Who's better, Levi or UPL?

[#freejame]

7 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

 

 

No hockey professional should be using familiar names on any broadcast. Be a professional and say his name. These guys deserve it. 

[Scottysabres]

I don't believe we'll have an answer as to which goalie is actually better for 4 or 5 years yet imo.

Which performs better in crunch time end of season gunning for a playoff spot clutch situations? Which performs better with an 82 game season consistency? Which is more stable in an actual playoff run and more questions I am sure.

[Brawndo]

Over the past 3 years at the NCAA and AHL level, Devon Levi has given up 192 goals on 3,082 shots faced 

In 30 NHL starts he has surrendered 12 fewer goals than expected
 

Source NTrider825 on Twitter

 

This was before last night’s game 

[erickompositör72]

I think that if UPL's "last half of the season" (uh-oh, now Tage flashbacks) is who UPL is for the foreseeable future, we will be lucky if Levi reaches that level. I think he can.

 

I am a big fan of the idea of Levi starting for Rochester, and getting called up for games whenever UPL needs a night off.

Edited May 5 by erickompositör72

[Flashsabre]

Who is better: UPL

who will be better: I think Levi

Do I care: No, if they are both good then the Sabres are in great shape

[PASabreFan]

Lindy has three words for the summer.

[dudacek]

8 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Lindy has three words for the summer.

What’s the 3rd? No, goal, ?

[LGR4GM]

16 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Lindy has three words for the summer.

B*****s love cannons?

Edited May 5 by LGR4GM

[GASabresIUFAN]

Levi's saved 101 shots of 106 against the last two games for the Amerks.  UPL was more consistent last season and mostly played well.  Levi was up and down, but he seems to have found his groove again in the playoffs for the Amerks. 

Levi may use the confidence earned this playoffs to take his game to another level in the NHL next season and become the No. 1 goalie.  

The great news is maybe just maybe the team will have competent goaltending for 82 games next season and wouldn't that be a nice change.  

[bob_sauve28]

 

[Doohickie]

7 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Levi's saved 101 shots of 106 against the last two games for the Amerks.  UPL was more consistent last season and mostly played well.  Levi was up and down, but he seems to have found his groove again in the playoffs for the Amerks. 

Levi may use the confidence earned this playoffs to take his game to another level in the NHL next season and become the No. 1 goalie.  

The great news is maybe just maybe the team will have competent goaltending for 82 games next season and wouldn't that be a nice change.  

That's an oddly optimistic take from you.

I'm not sure if it will happen this season, but I'm hopeful that UPL/Levi become a tandem like Swayman/Ullmark.

[PASabreFan]

You pee, Elle.

[Thorny]

4 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

You pee, Elle.

[GASabresIUFAN]

13 hours ago, Doohickie said:

That's an oddly optimistic take from you.

I'm not sure if it will happen this season, but I'm hopeful that UPL/Levi become a tandem like Swayman/Ullmark.

UPL/Levi is happening next season ready or not.  Adams is committed to his prospect or bust strategy in goal and has not learned a thing from his mistakes and failures so far.  The good news is UPL finally stepped up and it looks like Levi has his confidence back.  This bodes well for next year.   

This prospect or bust strategy in goal has cost us two playoff appearances the last two seasons.  It wasn’t the sole reason for the failures, but a primary one.

So even if the UPL/Levi works next season, bringing back the D group as currently constructed and all the current and rfa forwards is a mistake.  We must change the culture in Buffalo.  We must improve the PP.  We must find some playmakers.  We must become more physical.  Ruff is a good first step.  Ruff will want to roll 4 quality lines.  The Sabres have 7 (8 if you include Skinner) quality forwards and a desperate need for talented centers.  

Edited May 6 by GASabresIUFAN

[Claude Balls]

Both goalies need regular starts to become their best. You can't flip flop guys. UPL got much better with a regular starting rotation the back end of last year. Levi has also benefitted immensely with getting regular starts in Rochester. This is something I think Adams is totally clueless about. Hopefully Lindy has a huge say in how they approach the situation next year. UPL should be named #1 for the Sabres and Levi #1 for the Amerks. Only bring Devon up in emergency situations. 

[RochesterExpat]

On 5/6/2024 at 10:35 PM, Claude Balls said:

Both goalies need regular starts to become their best. You can't flip flop guys. UPL got much better with a regular starting rotation the back end of last year. Levi has also benefitted immensely with getting regular starts in Rochester. This is something I think Adams is totally clueless about. Hopefully Lindy has a huge say in how they approach the situation next year. UPL should be named #1 for the Sabres and Levi #1 for the Amerks. Only bring Devon up in emergency situations. 

So who is backing up UPL in Buffalo and will that backup get more wins than Levi would?

[PerreaultForever]

The simple fact imo is UPL is big, so that allows him to get away with some positioning errors or slow reactions. He covers a lot of net so opposition players will shoot wide or just into him. Levi is relatively small, so he has to be faster and more agile. He is, but there are still gaps and openings. Neither is perfect, neither is fully formed, both could be good. 

I think rolling with those 2 as your only goalies is a huge gamble that might work, but could also fail miserably and cost us another season. 

A better plan would be to have a veteran goalie who was good on the roster and then Levi could fight to take the job rather than getting anointed. 

[Taro T]

Who is better?  Right now, when his head is on straight UPL is better than Levi is.  On nights when UPL is in his own head, Levi is better particularly when they've given Levi a chance to reacclimate to being in the NHL.  (Still have no idea why they thought putting Levi in the pressbox the 1st night of the Western swing was a better idea than having him sit on the bench the night before putting him between the pipes the next night unless it was for UPL's benefit and not Levi's.  And it doesn't make sense that they'd think UPL at that point would be phased by having his actual competition down the road as his backup that night.)

Who will be better?  Prior to this season would've absolutely said Levi.  His reasonably plausible ceiling is Saros.  Right now would say it's a toss up because UPL for the 1st time since he was a junior that hadn't had his hips surgically modified showed a plausible possibility that he could top out as a Vasilevsky.  Back on opening night last season flat out did not see that as a potential outcome because he had NOT flashed that in a really long time.  (Not the full package at any rate though he had flashed improvements at times.)  He was horrible in the preseason this year, regressing back to playing small and also giving up 5 holes; 2 things he'd seemingly cured himself of the previous season.  But even last year when he was on his game in January and again this year prior to Levi getting recalled from Ra-cha-cha he was showing a Ray Emery-esque level; not a true top end elite netminder.  He built himself back to a point where he could stop head on shots and he could even get 1/2 way across the crease quickly.  But he was still toast when he had to go post to post and he was still Lehner when a player would deke and then go to a post on a breakawy.  

But after Levi came back up, UPL FINALLY moved fully across the crease quickly and under control and started making saves he had not been able to make at the NHL level.  Ottomh, can't recall a single point last year or earlier that he was consistently doing that.  And he started finding himself up amongst the league leaders in the stats people actually look at for goalies.

Can he repeat that moving forward?  He SHOULD be able to do so.  IF he does, would probably even give him the nod for having the higher ceiling (a big goalie that can move is necessarily a smidge better than a smaller goalie that can move; unless that smaller goalie happens to be named Hasek).  But UPL still has one thing he needs to prove he can do at the NHL level before we can reliably state that yes, he's going to be a really good one.  And that one item is: can he get out of his own head when he has competition for the #1 spot?  He had several poor outings down the stretch and they tended to correlate highly with Levi being around and playing well.  They also correlated highly with being absolute must win games because the poor start to the year led to the Sabres being in must win territory well before the absolute end of the season.  If either of those were the causation of the poor play, that would be very worrisome.  There's a lot of reasons why they very well might not be the reason for the poor play, but if they were, this still young man still has to reach a higher maturity level.  And would go back to the belief that Levi will be the better goalie.

Personally, am expecting the Sabres to run with just UPL and Levi as legit NHL goalies this coming season, but would really like to see Adams bring in a true quality NHLer to compete with the 2 and let the 2 best be the ones that start the year in Buffalo.  (No more friggin' 3 or 4 headed goalie monsters please.)  For '25-'26 am perfectly fine with only have UPL and Levi around as Devon will be definitely ready for primetime, but this year is too important to put it on the shoulders of 2 kids.

Regardless of who they run with this year, am expecting that under Lindy Ruff we'll get an answer to the question of whether UPL has the mental toughness to approach his ceiling.  Am convinced Levi will get at least close to his.  And, would be perfectly fine with UPL and Levi being the Sabres version of Ullmark Swayman.  Just don't want to absolutely 100% need that to happen this coming season.