Dahlin - It’s time to take a stand

[LGR4GM]

Dahlin did not play well in his own end yesterday. There were times he looked good but overall he has a lot to clean up. I feel like he isn't aggressive enough in his own end. Offensively he makes some dazzling plays and hopefully those start ending up in the back of the net. He really needs a shutdown defender that lets him roam a bit more and start breakouts. 

[Ducky]

Dahlin is a core player on the Sabres.

If ANYONE takes liberties with him, every Sabre on the ice should be trying to brain him immediately.

 

[Curt]

1 hour ago, Ducky said:

Dahlin is a core player on the Sabres.

If ANYONE takes liberties with him, every Sabre on the ice should be trying to brain him immediately.

 

How do you brain someone?

[drnkirishone]

1 hour ago, Curt said:

How do you brain someone?

mensa test?

[Cal Naughton Jr]

Bulldog is ripping Dahlin on WGR right now. I’m mad because I rarely agree with him and he is spot on with his analysis. He stopped short of labeling him a “bust”, but he has fallen way short of expectations so far. I know there are a lot Dahlin apologists here and there are people who are gonna be mad at me, but he’s not even a good defenseman let alone a generational talent 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Cal Naughton Jr

[LabattBlue]

11 minutes ago, Cal Naughton Jr said:

Bulldog is ripping Dahlin on WGR right now. I’m mad because I rarely agree with him and he is spot on with his analysis. He stopped short of labeling him a “bust”, but he has fallen way short of expectations so far. I know there are a lot Dahlin apologists here and there are people who are gonna be mad at me, but he’s not even a good defenseman let alone a generational talent 

You will get no disagreement for me.  In fact, I was jumping for joy when the Sabres gave him a 3 year bridge deal instead of 8x8 or something similar. If there is not significant improvement by this time next year, I wouldn’t even be bothered if they traded him. I’m not sure at this point if he should be considered a core piece.  

[Cal Naughton Jr]

15 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

You will get no disagreement for me.  In fact, I was jumping for joy when the Sabres gave him a 3 year bridge deal instead of 8x8 or something similar. If there is not significant improvement by this time next year, I wouldn’t even be bothered if they traded him. I’m not sure at this point if he should be considered a core piece.  

You see these flashes of greatness but he’s still making rookie mistakes on a nightly basis. He is definitely tradable in my book. What would we even expect to get for a return at this point?

[LGR4GM]

It does not look good for Dahlin. He was atrocious on the road trip. Like Risto, I wonder if it is a processing thing because it isn't a talent thing. 

[dudacek]

I was defending him last week because I thought his 1st 5 games were excellent.

The past 5? Not so much.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence his performance and the team’s have mirrored each other.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

With Eichel traded, Samson traded and Risto traded this really is Dahlin's team now.

I think this will actually help.  I think he runs with it and becomes the stud we hoped he would be.  If everything works out in 5 years Dahlin will Captain the Sabres far into the playoff, maybe even the final.

Edited November 5, 2021 by The Ghost of Doohickie
more goodly ...

[GASabresIUFAN]

Look who he has been paired with.  He is an excellent talent but he can’t do it alone.  He needs a capable D partner and until Jokiharju returns he won’t have one.  

[Thorny]

12 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I was defending him last week because I thought his 1st 5 games were excellent.

The past 5? Not so much.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence his performance and the team’s have mirrored each other.

We've seen what happens when you surround your few good players with a weak roster

The danger of willingly suffering losses for this season (and next?) was the frustration that we'd allow to build up among the players here right now, who we also intend to build around in the future. Where is Dahlin on the other side of this, when they decide, "ok, now it's time to try and win?"? 

I wasn't a fan of getting Cozens to Rochester before but I think I am now. 

[Weave]

I think we are getting close to Rasmus’ skills being fairly well defined.  He’s more Housley than Lidstrom.  More Coffey than Bourque.

This is what he is.  He’ll need a Samuelsson or Power type to pair with.  You can live and excel with him in that way, but you’ll suffer if you can’t put a smart, positional guy opposite him.

[Thorny]

4 minutes ago, Weave said:

I think we are getting close to Rasmus’ skills being fairly well defined.  He’s more Housley than Lidstrom.  More Coffey than Bourque.

This is what he is.  He’ll need a Samuelsson or Power type to pair with.  You can live and excel with him in that way, but you’ll suffer if you can’t put a smart, positional guy opposite him.

Don't really want Power to have to "cover" for Dahlin, so I'd actually like to see both on separate pairs with a veteran partner. 

Also, I haven't been able to catch the late games, is Dahlin still getting shifts on the right side? That seemed to be helping him 

[dudacek]

12 minutes ago, Thorny said:

We've seen what happens when you surround your few good players with a weak roster

The danger of willingly suffering losses for this season (and next?) was the frustration that we'd allow to build up among the players here right now, who we also intend to build around in the future. Where is Dahlin on the other side of this, when they decide, "ok, now it's time to try and win?"? 

I wasn't a fan of getting Cozens to Rochester before but I think I am now. 

I think this switch has tripped for me too.

Asplund, Bryson, Thompson, Dahlin are ready for what they’re going through this year. I suspect Casey and Henri as well.

It doesn’t look like Dylan is there. Adding him to Rochester gives him a chance to be part of something like the lockout was for the Vanek/Pominville crew.

[CallawaySabres]

From generational talent, best Dman drafted in 30 years to....is he even good? I'm serious, could the scouting by EVERYONE really be this far off? What happened? I am trying to think if there is a core player on this team right now.

[Thorny]

8 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I think this switch has tripped for me too.

Asplund, Bryson, Thompson, Dahlin are ready for what they’re going through this year. I suspect Casey and Henri as well.

It doesn’t look like Dylan is there. Adding him to Rochester gives him a chance to be part of something like the lockout was for the Vanek/Pominville crew.

Yup. It's not surprising, and it doesn't get me down on Dylan, either. 

Right when we saw Dylan was being put in a "top 2 scoring Cs" role from the get go for camp, I mentioned we could only assume Adams was aware of what that can do to a player and that he had adjudged Cozens' light sufficiently blinding to the point he didn't need a "block" on the roster, and would be ok for it. 

Agree with you it's looking like he isn't quite there yet. I'm never going to like the original decision from a team building/icing perspective but it's won't be a big deal at all in terms of the proper development of Cozens if Adams does a 180 here, soon, and makes the correct decision.  

Edited November 5, 2021 by Thorny

[darksabre]

34 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I was defending him last week because I thought his 1st 5 games were excellent.

The past 5? Not so much.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence his performance and the team’s have mirrored each other.

It's really tough to suss out what is Dahlin's fault and what is the fault of the fact that other teams are now taking the Sabres seriously and exploiting the HUGE dearth of talent in the forward ranks in order to press the defense. For as good as guys like Tage, Okposo, Asplund, etc., are playing, they're still not very dangerous.

Losing Mitts and Joker hasn't helped an already depleted roster. This team is just not built to make life very easy on the defense or goalies.

[Mustache of God]

This team needs a good veteran defensemen to come in to mentor Dahlin and another for Power next year as well. These young kids can't come in and do everything themselves, they need support.

[Thorny]

5 minutes ago, darksabre said:

It's really tough to suss out what is Dahlin's fault and what is the fault of the fact that other teams are now taking the Sabres seriously and exploiting the HUGE dearth of talent in the forward ranks in order to press the defense. For as good as guys like Tage, Okposo, Asplund, etc., are playing, they're still not very dangerous.

Losing Mitts and Joker hasn't helped an already depleted roster. This team is just not built to make life very easy on the defense or goalies.

Very salient. 

It's not that Dahlin doesn't have significant flaws in his game, he does, but flawless players are few and far between and a good team is able to, to a large degree, mask the deficiencies of a player like Dahlin by, as you said, playing with the puck more in the end Dahlin excels in. 

We trade players and we see them excel in other environments - a good team gives easier usage to their players as a unit. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by Thorny

[PromoTheRobot]

Rasmus has become a meme overnight with that comical frustration move last night. The kid needs to relax and get his head right.

 

[darksabre]

4 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Very salient. 

It's not that Dahlin doesn't have significant flaws in his game, he does, but flawless players are few and far between and a good team is able to, to a large degree, mask the deficiencies of a player like Dahlin by, as you said, playing with the puck more in the end Dahlin excels in. 

We trade players and we see them excel in other environments - a good team gives easier usage to their players as a unit. 

Right. I'm not going to sit here and defend Dahlin till I'm blue in the face. He's got his issues. But he's good. This isn't a Ristolainen situation as much as the self-congratulating stats nerds on twitter want it to be...

But man, just look at this roster. They weren't expected to have a winning record at any point this season. And the road trip exposed them. They can't get the matchups they desperately need to win on the road and they're getting blown up because of it.

It just...is what it is.

I'll worry a lot more next season if a bunch of these much-anticipated prospects make the jump and improve the forward corps dramatically and Dahlin's game doesn't become more consistent along with it.

[Mustache of God]

9 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Rasmus has become a meme overnight with that comical frustration move last night. The kid needs to relax and get his head right.

 

Shades of angry Jack.

[Weave]

27 minutes ago, Mustache of God said:

This team needs a good veteran defensemen to come in to mentor Dahlin and another for Power next year as well. These young kids can't come in and do everything themselves, they need support.

This is where I take issue with the concept of “not blocking players”.  Kids need mentors.  Defensemen especially need mentors. Rasmus needs a mentor badly.  Power will.  Mule will too.

[Thorny]

22 minutes ago, darksabre said:

Right. I'm not going to sit here and defend Dahlin till I'm blue in the face. He's got his issues. But he's good. This isn't a Ristolainen situation as much as the self-congratulating stats nerds on twitter want it to be...

But man, just look at this roster. They weren't expected to have a winning record at any point this season. And the road trip exposed them. They can't get the matchups they desperately need to win on the road and they're getting blown up because of it.

It just...is what it is.

I'll worry a lot more next season if a bunch of these much-anticipated prospects make the jump and improve the forward corps dramatically and Dahlin's game doesn't become more consistent along with it.

It's getting a little freaking ridiculous, and I definitely consider myself to be a numbers guy. Granato was the "Dahlin whisperer", now he's not, I guess, just randomly? They don't think that MAYBE, maybe, it's not a coincidence that as soon as the guy we'd been playing as our number 1 D for years (when he wasn't at that level) gets moved, and Dahlin is the new face of the D, that his overall game would suffer? I actually think it does resemble Risto somewhat in the sense, it's another guy being played above his head/unsupported - and while I agree that Risto and Dahlin aren't the same player, I do take a different conclusion still when they point to Dahlin as just "another Risto". In team placement, sure, but not that they "both suck" now.

Chad wants to deal Rasmus right now basically. 

Agree on your conclusion at the end too. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by Thorny