What can Josh Doan become?

[Taro T]

Just now, JP51 said:

About the same height, needs to fill out a bit more... But a Marcus Foligno with a smidge more scoring comes to mind on the top end. 

That's probably realistically his ceiling.  Unfortunately, it'll likely take a couple more years before he becomes whatever he's going to become.

[JP51]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

That's probably realistically his ceiling.  Unfortunately, it'll likely take a couple more years before he becomes whatever he's going to become.

I agree gimmie 15-20 goals 20-25 assist, solid two way guy, hard to play against... drops em when required... you need those guys...  and I agree gonna take some time we can only hope if he is going there that Adams doesnt trade him or lose him somehow... 

[Carmel Corn]

5 minutes ago, JP51 said:

About the same height, needs to fill out a bit more... But a Marcus Foligno with a smidge more scoring comes to mind on the top end. 

 

3 minutes ago, Taro T said:

That's probably realistically his ceiling.  Unfortunately, it'll likely take a couple more years before he becomes whatever he's going to become.

Purely wishful thinking, but how about Marcus Foligno’s dad Mike?  He may have been considered an added player after Dale McCourt, but he was the best part of that historic trade.  Maybe Doan can surprise us with his scoring and leadership???

[ponokasabre]

4 minutes ago, Taro T said:

That's probably realistically his ceiling.  Unfortunately, it'll likely take a couple more years before he becomes whatever he's going to become.

I dont know if he will drop the mitts like Foligno did, but he can even come close to replacing that, that would be huge.

The Foligno trade, for me personally, is when it all went wrong for me, you just dont trade young power forwards especially one thats dad played for you, to bring back an aging Pominville? Ive always felt that Terry wanted this trade and he forced the GMs hand

Remember thought Doan is 23, yes hes hasnt played a ton of games, but he is 23, he is isnt 20 just getting a taste

[K-9]

11 minutes ago, Taro T said:

That's probably realistically his ceiling.  Unfortunately, it'll likely take a couple more years before he becomes whatever he's going to become.

Perhaps, but he can be a major contributor to this team as he continues to grow other aspects of his game. He’s the new Intangible imo.

[GASabresIUFAN]

27 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

JJ Peterka as a 21yr old rookie: 12g, 20a, 77games, 0.416ppg

Kulich has 0.381ppg, just noting the how close Kulich was to producing at Peterka's level. Kulich is also 3 months younger. Not saying he will produce at Peterka's level but we should compare apples to apples and rookies to rookies. We can have a discussion somewhere else about it being a downgrade and trading away a more finished product. 

Doan has 0.452ppg (but he's 23 so take that into account)

 

This is my point.

Doan and Peterka are the same age (about a month apart) and JJP has 238 games to Doan's 62.

Doan and Kulich have the same level of experience and similar production, except Kulich is 2 years younger.  

To me, Doan has no where near the upside of either JJP or Kulich.  He may have the potential to be a 40 pt player on the 3rd line and produce solid two way play, but that's all we are likely to get out of him.  Unlike JJP and Kulich who are or should be core players, guys like Doan are replaceable.  To me Doan and guys like him are a dime a dozen and easily found and easily replaced.  I don't think his acquisition moves this team forward an inch.  Hopefully he pulls a McLeod and proves me wrong.

By the way, you can't really just discuss what Doan is without the context of who he is replacing in the lineup.  It maybe unfair to Doan to ask or expect him to fill JJP's offensive shoes, but such is life.

[JohnC]

What will make the JJP trade for the two Utah players even better is KA bringing in a vet second-line player. The big knock on the Sabre roster for years is that it is too finesse and perimeter oriented. If you add Doan to the additions of Zucker, McCleod and Greenway you can see the roster steadily being reformulated to become grittier. I hope that our GM isn't quite satisfied with the current roster and is able to bring in another player before camp begins. From Doan's perspective, he should be excited to be in Buffalo because he is going to get an opportunity to earn more ice time here. Will he seize that opportunity? I sure hope so. Adding what is obviously an effort player sure is not going to hurt us. 

[Weave]

17 minutes ago, Carmel Corn said:

 

Purely wishful thinking, but how about Marcus Foligno’s dad Mike?  He may have been considered an added player after Dale McCourt, but he was the best part of that historic trade.  Maybe Doan can surprise us with his scoring and leadership???

Mike Foligno is a bigger reach than Mike Peca.  30 goals + and/or 60pts + four times in his career.  He was a first line player for a good chunk of his time.

[Huckleberry]

4 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

This is my point.

Doan and Peterka are the same age (about a month apart) and JJP has 238 games to Doan's 62.

Doan and Kulich have the same level of experience and similar production, except Kulich is 2 years younger.  

To me, Doan has no where near the upside of either JJP or Kulich.  He may have the potential to be a 40 pt player on the 3rd line and produce solid two way play, but that's all we are likely to get out of him.  Unlike JJP and Kulich who are or should be core players, guys like Doan are replaceable.  To me Doan and guys like him are a dime a dozen and easily found and easily replaced.  I don't think his acquisition moves this team forward an inch.  Hopefully he pulls a McLeod and proves me wrong.

By the way, you can't really just discuss what Doan is without the context of who he is replacing in the lineup.  It maybe unfair to Doan to ask or expect him to fill JJP's offensive shoes, but such is life.

If you just look at production no, but if you can look at how many goals he will prevent being on the ice instead of JJP, it will be somewhat positive

[triumph_communes]

1 hour ago, Weave said:

Jordan Greenway .

Not even close imo. Greenway is a great passer and is usually quick to dish it anyway

 

griere uhh, did none of those things, but would put himself in breakaway situations quite a bit where.. you’d be surprised if he even managed to get a shot off

1 hour ago, Weave said:

Jordan Greenway .

Not even close imo. Greenway is a great passer and is usually quick to dish it anyway

 

griere uhh, did none of those things, but would put himself in breakaway situations quite a bit where.. you’d be surprised if he even managed to get a shot off

[LGR4GM]

35 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

This is my point.

Doan and Peterka are the same age (about a month apart) and JJP has 238 games to Doan's 62.

Doan and Kulich have the same level of experience and similar production, except Kulich is 2 years younger.  

To me, Doan has no where near the upside of either JJP or Kulich.  He may have the potential to be a 40 pt player on the 3rd line and produce solid two way play, but that's all we are likely to get out of him.  Unlike JJP and Kulich who are or should be core players, guys like Doan are replaceable.  To me Doan and guys like him are a dime a dozen and easily found and easily replaced.  I don't think his acquisition moves this team forward an inch.  Hopefully he pulls a McLeod and proves me wrong.

By the way, you can't really just discuss what Doan is without the context of who he is replacing in the lineup.  It maybe unfair to Doan to ask or expect him to fill JJP's offensive shoes, but such is life.

 

in all seriousness there is enough evidence right now to suggest saying "Doan is replaceable" and implying he's a JAG is very much incorrect. 

I don't think guys who forecheck like Doan are a dime a dozen but I do think NHL teams and NHL fans have a really hard time recognizing the skill and valuing it appropriately. 

[LGR4GM]

I do want to say yet again, I don't think Doan will replace Peterka. 

[That Aud Smell]

I love the positivity.

I will add: There seems to be a LOT of good, high vibes for a player who - IIRC from what I just read - is 23 years old and has played fewer than 70 games in the NHL.

[pi2000]

ceiling McDavid

floor Lafferty

[PerreaultForever]

I'm skeptical simply because he couldn't really crack the line up of a weak Utah team so clearly, they didn't think he was good enough or ready or a major piece. Do not remember seeing him play though so just don't know. For me he's like an unknown rookie. Wait and see when he actually plays. I need to see how he plays most of all. I really think people tend to be overly optimistic here because of his father. I am curious, but remain neutral and skeptical until I see him in action. 

[JohnC]

35 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

I do want to say yet again, I don't think Doan will replace Peterka. 

There are some who are trying to judge the trade as a JJP vs Doan. Framing the trade in that way makes little sense. The primary player we got in return was Kesseiring. The hope is that the defenseman should be a factor in improving a unit that needed to be upgraded. Also, if Kesseiring turns out to be a suitable partner for Power, then the deal looks even better. And if Doan turns out to be an energetic and gritty lower line player, then the evaluation of the trade should look a lot better for us. It's likely that JJP was the best player in the deal. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the trade on balance didn't help to improve our roster.  

[GoPuckYourself]

6 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

He's been called a throw in, a 4th liner, a grinder, a late bloomer, a good checker, inexperienced, an unknown, good, bad. But what is he? First let us start with the games played, 62. That is barely enough to call it a sample and to put that in perspective, Zach Benson has 146, Jiri Kulich has 63. This is to say, Josh Doan has a bit of a mystery box to him because there isn't multiple seasons to look at. Now let me get this out of the way here, that is a problem and it is a reason why the Peterka trade has major flaws. The Sabres traded a forward with 238 games and his forward replacement has 62games. 

Now that we have acknowledged the experience and sample questions, let's look at what we do have in those 62 games. Really quickly, can this not become another "Adams is stupid" thread? I get it, 62 games and 23yrs old, there's some hope and some projection in there. But every thread is Adams is dumb and idk, can we focus on the player? Just asking. 

Josh Doan last year on Utah HC ranked 2nd in xGF% at 5v5 with a 61.45xgf%. The only player above him was Yamamoto who only had 133 5v5 minutes, compared to Doan's 600mins. Same for HDCF% where Doan has a 63.02hdcf%. Now zone starts can impact this for sure even though hockey is free flowing and there are a ton of on the fly changes (525), it does help to see who is getting helped most. Doan has 102ozone, 154nzone, and 74dzone starts. By far he started in the neutral zone most with a slight lean into the o over the d zone. I don't think that split would over produce his xGF or HDCF. 

The next part is how much offense was Doan creating? xGF% tells us the split between but not what was being created. In order to do that, we need to adjust for TOI especially for a first year player in Doan. xGF/60 puts Doan at 3rd on the Utah HC, behind Yamamoto and Hayton, with 3.08xGF/60. For reference, JJ Peterka was at 2.62xGF/60. Now remember those numbers are certainly influenced by systems and team play. Buffalo was bad at sustaining pressure and instead created most of the offense off of the rush (Peterka was really good at that). The Sabres have 0 player over 2.85xGF/60 (Kulich) and that shows you that the system itself is having an impact. But Doan was creating offense for Utah but it just was not clicking or turning into points.

Which brings us to PDO or "luck" as some call it. PDO measures PDO=(Shots For/Goals For×100)+(Shots Against/Saves×100) and if you are at 100, you are average, below or above is just that, below average or above average. Peterka had a 1.032PDO, the highest on the Sabres. Many look at McLeod and say he was lucky, he was but only 1.020. Doan on the other hand falls at 0.990 which suggest we see positive regression from him. Now this isn't to toss Peterka under the bus, we are looking at 5v5 specifically and Peterka will be making up for lost 5v5 production with PP production on a team that doesn't run the 24th PP in the league (Utah was 10th in pp%). It is more or less looking at Doan's stats and showing a comparable to understand what Analytics might have been talking to Adams about. I say Analytics because like the McLeod trade, the underlying numbers here seem to indicate at least some intent. AGAIN, I am not saying Doan is better than Peterka, I am merely giving you Peterka's Sabres' numbers for some context. 

With all of that said about Doan, his good 61.45xgf%, his fairly even zone starts, his 63.02hdcf%, 3.08xGF/60, and a bit below average PDO, the question is what will Doan actually be. After what is effectively 1 NHL season over two years, he has stats that average to 15.9g and 21.2a per 82gp. That's about a typical 3rd line player. At 23yrs old coming off of 1 season, is there an offensive jump to have? Will he get more TOI in Buffalo? He's going to at minimum slot behind Tuch and Thompson on the right but could still end up with McLeod as his center. In the end, the underlying stats look good but they are based on a 62 game sample on a team that plays far better overall hockey than Buffalo's run and gun style. My conclusion, there's enough here to make me believe that Doan has 20g, 30a potential and could be a legit 2nd line winger in his prime (26-30), but again, Adams is gambling because he already had a legit 2nd line winger in Peterka. Doan plays better defense. Peterka seems to score more goals (especially off the rush). Doan could also end up as a 10g, 15a type of guy which in the grand scheme of things would really require him to play elite defense to help balance this trade. In the end, we will certainly know a lot more about Doan after this season in Buffalo. My prediction? he'll have around 14g, 26a if he locks down a 3rd line role for all 82 games. 

I see some similarities this past season to Timo Meir or however you spelling freaks will call me out on it lol. He has power forward type of size/ traits and just started throwing the body around from what I read this past season in particular. If that’s the case we just got exactly what many of us have been clamoring for in quite some time.

[triumph_communes]

3 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I'm skeptical simply because he couldn't really crack the line up of a weak Utah team so clearly, they didn't think he was good enough or ready or a major piece. Do not remember seeing him play though so just don't know. For me he's like an unknown rookie. Wait and see when he actually plays. I need to see how he plays most of all. I really think people tend to be overly optimistic here because of his father. I am curious, but remain neutral and skeptical until I see him in action. 

He was only given fourth line minutes and he wasn’t producing.. with 4th line deployment. He went to the A and scored a plenty. Wouldn’t be concerned there 

[bob_sauve28]

Has anyone here actually seen him play? 

[ska-T Palmtown]

8 hours ago, MattPie said:

I player that'll win the cup... on another team after the Sabres trade him and the deadline in 3 years.

Aren't "we" at SS tired of this trope? I looked at the SC roster EDM and FLA ... here is the list of terrible franchises that let players go that ended up in the SC finals:

ANA, ATL/WPG, FLA (yes, two players drafted by FLA played for EDM, lol), VAN, STL, TOR, NJD, NASH, PIT, CGY, DET, DAL, BOS, CAR, ARI, BUF (oops), COL

Plus it appears that SIX undrafted FA's (5 for FLA, 1 for EDM) also played. Obviously we all know E-Rod got his start in Buffalo.

It just doesn't shake out that only Buffalo trades away talent. All those franchises were either "dumb enough" to trade them or "terrible enough of a destination" that they could not resign them. In the modern NHL, players move around A LOT.

Every team has a handful of home grown talent and a huge helping of "cast-offs" from other teams. 4 of FLA's top 5 scorers were from other teams. Including the almighty Sam Bennett. 

The loaves have made the playoffs for a long time (something we, the Sabres faithful, would kill for) ... they just traded away Marner. Shrug emoji sums it up for me.

[Thorny]

6 hours ago, triumph_communes said:

Not even close imo. Greenway is a great passer and is usually quick to dish it anyway

 

griere uhh, did none of those things, but would put himself in breakaway situations quite a bit where.. you’d be surprised if he even managed to get a shot off

Not even close imo. Greenway is a great passer and is usually quick to dish it anyway

 

griere uhh, did none of those things, but would put himself in breakaway situations quite a bit where.. you’d be surprised if he even managed to get a shot off

Yet his assist to Drury set up the game winning OT goal in one of the greatest games ever played 

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, triumph_communes said:

He was only given fourth line minutes and he wasn’t producing.. with 4th line deployment. He went to the A and scored a plenty. Wouldn’t be concerned there 

That's my point. They didn't see him as anything higher up the roster so why do we?

[tom webster]

8 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

This is my point.

Doan and Peterka are the same age (about a month apart) and JJP has 238 games to Doan's 62.

Doan and Kulich have the same level of experience and similar production, except Kulich is 2 years younger.  

To me, Doan has no where near the upside of either JJP or Kulich.  He may have the potential to be a 40 pt player on the 3rd line and produce solid two way play, but that's all we are likely to get out of him.  Unlike JJP and Kulich who are or should be core players, guys like Doan are replaceable.  To me Doan and guys like him are a dime a dozen and easily found and easily replaced.  I don't think his acquisition moves this team forward an inch.  Hopefully he pulls a McLeod and proves me wrong.

By the way, you can't really just discuss what Doan is without the context of who he is replacing in the lineup.  It maybe unfair to Doan to ask or expect him to fill JJP's offensive shoes, but such is life.

I don’t think anyone expects Doan to replace JJP. Benson, Quinn and Kulich will be expected to replace the offense. Doan brings something completely different.

[dudacek]

3 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

That's my point. They didn't see him as anything higher up the roster so why do we?

Aren’t you the same guy who is always complaining about the Sabres rushing their prospects?

So when a team brings up a player in his first year and puts him in the top 6 it’s because they’re rushing him, and when they bring him up in his 2nd year and put him in the bottom 6 it’s because they don’t think he’s any good?

Lets just call a spade a spade, if he’s a Sabre, you think they’re doing it wrong.

Edited 3 hours ago by dudacek

[GoPuckYourself]

4 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Has anyone here actually seen him play? 

I haven't been able to watch full games (don't know where to find them) but there's some decent highlight videos and he seems to be a solid front of the net presence and a hustler, always seems to be hustling his way to the net.