top-rated defencemen who happens to shoot right. And it just so happens that's a position of need in the pipeline. It's the perfect storm.

Two of them. But you don't need to draft them exclusively in the top 10 to find a 1st line center. You just need them to play like a 1st line center by the time they're done developing and when the playoffs roll around.

From the Sabres' perspective, they need one of Cozens, Mitts, Krebs, Thompson to develop into a 10-year/800GP inarguable top-six center (preferably all with Buffalo). And then in this draft or 2023 or 2024 they need another center of that quality. And there are 8 picks (currently) in the first two rounds the next two drafts. They'll pick some centers. Then, the fun is in finding out what happens.

 Have we had a player in the organization that played that much in 20 years ? Maybe roy is the  Closest i cant remember 

[LGR4GM]

This is what happens when you draft based on toughness

 

[Buffalonill]

16 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

This is what happens when you draft based on toughness

 

He played good before he got injured with the 67's hes going to be a fun person to watch and make people look stupid in in a couple  years 

[LGR4GM]

6 minutes ago, Buffalonill said:

He played good before he got injured with the 67's hes going to be a fun person to watch and make people look stupid in in a couple  years 

He was overdrafted and is a mid 6 forward at best

[Thorny]

I don’t need to argue we need to draft centres more than RHD to argue we definitely need to draft centres. It doesn’t need to be with our first pick, it just needs to happen. We’ve already gone 2 straight drafts without taking any, making that 3 straight creates a system imbalance.

Yes, I know we have “the 4 guys”, but that doesn’t come close to guaranteeing we put together 2 strong top 6 Cs from that group, never mind the group amounting to a level worthy of a playoff run. It’s 4 nice pieces but you keep adding: they are NHLers now, there simply aren’t *any* Cs in the prospect system after those players. The C system looks reasonable up top but it’s very very shallow. 

Its not about adding a C who definitely projects better than those 4 (though Wright would), it’s about adding another, younger, C to the system of a similar pedigree to the folks we have, thereby again increasing the odds satisfactory candidates emerge from the group 

[Thorny]

I’d argue our NHL centre corps looks reasonable for where we are at in the rebuild - that it’s the system that needs supplementation. Future reinforcements to aid the current unit if/when it comes up short. I’d argue we need to find a way to acquire *vet* NHL RHD more urgently than prospects - due to where we are in the rebuild, again.

D-men take longer to come along and reach their prime. I’m thinking our young forwards are going to be a little bit ahead - my gut says if all goes to plan they’ll be ready for that next step before any drafted RHD would be ready to help.

We should still draft RHD, but we can’t afford to wait for those guys to come along anyways. Considering our left side D is also littered with young studs, filling the right with competent vets seems to me to be the Goldilocks zone.

They should pick BPA here in the first, but with 3 picks, we should be able to manipulate the board to come away with at least one C and one RHD within the higher picks.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Thorny

[LGR4GM]

There's a lot of rhd available 

[Thorny]

How do (RHD) Kukkonen, Laaksonen, and Lyckasen look?

Are there likely NHL futures there at all for any of them? Or are they more in line with our prospect system Cs in being long shots (Costantini, Konecny, Kozak, Malone, Pekar, Ruotsalainen, Von Barnekow Lofberg..)

[LGR4GM]

15 minutes ago, Thorny said:

How do (RHD) Kukkonen, Laaksonen, and Lyckasen look?

Are there likely NHL futures there at all for any of them? Or are they more in line with our prospect system Cs in being long shots (Costantini, Konecny, Kozak, Malone, Pekar, Ruotsalainen, Von Barnekow Lofberg..)

Idk, only have seen Laaksonen 

[DarthEbriate]

6 hours ago, Buffalonill said:

 Have we had a player in the organization that played that much in 20 years ? Maybe roy is the  Closest i cant remember 

The 800gp is where I go back to my parenthetical preferably all with Buffalo. It rarely happens, but it's the goal to get that great cornerstone player (or two together). The obvious problem is: the players need to be good, they need to stay healthy, and they need to overlap during their prime years.

The Sabres had no chance to get a player to 800 games played this century because the decision to tank jettisoned the '06-'07 core. Pominville easily broke 800 gp, but only 733 with the Sabres and only that many because he came back after his stint in Minnesota.  (And a good chunk of players are in the 600-800 career gp range who probably all easily pass the threshold if the NHL doesn't cancel an entire season and also have a half-season lockout in the middle of their careers.) Coincidentally...Roy only got to 738 gp career and would've had more if not for the lockouts. Only 549 with the Sabres.

However, the Sabres have had plenty of skaters come through since '06-'07 who fit the "bona fide top-six during their prime" & "800 gp" criteria. The issue is the Sabres have yet to successfully build around those players and consistently rebuild with a new GM looking for his guys.

Edited February 6, 2022 by DarthEbriate

[Thorny]

18 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

The 800gp is where I go back to my parenthetical preferably all with Buffalo. It rarely happens, but it's the goal to get that great cornerstone player (or two together). The obvious problem is: the players need to be good, they need to stay healthy, and they need to overlap during their prime years.

The Sabres had no chance to get a player to 800 games played this century because the decision to tank jettisoned the '06-'07 core. Pominville easily broke 800 gp, but only 733 with the Sabres and only that many because he came back after his stint in Minnesota.  (And a good chunk of players are in the 600-800 career gp range who probably all easily pass the threshold if the NHL doesn't cancel an entire season and also have a half-season lockout in the middle of their careers.) Coincidentally...Roy only got to 738 gp career and would've had more if not for the lockouts. Only 549 with the Sabres.

However, the Sabres have had plenty of skaters come through since '06-'07 who fit the "bona fide top-six during their prime" & "800 gp" criteria. The issue is the Sabres have yet to successfully build around those players and consistently rebuild with a new GM looking for his guys.

Reinhart comes back, like Pominville 

[LGR4GM]

Owen Beck and Danny Zhlikin are 2 later centers with upside. Really hard to gage ohl guys who lost a full year. 

[LGR4GM]

 

[LGR4GM]

I mean come on

 

[kas23]

Geez, I had to watch that a few times and still don’t know exactly how he did that. 

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, kas23 said:

Geez, I had to watch that a few times and still don’t know exactly how he did that. 

Magic