I've been sitting on some of this for a few days but here is part 1.
On Defense:
Marty Wilford: F as in f*** Off. Please take him and his oversized chin and fire them into the sun. No one he has worked with has markedly improved their game. I would assert that several key members of the unit have regressed season on season with him as their coach in Power and Samuelsson. The only player who has seemed to grow was Dahlin – the guy who was marked to be the next great defenseman, 1OA, who still has things in his game that need to be better. He cannot, must not return in any capacity and retaining him was one of the cheapskate ways the front office failed this team again.
Rasmus Dahlin: A- and one of the few. Best ES production by a Sabre defenseman in the team’s history, tied for seventh best of all time with the only players above him being his own best season and Housley’s offenseman days. He finished the year fourth among all defensemen in scoring. And they didn’t win a game without him in the lineup. He tipped the ice in their favor offensively on par with guys like Makar and Fox again but with this clusterfluff of a lineup. He dragged respectability out of multiple partners. He seemed like he cared and played through some things early trying to best help the rest of the team. And yes, there as always remain things to clean up.
Jermey Bernard-Docker: C. Just a guy and luckily a RHD. Some of the fancy stuff was good, some was terrible. I didn’t mind how he played his position but for a team that needs to get something more than just having two RHD third pairing guys, maybe there is a smidge more there. Most of the time, he was the sort of unnoticeable that one wants in defenseman – he’s not making many mistakes but is also not making many highlight plays. Maybe they have something. Maybe he played on adrenaline upon a new arrival and is nothing more than right-handed Kale Clague.
Connor Clifton: C minus, like his initials and his height. His confrontational robustness shrank over the course of the year, probably because he now understands that the cream puffs on this team do not have his back. When he was saddled with Bryson, they really struggled. It’s hard to imagine a plan where you have a 5’10” defenseman being the “big” player on a pair, but they tried it for almost 250 minutes this year. As a third pairing guy, he was adequate. Some of the time with Byram and Power when it seemed like they were experimenting to see if anything could click, he was not the guy I had issues with in terms of his play.
Bowen Byram: D is for Defense. The ES production was there but not so much without Dahlin. He isn’t dialed in as a PKer enough to help them shelter minutes for Dahlin (who they seem to want to use to his offensive strengths) or Power (who sucked on the PK) so they plugged him in behind Samuelsson on that unit just to have a body out there. The skating and offensive slashing pinches are top notch, dynamic, fun even. But he’s another guy who other than playing a full season for the first time ever didn’t really make strides. There are holes in his game. And if the demand for his contract are on par with the overpaid Power… see ya.
Owen Power: D is also for D'oh. Such a gifted transition player and yet so very incompetent at the function of defending. He takes away no space, has begun taking terrible lines to positions and pucks in his own zone and is failing at rotations in his own zone. He drifts, which is also new, since he’s stopped checking for others around him as he did at lower leagues. He doesn’t need to mangle people but needs to learn to play like he has a pulse when trying to get to positions and tie up sticks around his own net and that’s been missing for as long as I have watched him going all the way back to the Steel in the USHL. He can turn pucks up the ice well and used to be dangerous as a forechecking and pinching option, but that’s also slipped which may be partially due to how terrible some of the Sabre forwards are at covering for pinching defense. There were rumblings of conditioning being an issue and questions about preparation coming into the season. His impacts improved late in the year when his minutes went down. He is a terrible penalty killer because he’s slow to process what should be instinctive plays to deny time and space to shooting lanes. $8 million for a guy who needs to be sheltered… it’s a tough look especially for a guy who has such a lack of a pulse, such a lack of intensity. Like Housley, he does not seem like a winner. There is no fire to win a battle there and for someone that big, imposing his will on a game should be so much easier with his wingspan and ability to pass the puck. Defend well, strip pucks, transition… but it isn’t there.
Dennis Gilbert: D. Local, sure. Threw hands when needed, even when it wasn’t on him to do so. But a limited player who could not overcome his own limitations. The whole “want to be here” thing gets weird when a team not only trades a local kid but someone who had an uncle who worked for the team for years (hey Mike, hope all is well with you). I would take him as a 7 to fill a role but the way the team plays defense… he’s not the top guy on my list for that.
Mattias Samuelsson: F. FU. Big, rangy, able to play a shutdown game… and yet standing around watching things too often. Again, another guy who was worse this year than last, and worse last year than the year prior. He stayed a bit healthier, though at the cost of also being supremely disengaged from using his body to do what he’s around for – namely pin people out, move bodies away from the goal and let his partner roam. His penalty killing wasn’t particularly good. The Thompson-Noesen incident was one black eye, him hurting himself while skating casually into a scrum earlier in the year was another. This is not the same player from Rochester or WMU.
Henri Jokiharju: F. As in get f*** out. Why did they qualify him? Why did they not take whatever they could last summer and simply move on? This is where management decisions do bleed into the grades, but Henri continued to struggle with positioning and being mesmerized by the puck. If a puck is bouncing off him, it’s probably going to an opponent or into his net. The adage that the puck doesn’t lie – well then, his puck luck is indicative of the player. Not physical, and he takes too long to process offensive opportunities, regularly caught up the ice when he should be the release for more offensively talented guys. One of the things I used to watch would be how often he would have the puck on his stick, compared to his two most frequent partners in Dahlin and Power… and I would regularly see him handling the biscuit more than his partners. The processor isn’t as fast and instead of coaching him into being a one-touch guy before moving the puck on, he was still doing the same things over and over again.
Jacob Bryson: F major like a chord in a song. Re-signing a guy who should be their veteran 8 during the season is backasswards management. He’s small and mobile, but terrible offensively. There is no impact to him being on the ice at the scoring end of the rink… again. I wouldn’t mind him as the 8 – he’s only there due to a series of injuries, shouldn’t be in the lineup regularly, and would be better off on the farm. But nope, that’s not how he was used. And the reasoning? The comment that he is okay with not playing? C’mon Adams… that’s not in-season business. I can think of half a dozen AHL AAAA guys who could give them the same sort of game in an 8 that I would take over Bryson at this point.
Ryan Johnson: Incomplete. It seems like they like his work in Rochester but he never got the call with them carrying 8 much of the year. It didn’t help that his only look was when the entire team was in freefall during the December to Remember losing streak. Like his work in Rochester, I would hope he has a great spring to get on either their radar or be useful in trade.
On Defense:
Marty Wilford: F as in f*** Off. Please take him and his oversized chin and fire them into the sun. No one he has worked with has markedly improved their game. I would assert that several key members of the unit have regressed season on season with him as their coach in Power and Samuelsson. The only player who has seemed to grow was Dahlin – the guy who was marked to be the next great defenseman, 1OA, who still has things in his game that need to be better. He cannot, must not return in any capacity and retaining him was one of the cheapskate ways the front office failed this team again.
Rasmus Dahlin: A- and one of the few. Best ES production by a Sabre defenseman in the team’s history, tied for seventh best of all time with the only players above him being his own best season and Housley’s offenseman days. He finished the year fourth among all defensemen in scoring. And they didn’t win a game without him in the lineup. He tipped the ice in their favor offensively on par with guys like Makar and Fox again but with this clusterfluff of a lineup. He dragged respectability out of multiple partners. He seemed like he cared and played through some things early trying to best help the rest of the team. And yes, there as always remain things to clean up.
Jermey Bernard-Docker: C. Just a guy and luckily a RHD. Some of the fancy stuff was good, some was terrible. I didn’t mind how he played his position but for a team that needs to get something more than just having two RHD third pairing guys, maybe there is a smidge more there. Most of the time, he was the sort of unnoticeable that one wants in defenseman – he’s not making many mistakes but is also not making many highlight plays. Maybe they have something. Maybe he played on adrenaline upon a new arrival and is nothing more than right-handed Kale Clague.
Connor Clifton: C minus, like his initials and his height. His confrontational robustness shrank over the course of the year, probably because he now understands that the cream puffs on this team do not have his back. When he was saddled with Bryson, they really struggled. It’s hard to imagine a plan where you have a 5’10” defenseman being the “big” player on a pair, but they tried it for almost 250 minutes this year. As a third pairing guy, he was adequate. Some of the time with Byram and Power when it seemed like they were experimenting to see if anything could click, he was not the guy I had issues with in terms of his play.
Bowen Byram: D is for Defense. The ES production was there but not so much without Dahlin. He isn’t dialed in as a PKer enough to help them shelter minutes for Dahlin (who they seem to want to use to his offensive strengths) or Power (who sucked on the PK) so they plugged him in behind Samuelsson on that unit just to have a body out there. The skating and offensive slashing pinches are top notch, dynamic, fun even. But he’s another guy who other than playing a full season for the first time ever didn’t really make strides. There are holes in his game. And if the demand for his contract are on par with the overpaid Power… see ya.
Owen Power: D is also for D'oh. Such a gifted transition player and yet so very incompetent at the function of defending. He takes away no space, has begun taking terrible lines to positions and pucks in his own zone and is failing at rotations in his own zone. He drifts, which is also new, since he’s stopped checking for others around him as he did at lower leagues. He doesn’t need to mangle people but needs to learn to play like he has a pulse when trying to get to positions and tie up sticks around his own net and that’s been missing for as long as I have watched him going all the way back to the Steel in the USHL. He can turn pucks up the ice well and used to be dangerous as a forechecking and pinching option, but that’s also slipped which may be partially due to how terrible some of the Sabre forwards are at covering for pinching defense. There were rumblings of conditioning being an issue and questions about preparation coming into the season. His impacts improved late in the year when his minutes went down. He is a terrible penalty killer because he’s slow to process what should be instinctive plays to deny time and space to shooting lanes. $8 million for a guy who needs to be sheltered… it’s a tough look especially for a guy who has such a lack of a pulse, such a lack of intensity. Like Housley, he does not seem like a winner. There is no fire to win a battle there and for someone that big, imposing his will on a game should be so much easier with his wingspan and ability to pass the puck. Defend well, strip pucks, transition… but it isn’t there.
Dennis Gilbert: D. Local, sure. Threw hands when needed, even when it wasn’t on him to do so. But a limited player who could not overcome his own limitations. The whole “want to be here” thing gets weird when a team not only trades a local kid but someone who had an uncle who worked for the team for years (hey Mike, hope all is well with you). I would take him as a 7 to fill a role but the way the team plays defense… he’s not the top guy on my list for that.
Mattias Samuelsson: F. FU. Big, rangy, able to play a shutdown game… and yet standing around watching things too often. Again, another guy who was worse this year than last, and worse last year than the year prior. He stayed a bit healthier, though at the cost of also being supremely disengaged from using his body to do what he’s around for – namely pin people out, move bodies away from the goal and let his partner roam. His penalty killing wasn’t particularly good. The Thompson-Noesen incident was one black eye, him hurting himself while skating casually into a scrum earlier in the year was another. This is not the same player from Rochester or WMU.
Henri Jokiharju: F. As in get f*** out. Why did they qualify him? Why did they not take whatever they could last summer and simply move on? This is where management decisions do bleed into the grades, but Henri continued to struggle with positioning and being mesmerized by the puck. If a puck is bouncing off him, it’s probably going to an opponent or into his net. The adage that the puck doesn’t lie – well then, his puck luck is indicative of the player. Not physical, and he takes too long to process offensive opportunities, regularly caught up the ice when he should be the release for more offensively talented guys. One of the things I used to watch would be how often he would have the puck on his stick, compared to his two most frequent partners in Dahlin and Power… and I would regularly see him handling the biscuit more than his partners. The processor isn’t as fast and instead of coaching him into being a one-touch guy before moving the puck on, he was still doing the same things over and over again.
Jacob Bryson: F major like a chord in a song. Re-signing a guy who should be their veteran 8 during the season is backasswards management. He’s small and mobile, but terrible offensively. There is no impact to him being on the ice at the scoring end of the rink… again. I wouldn’t mind him as the 8 – he’s only there due to a series of injuries, shouldn’t be in the lineup regularly, and would be better off on the farm. But nope, that’s not how he was used. And the reasoning? The comment that he is okay with not playing? C’mon Adams… that’s not in-season business. I can think of half a dozen AHL AAAA guys who could give them the same sort of game in an 8 that I would take over Bryson at this point.
Ryan Johnson: Incomplete. It seems like they like his work in Rochester but he never got the call with them carrying 8 much of the year. It didn’t help that his only look was when the entire team was in freefall during the December to Remember losing streak. Like his work in Rochester, I would hope he has a great spring to get on either their radar or be useful in trade.
