Sabres Sign Olen Zellweger to 3 year 3 million AAV Deal

[ska-T Chitown]

12 minutes ago, Nacho Libre said:

Now there’s a Batman 

It’s real. And no one I’ve met could do this in a hundred years. And I met Patty LaF

It’s absurd he doesn’t make contact with his skates 

now go watch the first video again. He accelerates, jumps over a thing (wow unbelievable skill), does a give and go, does a circle, and takes a slapper

and I, as a 48 yr old, who started playing ice hockey when I was 35, pulled my groin watching the first video 🤣

There is a follow up segment from one of the 4th liners from that year's Hawks ... he messes up the first spread kinda hard, then just supermans through the second one.

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, shrader said:

Didn't he play in one of the american junior leagues?

NAHL. I thought I heard Chris "the Bulldog" telling stories of seeing Owen play in Ontario. Might have been a lower league.

[Nacho Libre]

10 minutes ago, ska-T Chitown said:

and I, as a 48 yr old, who started playing ice hockey when I was 35, pulled my groin watching the first video 🤣

There is a follow up segment from one of the 4th liners from that year's Hawks ... he messes up the first spread kinda hard, then just supermans through the second one.

My jaw dropped at the second stretch. The third is just bizarre 

I understand Kane is an extreme example but it’s worth posting cause it’s worthy watching again 

[LGR4GM]

12 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

NAHL. I thought I heard Chris "the Bulldog" telling stories of seeing Owen play in Ontario. Might have been a lower league.

What's his last name?

[shrader]

13 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

NAHL. I thought I heard Chris "the Bulldog" telling stories of seeing Owen play in Ontario. Might have been a lower league.

He could have gone up there for any number of events while growing up. 

[PromoTheRobot]

21 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

What's his last name?

Chris Parker is Owen's dad. Which explains how he went from junior hockey to the Morning Show on WGR.

Edited July 30 by PromoTheRobot

[PromoTheRobot]

40 minutes ago, shrader said:

He could have gone up there for any number of events while growing up. 

He said he was watching Owen play goal. I made the leap that it was in the OHL.

[LGR4GM]

26 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Chris Parker is Owen's dad. Which explains how he went from junior hockey to the Morning Show on WGR.

Owen Parker played 2 seasons for the NAHL. North American Hockey League is the league below the USHL.

He was drafted into the OHL by Soo Greyhounds but never played for them. 

[Turbo44]

Owen’s actually pretty good on the radio. Knowledgeable and doesn’t have the ego schopp has for instance. 

[dudacek]

Real curious as to his untapped potential.

His skating is high-end, he handles the puck well and historically his production has been top notch:

• 75 points in 55 games as an 18-year-old in the WHL
• 80 points in 55 games as a 19-year-old in the WHL
• 17 points in 14 WJC games 
• 37 points in 44 games as a 20-year-old AHL rookie

He's one of those short but not small guys, at 5'10" 193.

Anaheim clearly didn't trust him to play a prominent role and effectively replaced him with John Carlson down the stretch and into the playoffs.

But he's also just 6 months older than Östlund and Kulich and has only 164 NHL games under his skates.

These are usually my favourite kinds of trades: acquiring a young guy before he pops.

He played with Power at the WJCs and seems a great fit for the Sabres system.

Fingers crossed.

[nfreeman]

3 hours ago, dudacek said:

Real curious as to his untapped potential.

His skating is high-end, he handles the puck well and historically his production has been top notch:

• 75 points in 55 games as an 18-year-old in the WHL
• 80 points in 55 games as a 19-year-old in the WHL
• 17 points in 14 WJC games 
• 37 points in 44 games as a 20-year-old AHL rookie

He's one of those short but not small guys, at 5'10" 193.

Anaheim clearly didn't trust him to play a prominent role and effectively replaced him with John Carlson down the stretch and into the playoffs.

But he's also just 6 months older than Östlund and Kulich and has only 164 NHL games under his skates.

These are usually my favourite kinds of trades: acquiring a young guy before he pops.

He played with Power at the WJCs and seems a great fit for the Sabres system.

Fingers crossed.

Also worth noting IMHO:

- In that age-18 season in the WHL, he led all WHL defensement in scoring.

- In that age-19 season in the WHL, he was #2 among WHL defensemen in scoring in the regular season (1 pt behind the leader) -- and then led all WHL defensemen in scoring in the playoffs, with 29 pts in 14 games.  This was #2 overall in playoff scoring that year, behind only his teammate, Logan Stankoven.

 

[dudacek]

I read that Zellweger was traded from Anaheim mostly because of LD depth and cap reasons.

They did not play him much on the right, save a brief stint with Lacombe where he did quite well.

But apparently much of his junior career was spent on the right side.

The closer I look, the more I see him getting plugged directly beside Power and asked to play exactly like Byram. 

I see a lot of “too offensive” and “needs PP time” posts, which is exactly why many wrongly thought Bo wasnt a good fit in Buffalo. The Sabres system embraces D that move the puck forward and attack 5-on-5 and that is exactly who Zellweger is.

This is looking more and more to me like they are trying to catch lightning in a bottle again like they did with Doan.

Find an under utilized young player and give him the opportunity he’s been lacking in a role that plays exactly to his strengths.

Edited August 2 by dudacek

[mjd1001]

7 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I read that Zellweger was traded from Anaheim mostly because of LD depth and cap reasons.

They did not play him much on the right, save a brief stint with Lacombe where he did quite well.

But apparently much of his junior career was spent on the right side.

The closer I look, the more I see him getting plugged directly beside Power and asked to play exactly like Byram. 

I see a lot of “too offensive” and “needs PP time” posts, which is exactly why many wrongly thought Bo wasnt a good fit in Buffalo. The Sabres system embraces D that move the puck forward and attack 5-on-5 and that is exactly who Zellweger is.

This is looking more and more to me like they are trying to catch lightning in a bottle again like they did with Doan.

Find an under utilized young player and give him the opportunity he’s been lacking in a role that plays exactly to his strengths.

To the bolded, I would hope that is the case but it seems like Lindy doesn't operate that way.

I personally would give combinations more time. Howevery this coacing stuff will stick with some stuff for a while, but at other times they seem to throw players together that don't make sense on paper, and then don't work in the games...only to separate them and then stick them back together.

To summarize the above, what many of us THINK would be good lines, the team seems to think much differently and many times the 'convential wisdom' is more true in the end that the coaching staff and whatever they are trying to accomplish.

[dudacek]

10 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

To the bolded, I would hope that is the case but it seems like Lindy doesn't operate that way.

I personally would give combinations more time. Howevery this coacing stuff will stick with some stuff for a while, but at other times they seem to throw players together that don't make sense on paper, and then don't work in the games...only to separate them and then stick them back together.

To summarize the above, what many of us THINK would be good lines, the team seems to think much differently and many times the 'convential wisdom' is more true in the end that the coaching staff and whatever they are trying to accomplish.

Lindy's going to juggle and double-shift his top guys for sure.

But Byram/Power did play 588 minutes together last year. (Otherwise, only Mule/Dahlin played more than 250 minutes together)

[#freejame]

29 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I read that Zellweger was traded from Anaheim mostly because of LD depth and cap reasons.

They did not play him much on the right, save a brief stint with Lacombe where he did quite well.

But apparently much of his junior career was spent on the right side.

The closer I look, the more I see him getting plugged directly beside Power and asked to play exactly like Byram. 

I see a lot of “too offensive” and “needs PP time” posts, which is exactly why many wrongly thought Bo wasnt a good fit in Buffalo. The Sabres system embraces D that move the puck forward and attack 5-on-5 and that is exactly who Zellweger is.

This is looking more and more to me like they are trying to catch lightning in a bottle again like they did with Doan.

Find an under utilized young player and give him the opportunity he’s been lacking in a role that plays exactly to his strengths.

I thought I read somewhere that Power and Zellweger played together as teens for team Canada. Might be pretty plug and play together which would be nice. The season can’t come quick enough. 

[dudacek]

So basically the trades amount to:

Rudolph, Zellweger Crevier and $6.2M cap space for Byram, Greenway, Wahlberg and Jayden Kurz

[shrader]

8 minutes ago, dudacek said:

So basically the trades amount to:

Rudolph, Zellweger Crevier and $6.2M cap space for Byram, Greenway, Wahlberg and Jayden Kurz

Does Kurtz really count since we didn’t have that pick originally?

[Doohickie]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

The closer I look, the more I see him getting plugged directly beside Power and asked to play exactly like Byram. 

It's 50-50 in my mind whether the Sabres play Zellweger with Power in a stylistic reincarnation of last year's Byram-Power pairing, versus Crevier being paired with Power to duplicate the clear offensive/puck mover paired with a defensive specialist formula of Dahlin - Muel.  Then the third pairing would effectively be a third copy of that with Zellweger - Timmins.  Three defensively sound, offensively dangerous pairings could be tough for other teams to handle.

Edited August 2 by Doohickie

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

I read that Zellweger was traded from Anaheim mostly because of LD depth and cap reasons.

They did not play him much on the right, save a brief stint with Lacombe where he did quite well.

But apparently much of his junior career was spent on the right side.

The closer I look, the more I see him getting plugged directly beside Power and asked to play exactly like Byram. 

I see a lot of “too offensive” and “needs PP time” posts, which is exactly why many wrongly thought Bo wasnt a good fit in Buffalo. The Sabres system embraces D that move the puck forward and attack 5-on-5 and that is exactly who Zellweger is.

This is looking more and more to me like they are trying to catch lightning in a bottle again like they did with Doan.

Find an under utilized young player and give him the opportunity he’s been lacking in a role that plays exactly to his strengths.

Power and Zellweger together as a pairing has been this kid's expectation since that trade was made.

Timmins remains the 3rd pair shutdown D that is the 1st PKer and Crevier gets to essentially recreate his role from Chicago as a 2 way D-man.  (Basically getting Metsa's stylistic usage but hopefully closer to Stanley's playing time.)

And as the in-game situation changes, the pairings will mix and match to a degree.  

Crevier SHOULD be able to take on the role that Kesselring was supposed to play last year.  Still not entirely sure just why Kesselring didn't work out; interesting how quickly Kekalainen and Ruff were willing to end that experiment.  On paper, Olen shouldn't be as good as Byram was but Crevier should be better than Kesselring/Metsa/Bryson were.  And how much Power continues to improve will go a long way towards whether this D overall takes a step back, stays the same, or improves to a degree.  (And personally, expect they'll take a step back in October and November as the new guys learn the system.  Hopefully they twig onto what they're doing by then.  And hoping Power and Zellweger having played together in the past helps speed his transition to Lindy's system.)