Devon Levi Signed to 3 year deal

[JohnC]

2 minutes ago, rickshaw said:

Take this information however you wish but I ran into an nhl scout the other day who I hadn’t seen in awhile. He used to razz me about the Sabres all the time. 
I hadn’t seen him in quite sometime, in fact he’d started working for another team in that time. 

So we had a beer and got talking shop. Anyway I mentioned how it finally looks like the Sabres are coming and said I was excited about them signing Levi. He agreed the Sabres are looking like a good team going forward but He quickly said, don’t get your hopes up on Levi. We didn’t get into it (the ladies were tired of hockey talk) but I found that to be an interesting comment. 
 

Time will tell.

None of us knows for sure how he will develop or the timeframe it will take for him to be ready for NHL play. There is no guarantee on prospects except for a rare elite prospect. What your scout friend is probably warning you is to not expect him to be an immediate savior. If the GM believes that that Comrie, UPL and Levi are the goalies next year who will battle to earn playing time, he is taking a major gamble. I'm excited about having Levi in our system and eventually being our #1 goalie. An experienced and quality goalie needs to be brought in to buy time for Levi to be ready and help us win next year. 

[Curt]

18 minutes ago, rickshaw said:

Take this information however you wish but I ran into an nhl scout the other day who I hadn’t seen in awhile. He used to razz me about the Sabres all the time. 
I hadn’t seen him in quite sometime, in fact he’d started working for another team in that time. 

So we had a beer and got talking shop. Anyway I mentioned how it finally looks like the Sabres are coming and said I was excited about them signing Levi. He agreed the Sabres are looking like a good team going forward but He quickly said, don’t get your hopes up on Levi. We didn’t get into it (the ladies were tired of hockey talk) but I found that to be an interesting comment. 
 

Time will tell.

Yeah, that’s wise advice.  Goalies are fickle and goalie prospects are even more so.

[dudacek]

28 minutes ago, rickshaw said:

Take this information however you wish but I ran into an nhl scout the other day who I hadn’t seen in awhile. He used to razz me about the Sabres all the time. 
I hadn’t seen him in quite sometime, in fact he’d started working for another team in that time. 

So we had a beer and got talking shop. Anyway I mentioned how it finally looks like the Sabres are coming and said I was excited about them signing Levi. He agreed the Sabres are looking like a good team going forward but He quickly said, don’t get your hopes up on Levi. We didn’t get into it (the ladies were tired of hockey talk) but I found that to be an interesting comment. 
 

Time will tell.

I've brought this up before: the industry as a whole is far less high on Levi than Sabres fans (and presumably Kevyn Adams) are.

They recognize his athleticism and attention to detail, but he just doesn't tick the goalie boxes, particularly his size and the path he has taken.

Many are skeptical his success will translate to the highest levels.

[Taro T]

48 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I've brought this up before: the industry as a whole is far less high on Levi than Sabres fans (and presumably Kevyn Adams) are.

They recognize his athleticism and attention to detail, but he just doesn't tick the goalie boxes, particularly his size and the path he has taken.

Many are skeptical his success will translate to the highest levels.

And Dominik Hasek was left exposed in the expansion draft by the Sabres.  "Great" hockey minds oftentimes have no more clue about goalies that aren't prototypical than we have at understanding why that truly innocuous comment has our wives ready to kill us.

[dudacek]

3 minutes ago, Taro T said:

And Dominik Hasek was left exposed in the expansion draft by the Sabres.  "Great" hockey minds oftentimes have no more clue about goalies that aren't prototypical than we have at understanding why that truly innocuous comment has our wives ready to kill us.

I've been clear for months on my position: he is the best prospect in the organization and will be a worthy successor to Miller.

The only question is when.

[Taro T]

Just now, dudacek said:

I've been clear for months on my position: he is the best prospect in the organization and will be a worthy successor to Miller.

The only question is when.

Agreed.

He has "it."

[MBD]

16 minutes ago, Taro T said:

And Dominik Hasek was left exposed in the expansion draft by the Sabres.  "Great" hockey minds oftentimes have no more clue about goalies that aren't prototypical than we have at understanding why that truly innocuous comment has our wives ready to kill us.

Even women don't understand women.  We men have no chance.

[K-9]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

I've brought this up before: the industry as a whole is far less high on Levi than Sabres fans (and presumably Kevyn Adams) are.

They recognize his athleticism and attention to detail, but he just doesn't tick the goalie boxes, particularly his size and the path he has taken.

Many are skeptical his success will translate to the highest levels.

Regarding the path he’s taken, other than his junior years spent against subpar competition as compared to other prospects, what’s there to question? Went from the most outstanding goalie in the U20 tourney to one of the best college goalies in one of the best college conferences. Many goalies have played superior competition at the junior level and didn’t have the success he did at the collegiate level. I just don’t think his path is indicative of anything other than his sheer determination to prove the doubters wrong.

[Buffalonill]

2 hours ago, rickshaw said:

Take this information however you wish but I ran into an nhl scout the other day who I hadn’t seen in awhile. He used to razz me about the Sabres all the time. 
I hadn’t seen him in quite sometime, in fact he’d started working for another team in that time. 

So we had a beer and got talking shop. Anyway I mentioned how it finally looks like the Sabres are coming and said I was excited about them signing Levi. He agreed the Sabres are looking like a good team going forward but He quickly said, don’t get your hopes up on Levi. We didn’t get into it (the ladies were tired of hockey talk) but I found that to be an interesting comment. 
 

Time will tell.

Hes buffalos only hope so he has to be successful or the Sabres are pretty much ***** 

[Randall Flagg]

17 minutes ago, Buffalonill said:

Hes buffalos only hope so he has to be successful or the Sabres are pretty much ***** 

This is silly. If Levi flops just find another goalie 

[sabremike]

3 hours ago, dudacek said:

I've brought this up before: the industry as a whole is far less high on Levi than Sabres fans (and presumably Kevyn Adams) are.

They recognize his athleticism and attention to detail, but he just doesn't tick the goalie boxes, particularly his size and the path he has taken.

Many are skeptical his success will translate to the highest levels.

The only people worse at their jobs than NHL scouts are NHL executives. The number of awful personel decisions in hockey has to be many multiples of any other sport, everything is built on backwards regressive dinosaur thinking.

[thewookie1]

2 hours ago, Taro T said:

Agreed.

He has "it."

Yes, unsure what exactly “it” truly is but he seems to have this aura of confidence that doesn’t turn into ego. He knows he’s good but also knows he can be even better.

[PASabreFan]

2 hours ago, Taro T said:

And Dominik Hasek was left exposed in the expansion draft by the Sabres.  "Great" hockey minds oftentimes have no more clue about goalies that aren't prototypical than we have at understanding why that truly innocuous comment has our wives ready to kill us.

I told a 98 year old woman tonight that bc she didn't eat her broccoli for dinner, she would not grow to be old. I can't quite the describe the charcoal briquets her normally delighted eyes turned into.

So, yeah.

 

[dudacek]

2 hours ago, K-9 said:

Regarding the path he’s taken, other than his junior years spent against subpar competition as compared to other prospects, what’s there to question? Went from the most outstanding goalie in the U20 tourney to one of the best college goalies in one of the best college conferences. Many goalies have played superior competition at the junior level and didn’t have the success he did at the collegiate level. I just don’t think his path is indicative of anything other than his sheer determination to prove the doubters wrong.

I think most scouts identify their guys at 15 and chart their progress until they are draft eligible.

Guys who appear on the radar late - like a Jack Quinn - at least are playing in one the prime draft feeder leagues, where they can be measured against their peers.

In Levi’s pre-draft year, he was playing midget hockey, not junior A, or even junior B. The amount of 17-year-olds playing Midget who go on to make the NHL is very, very small, period. Add to that the fact he had a pedestrian season that year and he was on no one’s list.

His draft year, he was outstanding, but in a junior league that is to the CHL what the ECHL is to the NHL. The only reason he was even drafted at all was because Roberto Luongo had a relationship with him and pounded the table for Florida to take him with their final pick.

His post-draft year he played 7 games. He was brilliant in those games, but he was playing for a stacked Team Canada team with a history of not developing goalies. He entered camp as their #4. It was pretty easy for some to dismiss him as someone who got hot.

So when he tore up college at 20, it was the first time a lot of scouts really started to see him as someone they should be paying attention to.

And they’ve seen small goalies excel at that level before.

(To be clear, I don’t buy into any of the above at all, I agree with you. I’m just explaining what I meant by his path working against him, in terms of industry perception. There’s a smaller body of work and a lot of misperceptions to overcome.)

[Buffalonill]

9 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

This is silly. If Levi flops just find another goalie 

 We've been looking since Miller .

  It takes a lot of time to develop a  Goalie and patience

 He needs to be"it"

Edited March 29, 2023 by Buffalonill

[Night Train]

 I'll watch and observe his ability and progress. I saw him in person twice at prospects camp and he stood out. 

 

 Listening to the present day dart throwers means nothing to me. Chirp away. 

[MBD]

It's easier to say "don't get your hopes up" because he doesn't fit the mold/narrative that everyone is going with than taking a risk and predicting success.

[DarthEbriate]

9 hours ago, sabremike said:

The only people worse at their jobs than NHL scouts are NHL executives. The number of awful personel decisions in hockey has to be many multiples of any other sport, everything is built on backwards regressive dinosaur thinking.

At least in terms of the draft, it's the age-old discussion of drafting kids scattered across the world in different-style leagues at age 18 vs. what the NFL does which is essentially one self-contained feeder program and drafting a few players at 20 or 21 but mostly at 22-23 with 3 years of "minor league" play under them in NFL-style systems and coaching (with maybe a few draftees each season from overseas football or Australian Rules football for punters, or the 1 guy every few years who is a monster and was playing rugby.) If the NFL drafted 18 year-olds out of high schools they would need 20-round drafts to make up for the mess and attrition.

[French Collection]

Saros is smaller than Levi.

If he keeps developing while keeping his confidence, he can do it.

[Zamboni]

I don’t think Levi is small at all. it’s not like he’s Nathan Gerbe or Tyler Ennis in net.

[Randall Flagg]

4 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

I don’t think Levi is small at all. it’s not like he’s Nathan Gerbe or Tyler Ennis in net.

I mean, in absolute terms sure. I don't have the cutrent data but I just looked at an article which tracked all the starting goalies during a year the Sabres had Hutton (2018?), and Levi would be the shortest starting goalie in the NHL that year. So it is correct to say that he is like a Tyler Ennis for his position, bottom end of the bell curve. 

[Zamboni]

12 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I mean, in absolute terms sure. I don't have the cutrent data but I just looked at an article which tracked all the starting goalies during a year the Sabres had Hutton (2018?), and Levi would be the shortest starting goalie in the NHL that year. So it is correct to say that he is like a Tyler Ennis for his position, bottom end of the bell curve. 

Compared to other starting goaltenders in the NHL… OK he is “shorter“. But as far as a short player in general… No I don’t think he is. At all. I guess I view the word short for an NHL player as under 5’ 10” or so. Maybe it’s just me.

[PASabreFan]

How tall is Comrie? At the worst of my pickup hockey career (2016-2016) I could have scored over his shoulder coming down the right wing the other night.

[Randall Flagg]

20 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

Compared to other starting goaltenders in the NHL… OK he is “shorter“. But as far as a short player in general… No I don’t think he is. At all. I guess I view the word short for an NHL player as under 5’ 10” or so. Maybe it’s just me.

The goalie to skater distinction is INCREDIBLY relevant to the discussion.  If you are the shortest goalie in the league, but league average compared to forwards, calling you "league average height" is either pointless or misleading if your goal is having a discussion or conveying information 

For the bold, we are just talking,  you don't need to constantly add this stuff

 

[Zamboni]

1 minute ago, Randall Flagg said:

The goalie to skater distinction is INCREDIBLY relevant to the discussion.  If you are the shortest goalie in the league, but league average compared to forwards, calling you "league average height" is either pointless or misleading if your goal is having a discussion or conveying information 

For the bold, we are just talking,  you don't need to constantly add this stuff

 

No I feel I need to add it. A lot. But that’s just me 😬