I would not mind seeing a trade involving one or more of our prospects for an established younger player. Depending on the talent, they have picks that they can add to a package, and Buffalo can also take bad short-term contracts. There's a big risk with this since you could potentially give up a prospect that haunts you for the next 15 years. Still, getting more established players on the roster would seem to provide the stability needed to work in prospects. With three firsts in 2015 it seems likely that they'll find at least one for first-line F to give the team needed star-power. Consider that someone, (I forget who, but I could find it), has eight Sabres prospects listed in their top-100 ranking. Add three more firsts next year, and we start to see the paradox of Buffalo's problem.
I was a little surprised to see the Wings mentioned as possibilities for Stewart. The only way this happens, IMO, is if it is a big trade involving Myers going to Detroit and Jurco going to Buffalo. Picks, prospects, and veterans would be packaged to make things balance out. On the other hand, I personally have no problem with Stewart going to Detroit, but when one starts speculating about mega-trades the chances of seeing them come to fruition diminishes rapidly.
Nikita Zadorov was activated for the LAK game, and now he has 6:12 TOI after eight games. He's not quite ready for the NHL, is to young to be sent to the AHL, too good for the OHL, and the KHL is fucking up the Sabres wishes to have him play a year in Russia. Joel Armia and Mikael Grigorenko are tearing things up so far in the short AHL season.
The Sabres thrashed the Sharks today, (by Buffalo standards 2-1 is a drubbing). Remarkably, Buffalo has now won four straight in their building and are 9-1 against them since '07-'08. It's odd how one team can own another regardless of team circumstances. Now if we could prevent 28 teams from owning us.
Reinhart is going back to Kootenay. That's where the lad belongs this year. I expect he learned a great deal by his nine games against men. The KHL can block sending Zadorov back to the OHL. His purgatory will continue until this gets sorted out. He's physically developed where he does not risk injury at the NHL level. He's not ready, so I hope the team is not forced to say fuck it! we need to give him ice time and burn the year off his ELC. I hear that there is zero chance that the Sabres send him to the KHL for the season.
That kid is going to be something else. Seasoning with a few stints up will be the right thing to do, imo. Reinhart had 36 goals and 69 assists in 60 games last season with Kootenay... damn impressive stuff.
I only saw him one time this year and was surprised how small he looked against the Hawks. I know I needed a few years to fill out, and he's also a very hard working player. I am sure he'll hit the weight rooms and play even a smarter game this year in Kootenay. It will help next year when the team has more talent, (presumably McDavid or Eichel), plus a couple of the players that are looking good right now in Rochester. If the Sabres draft #1 next year, then they could be a playoff bubble team in April 2016. I do not expect the turn around to be that quick, but it could.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pM3pVlNNPE[/video] paesans, literally 5 kms from my parents hometown in the boot.
Buffalo won their third straight game tonight. The team is shooting a bit more - of course that's not saying too much because in one game against the Leafs they had 10 SOG earlier this season. I just think that things are starting to come together for them a little bit. It always takes time to adapt to a lot of new players. The Sabres are still the odd's favorite to "earn" a 20% chance at the #1 pick, but I think the league is starting to realize that they have a chance in any game if the other team has their guard down. BTW, with the way the NYR's have been playing I think there's a good chance that Buffalo would have beaten them on Friday. Assuming they would have still won tonight that would have made it four straight. There will, no doubt, be at least one more lengthy losing skein, but every once in a while they'll get pissed off at themselves and than reel of a decent winning stretch. Next year do not be surprised if Buffalo is on the playoff bubble; especially if they get McDavid or Eichel.
At the NHL level, I'm never impressed much by effort. I expect it, they're professionals at the highest level for reasons other than natural ability in most cases. What impressed me was coverage, still sloppy at times, but the forwards were keeping their spacing and positioning. When they weren't they were trying to get back while trusting their linemates. It looked much less like the ECHL/AHL mess I saw earlier. I've only seen 2 of their last 5 wins and 3 of their last 9 so that's a pretty small sample size. I agree it's not sustainable, it's just good that they've quit wasting shifts. I don't think anything useful came out of the first 15 games, even the video offers nothing to learn since the mistakes were so atrocious and ridiculous. They pressed the reset button quicker than I would have expected. Still a very, very long road ahead but at least progress can be tracked now. I'm extremely interested in TB, I think they're very flawed and the game last night highlighted why I think they're so flawed. They'll get their goals, but if teams put the puck in the right place, TB isn't going to generate much off of the pp. They're about as dependent on turnovers and poor puck management as anyteam out there imo. I don't see how TB gets by MTL, Boston, or Detroit (assuming they do something about Smith and Kindl) as presently constructed. Last thing about the game, I loved when Gudas was beaten badly in the third around his right side, he shouldn't be getting that many shifts if they're serious about winning. For a low scoring game, I was very entertained by BUF and TB. For me, I'm excited they don't hurt my eyes anymore, unless they're in those yellow things.
Quoting Lulz: No one should be impressed by effort, but a bad team looks like what they are because they often do not exert themselves for a full 60 minutes. That's reality in hockey, and it applies to life in general. Ridding the team of players that willfully choose to not demonstrate basic professionalism is a start. Getting a coach that is able to "reach" each player is a challenge, but it is another step. The 2013-14 Sabres were pathetic in many games I saw last year. I can really only say that about one game this season, (the 10 SOG game in TOR), and while it is inexcusable, the team had just returned from the west coast journey. I believe that the jury is still very much out on Ted Nolan, but he does have a record for getting teams to play better. He did not create the mess in Buffalo, and he does appear to be making progress toward turning the team into an NHL club. What we do not know is how well his style will play out when he does have a more talented team. Buffalo has 8 of the top-100 rated prospects in the NHL*. Their prospect pipeline is rated #1*. They have five top-sixty picks in the strong '15 draft. (* I have omitted references since these are subjective evaluations to begin with.) It is reasonable to expect that Buffalo will have a much more talented team in 2015-16. The greatest challenge, IMO, will involve talent evaluation for very good players. It is easy to decide which veterans should be sold off. It is another matter to decide which prospects to retain. Of course, this is not only a matter of talent, but also one of determining who fits the system. The coach has a lot of influence on this; circling back to the Nolan question. If the team is fortunate enough to draft McEichel then I believe they will model themselves after the Hawks. If not, then I believe the Kings become a more apt model. On virtue of McEichel alone, this team may be a playoff contender as early as next season. But no winning team is dependent on one or two very good players. I personally advocate speeding up the rebuild by moving prospects for established players. There is a great risk for Tim Murray here as he could look foolish if he trades several future All Stars, but the team simply has too many young assets at this point. - They are very near the organizational limit of 50 contracts; 25 players are under their ELC, and 11 of these are former 1st or 2nd round picks. - They have several '14 2nd round picks and talented NCAA prospects still to sign, and of course all the high '15 picks. While these are "problems" that any GM would relish, they represent the greatest challenge to eventually bring the SC to Buffalo. (Patty Kane's periodic victory tour does not count.)
This is the great pit they must leap over of fall into the abyss for a few more years. Now that they are actually trying to play as a team, I think it will be far easier for them to see more meaningful game situations to evaluate players from. This is at the heart of where Chicago stumbled coming out of the lockout until they succeeded (bringing in hockey-yoda) and where Edmonton is failing. If nobody is where they are supposed to be, how can you correct anything in a system? That's why I was so alarmed for Buffalo before. If there is no organization, nothing gets fixed and there is no standard for evaluating many player traits in NHL game situations. I think they should just go with a Buffalo model outside of keeping up sustainable practices in terms of asset management. Chicago brought in multiple high profile players during their buildup like the top goalies on the market twice, Havlat (a top young player at the time), Hossa, and Campbell and has some of the best minds (hockey yoda) to put together a mix of talent 1-23. LA has the best drafting gm and staff in the 30 team era and knows how to buy and sell and draw lines in the sand. Trying to be too much like one or the other seems like a bad idea to me given the CBA changes and current circumstances. Both teams built around different systems too. While classified as "possession teams", LA and Chicago don't do it the same way in my opinion. Besides, everybody except really bad teams and Toronto are possession teams, but I digress.
I am regularly reminded here on MnC that others are better at expressing a point than I am. I agree with your point about a Buffalo model entirely. My use of "modeling" was clumsy and what I really intended was how the team's development would be portrayed by the FO and by hockey pundits. Of course, Buffalo will have a full roster of players of which zero will also skate for the Hawks or the Kings. Your point is valid. I think in terms of personnel, McEichel and Reinhart share semblances of Kane and Toews. Girgensons and Reinhart... well that's not as similar. It is imprudent to suggest that any team could match the Kings impressive recent draft success. Buffalo has had and continues to have a huge quantity of high picks, so perhaps if enough shit sticks against the wall they may eventually have similar on-ice results. Murray has less than a year under his belt as Commander in Chief. We simply cannot draw any firm inferences yet, but I do like how he performed at the deadline in March. It was a buyers' market, and he extracted a ton from the Blues and he picked up two great prospects in Fasching and Deslaurier, (both of whom every other team wishes they'd nabbed earlier than the LAK did). Since both players dealt to MIN came back on July 1, it's like the team got two future seconds for "free". So far, Tim Murray has demonstrated some capacity for shrewd maneuvering. My only quibble here is my emphasis on trying. I believe that Buffalo has made an effort to try all season; it's just that they failed miserably at it. The coach changed lineups as frequently as the team changed dressing rooms. It looked like a cluster- fuck, (and it was). Under these circumstances, when you're not that good to begin with, you're going to look awful against NHL competition. And I am glad for that since it culminated in my happiest non-Sabres' NHL moment: Campbell-to-Kane for the SC winning goal against the hockey team from Philadelphia, no less! I believe that BUF has an opportunity to replicate this with a twist - however, I do not know of any teams that have ever proven that this can be done. Rather than signing players like Hossa to old-fashioned style contracts, the team can use their full-cupboard prospect pool to bring in complimentary established talent through trades. Extremely astute talent evaluation will be required, but I am reasonably confident that TM knows hockey better than I.
Buffalo could have 8 prospects at the WJC; 2 for Sweden, Canada, and the U.S.A., 1 for the Czech Rep., and 1 for Russia. Samson Reinhart will likely wear the C for Canada. Nikita Zadarov may have played himself into a permanent gig in the NHL, and who does not relish any chance to say "fuck you!" to Russia? Still, if he goes it may be to give a D prospect an opportunity to audition for the Sabres and the rest of the league. McCabe and Pysyk will be steady performers and it's time to shit or get off the pot with some of the prospects. It's a head scratcher that Bailey did not get invited to the U.S.A. camp. He's got great numbers in Kitchener and one wonders if he's a case of anti-CHL bias.
