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21/22 Roster Speculation Thread Part VIII

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TehDoak said:
Imagine the results this season with:

A legit starting NHL goalie
A center to handle faceoffs/play the PK/defensive matchups
Cody Eakin in the AHL

While we wouldn't be a playoff team, we'd be 4-5 wins better than we currently are. You act like I'm suggesting we should have burned through all our assets this year. I'm not. I'm saying there was some low hanging fruit that wasn't addressed because ownership/management were unwilling to even attempt to put a good team on the ice this year.
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Your argument is 10 points in the standings which puts us tied for 19th, with a Vancouver team teetering on blowing it up or a Detroit team we should’ve beaten twice.

You’re so out to lunch on this management/ownership tirade that you can’t accept that this year has largely been successful for the majority of our young players. Quinn and Mitts getting hurt sucks, but specifically Quinn was literally dominating the AHL as a 20 year old. Everyone has taken a step forward.

Not a single time did the owners or the GM say they weren’t trying to be competitive. They offered Ullmark a contract, they tried for UFA’s goaltenders and struck out until they brought in who they brought in. I imagine you’ll get your wish on trades at the deadline and in the offseason. They won’t go full Murray, but I’m expecting moves.
 
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Jacob582 said:
Nobody wants to trade for Casey Mittlestadt. He is past his injury but can't be put in the lineup because he's out of shape.

Heard that before?

Good news is he's going through Matt Ellis boot camp. Like last year on the taxi squad which allowed Casey to function as a competent NHL'er for a few dozen games.

(If we could trade CM, I like your trade idea)
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I'd assume this type of trade would go down at the draft. I dont see us adding roster players at deadline. I think we'll add picks for Miller, Hagg and Eakin

With all our draft equity and shape of our prospect pool, I think we should be checking in on every top 6 winger whose a RFA.
 
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Wonder what we get back on Eakin, Miller, and Hagg. My guess is:

Hagg - 5th rounder
Eakin (50%) - warm body or a 6/7th
Miller (50%) - could be 2nd and a crappy roster player
 
We need several rd in the organization. Take a flyer on Conor Timmins, offer a contract to Christian Jaros, Grans Helge, Braden Schneider (it would cost Tuch, Quinn and a 22 1st). Grab some magic beans while we're at it.
 
Matt Ress said:
We need several rd in the organization. Take a flyer on Conor Timmins, offer a contract to Christian Jaros, Grans Helge, Braden Schneider (it would cost Tuch, Quinn and a 22 1st). Grab some magic beans while we're at it.
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Timmins seems to be the guy who is always injured.

Two college players:
Jake Livingstone at eliteprospects.com
Nick Blankenburg at eliteprospects.com

Ask Ottawa about one of Thomson, JBD or Brannstrom.

Schneider is of course a taboo thread, but maybe Lundkvist makes sense.

What are Wild's plans for Addison, but most likely he will be untouchable due to their cap situation and his ELC.

Preds has three young RDs.

Ethan Bear doesn't play much in Canes, but he had decent metrics with Oilers. Joey Keane maybe could also make sense.

Ask LA about Durzi, although they are more likely to trade Walker early and maybe even Roy than Durzi.
 
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BuffaloGooner said:
Not a single time did the owners or the GM say they weren’t trying to be competitive
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I think it's pretty obvious they had no intention of being competitive. KA didn't need to warn of suffering for it to be apparent that as far as winning goes we shouldn't have expected much.

You are right about the young players growth, the injuries to Mittlestadt and Quinn, and the reason for optimism... But I personally agree with Doak that we could have done more to ice a better team. Maybe we tried but Vanecek, nedeljkovic, Vladar all would have been worth a shot at imo.. Enough guys went for picks we could afford to trade. We even likely could have gotten more out of Philly by taking ghost over hagg had we been willing to spend a little bit of money.

I've said it before but I've never felt so pessimistic going into a season. It really felt to me like low key tank season under the guise of growth and development. I guess it can be both. I'm happy for the growth of the players, for the future of the team and I have some faith in front office but I feel we should have tried harder to win more games.

I don't think winning and developing are mutually exclusive.
 
The Blunder Years said:
Wonder what we get back on Eakin, Miller, and Hagg. My guess is:

Hagg - 5th rounder
Eakin (50%) - warm body or a 6/7th
Miller (50%) - could be 2nd and a crappy roster player
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Hagg a 5th
Eakin a 7th
Miller a 3rd

I'd be cool with that return. Build up that draft equity and make a trade at the draft for a core piece
 
BuffaloGooner said:
Your argument is 10 points in the standings which puts us tied for 19th, with a Vancouver team teetering on blowing it up or a Detroit team we should’ve beaten twice.
Click to expand...

But it would be our first .500 finish since 2016. It'd be real progress.

You’re so out to lunch on this management/ownership tirade that you can’t accept that this year has largely been successful for the majority of our young players. Quinn and Mitts getting hurt sucks, but specifically Quinn was literally dominating the AHL as a 20 year old. Everyone has taken a step forward.
Click to expand...

That is an low bar that would be almost impossible to limbo under. The only way they could have gone down from last year performance wise would be to put blinders on. Yes we've seen some positive growth individually, but the growth of the team in the standings is incremental at best.


Not a single time did the owners or the GM say they weren’t trying to be competitive. They offered Ullmark a contract, they tried for UFA’s goaltenders and struck out until they brought in who they brought in. I imagine you’ll get your wish on trades at the deadline and in the offseason. They won’t go full Murray, but I’m expecting moves.
Click to expand...

What goalies did they swing and miss on? It would be foolish to think anyone of value was signing here in the offseason. The proper way to address the big issues would have been via trade. Ullmark was never signing here or he would have signed at the end of the season and the decision to waste a protection slot on a pending UFA goalie was stupid, especially when you had an urgent need for a goalie.
 
Fjordy said:
Timmins seems to be the guy who is always injured.

Two college players:
Jake Livingstone at eliteprospects.com
Nick Blankenburg at eliteprospects.com

Ask Ottawa about one of Thomson, JBD or Brannstrom.

Schneider is of course a taboo thread, but maybe Lundkvist makes sense.

What are Wild's plans for Addison, but most likely he will be untouchable due to their cap situation and his ELC.

Preds has three young RDs.

Ethan Bear doesn't play much in Canes, but he had decent metrics with Oilers. Joey Keane maybe could also make sense.

Ask LA about Durzi, although they are more likely to trade Walker early and maybe even Roy than Durzi.
Click to expand...
All good points. They'll need like 4 or 5 additions and not just to the Sabres.
Timmins had a bad concussion and then blew out his knee early this season. Could probably be had for cheap and a high upside if he can come back healthy next year. If not, he can fill in on ROC.
 
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TehDoak said:
But it would be our first .500 finish since 2016. It'd be real progress.



That is an low bar that would be almost impossible to limbo under. The only way they could have gone down from last year performance wise would be to put blinders on. Yes we've seen some positive growth individually, but the growth of the team in the standings is incremental at best.




What goalies did they swing and miss on? It would be foolish to think anyone of value was signing here in the offseason. The proper way to address the big issues would have been via trade. Ullmark was never signing here or he would have signed at the end of the season and the decision to waste a protection slot on a pending UFA goalie was stupid, especially when you had an urgent need for a goalie.
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You're not wrong. I think their philosophy was to stay pat and reevaluate players/positions in the off season. There were so many question marks going into the year, maybe it didn't make sense for them to spit on a tree in a forest fire.

Some of those questions have been answered and I would suspect they'll support the roster better going into 22-23.
 
They will keep hagg if the offer Is that low. Hagg is tough and protects the up and comers. Should not be traded for that
 
BuffaloGooner said:
Your argument is 10 points in the standings which puts us tied for 19th, with a Vancouver team teetering on blowing it up or a Detroit team we should’ve beaten twice.

You’re so out to lunch on this management/ownership tirade that you can’t accept that this year has largely been successful for the majority of our young players. Quinn and Mitts getting hurt sucks, but specifically Quinn was literally dominating the AHL as a 20 year old. Everyone has taken a step forward.

Not a single time did the owners or the GM say they weren’t trying to be competitive. They offered Ullmark a contract, they tried for UFA’s goaltenders and struck out until they brought in who they brought in. I imagine you’ll get your wish on trades at the deadline and in the offseason. They won’t go full Murray, but I’m expecting moves.
Click to expand...

You might as well start arguing with him about how we botched the expansion draft. That’s the only thing that’ll get him going more than 2021 UFA goalies

anyone who disagrees that this season has been incredibly successful when it comes to the development of our young players is just being a contrarian
 
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Dirty Dog said:
You might as well start arguing with him about how we botched the expansion draft. That’s the only thing that’ll get him going more than 2021 UFA goalies

anyone who disagrees that this season has been incredibly successful when it comes to the development of our young players is just being a contrarian
Click to expand...

Sure, our young players have taken a step forward.

However, this is a team sport, not a an individual sport.

We could have (and should have) simultaneously improved our team success AND had the young core improve. It's not mutually exclusive. It isn't necessary to have bad goaltending to develop players.
 
Chainshot said:
For those with Manson dreams -

Sounds like he wants to stay out west and his wife is a SoCal girl. I can't see him having any interest in Buffalo no matter how big the bucket of cash thrown at him.
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Manson is the #5 D by ice time for the Ducks. He's not the guy to back up the Brinks truck for. Even if we signed him to a fair contract, he's only a #4/#5 D kinda guy, he'd be a good addition to the ensemble but he's not going to single handedly save the defense. And we'd almost certainly give him #1/#2 minutes and act surprised when he struggles in that role.
 
BFLO said:
Manson is the #5 D by ice time for the Ducks. He's not the guy to back up the Brinks truck for. Even if we signed him to a fair contract, he's only a #4/#5 D kinda guy, he'd be a good addition to the ensemble but he's not going to single handedly save the defense. And we'd almost certainly give him #1/#2 minutes and act surprised when he struggles in that role.
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Manson is getting top pair minutes and top PKing minutes:

upload_2022-2-17_8-30-48.png


That being said, I trust the TFP guys that Manson is pretty tied to the region and have scratched him off my list.
 
TehDoak said:
Sure, our young players have taken a step forward.

However, this is a team sport, not a an individual sport.

We could have (and should have) simultaneously improved our team success AND had the young core improve. It's not mutually exclusive. It isn't necessary to have bad goaltending to develop players.
Click to expand...

Firstly, I don't think anyone could possibly argue that the goaltending situation was handled terribly. Indeed, they couldn't predict all of the injuries, but even at full-health, the group is less-than ideal.

However, I think the underlying point is, competitiveness took a backseat to evaluation. The mistake previous regimes made with rebuilds is that they attempted to accelerate it without really any idea of what they had, and, ergo, what they needed. We have no idea how Jack Quinn will mesh with Dylan Cozens. Maybe they play well together and are a thing, or maybe they're completely incompatible, and the team still needs to find their running-mates.

The point is, the organization is clearly taking the patient approach to figure out exactly where their needs are moving forward, and then being able to act upon them, as opposed to jumping in too quickly and filling "theoretical needs" instead, only to find that they improperly addressed the roster.
 
BFLO said:
View attachment 508032View attachment 508032


He's 5th
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Breaking it down by role a bit - he's third in SHTOI and fourth at ESTOI. And he gets almost no PP time behind Drysdale, Fowler, Shattenkirk, and Lindholm.

Suffice to say, he's getting mid-pair minutes at ES and PK use which in a perfect world would be how he would be deployed if there was some way to convince him to come to Buffalo (which other than money, doesn't seem to be a factor).
 
Lyubushkin, Manson or maybe Braun/Rutta make sense.

Maybe Adams will try to sign PK Subban? :sarcasm:
 
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