Toggle sidebar

Friedman: Pittsburgh wants Buffalo’s NHL ready prospects

  • Work is still on-going to rebuild the site styling and features. Please report any issues you may experience so we can look into it. Click Here for Updates
FriendlyGhost92 said:
He's been GM for a year and a half. Since that time, he has traded for EK65, who is now rumored to be on the block, and signed Jarry, who he has since waived.

He knows what he wants to do, though?

Was Rutger McGroarty one of those NHL ready players he was looking for?
Click to expand...
Rutger was the one who believed he was ready for the NHL.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
This sounds like HF logic rather than actually building a good team logic. The Sabres are asininely deep in prospects and are already struggling to open up spots for them. They need proven NHL talent and veteran leadership. Saying no to something like Rosen for Rakell (Rosen is the guy that sticks out to me) because "Rakell is 31" is pure HF thinking, especially with how redundant Rosen looks to be in the Sabres system. He's like Buffalo's 5th or 6th ranked prospect.

Like do you want to have the best prospect pool or do you want to have an actually good NHL team? Saying no to a 31 year old cost controlled winger who is currently on pace for 40 goals and 70 points because "he is 31 and wouldn't be as productive here" just suggests you care more about having a good prospect pool than having a good NHL team.

It would be one thing if we were talking about Benson or Kulich, but we're talking about Rosen here. He's a fringe top-100 prospect that seems pretty redundant in Buffalo's system.
Click to expand...

I’m all for spending assets to make our team better. I’m not for throwing away assets just because. If you’ve got a roster player that actually fits the Sabres needs for trade, great, but I’m pretty sure you don’t.
 
PenguinSuitedUp said:
I’m not sure why Buffalo would want him, though. They’re not really in a position to be giving up prospects for 30 year olds.
Click to expand...

What are you on about? No team would benefit more from swapping prospects for 30 year olds than Buffalo would. How's the complete lack of any veteran players been working out for Buffalo the last 15 years?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Turin, Chainshot and Zman5778
tsujimoto74 said:
I’m all for spending assets to make our team better. I’m not for throwing away assets just because. If you’ve got a roster player that actually fits the Sabres needs for trade, great, but I’m pretty sure you don’t.
Click to expand...

In their last game, the Sabres played Kulich (12 points in 33 games) and Kozak (1 point in 8 games) in their top-6. Even with Zucker healthy (seems like he was out), it seems like Buffalo only has 5 top-6 forwards between Thompson, Cozens, Tuch, Zucker and Peterka. And in Cozen's case, he's not really performing well as a top-6 guy.

I really struggle to see how Buffalo doesn't need another top-6 winger, or at minimum wouldn't pretty clearly benefit from getting another top-6 winger. It may not be top-4 defensive RD or 2C level importance, but it still pretty clearly looks like a massive hole to me.

IMO what they should do is that Cozens and Byram for Pettersson trade, bring in Rakell for futures and run with a Rakell-Pettersson-Tuch line. That looks like a damn good line to me and it leaves Zucker-Thompson-Peterka as their L2.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zman5778
Chainshot said:
I'd be thrilled if Buffalo explored Marcus Pettersson - obviously thinking to extend him - for someone like Rosen. I don't care that he's not a RHD, I do care that he's a great defender.
Click to expand...

I was going to say that the Penguins taking Jokiharju back in the deal also made a good bit of sense, but I didn't actually realize that Jokiharju is a UFA after the year. I know he's still RFA aged but I forgot about the "7 pro years until UFA" aspect of UFA eligibility. Either way, he's still fairly young and the Penguins likely need a RHD replacement when Karlsson gets moved, so I think he'd make sense to be included as a throw-in.

I think the Sabres could just run with this in the short term:

Pettersson-Dahlin
Power-Samuelsson
Byram-Clifton

With obviously planning on moving Byram out for forward help sooner than later.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zman5778
Chainshot said:
I'd be thrilled if Buffalo explored Marcus Pettersson - obviously thinking to extend him - for someone like Rosen. I don't care that he's not a RHD, I do care that he's a great defender.
Click to expand...
Yea he’s the kind of player that would do Buffalo a lot of good, just not sure if they could sell the extension to him.

Empoleon8771 said:
I was going to say that the Penguins taking Jokiharju back in the deal also made a good bit of sense, but I didn't actually realize that Jokiharju is a UFA after the year. I know he's still RFA aged but I forgot about the "7 pro years until UFA" aspect of UFA eligibility. Either way, he's still fairly young and the Penguins likely need a RHD replacement when Karlsson gets moved, so I think he'd make sense to be included as a throw-in.

I think the Sabres could just run with this in the short term:

Pettersson-Ristolainen
Power-Samuelsson
Byram-Clifton

With obviously planning on moving Byram out for forward help sooner than later.
Click to expand...
What year is it. Where’s Dahlin
 
Empoleon8771 said:
I was going to say that the Penguins taking Jokiharju back in the deal also made a good bit of sense, but I didn't actually realize that Jokiharju is a UFA after the year. I know he's still RFA aged but I forgot about the "7 pro years until UFA" aspect of UFA eligibility. Either way, he's still fairly young and the Penguins likely need a RHD replacement when Karlsson gets moved, so I think he'd make sense to be included as a throw-in.

I think the Sabres could just run with this in the short term:

Pettersson-Dahlin
Power-Samuelsson
Byram-Clifton

With obviously planning on moving Byram out for forward help sooner than later.
Click to expand...
You want Jokiharju by himself? For a bag of peanuts? I'll drive to Calgary right now, pick him up and make sure he's in Seattle by Saturday. Please?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Empoleon8771
Zman5778 said:
You want Jokiharju by himself? For a bag of peanuts? I'll drive to Calgary right now, pick him up and make sure he's in Seattle by Saturday. Please?
Click to expand...

Yeah I figure he's not very good at this point, but the Penguins just need bodies on defense with how many guys they're going to be trading.

The Penguins defense right now is already really bad with:

Pettersson-Karlsson
Grzelcyk-Letang
Joseph-Pickering
Graves-Shea

And Pettersson and Grzelcyk are almost assuredly being moved out at the deadline. They just need bodies just to eat minutes on defense for the rest of the year.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
I was going to say that the Penguins taking Jokiharju back in the deal also made a good bit of sense, but I didn't actually realize that Jokiharju is a UFA after the year. I know he's still RFA aged but I forgot about the "7 pro years until UFA" aspect of UFA eligibility. Either way, he's still fairly young and the Penguins likely need a RHD replacement when Karlsson gets moved, so I think he'd make sense to be included as a throw-in.

I think the Sabres could just run with this in the short term:

Pettersson-Dahlin
Power-Samuelsson
Byram-Clifton

With obviously planning on moving Byram out for forward help sooner than later.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Jokiharju has some laurels in that he's a right shot and some of his fancy stats at times have been good but that he's a UFA is both strange and perhaps comforting. He's never taken a step to be good at defending and he's their fourth option in terms of puck movers. Shutdown isn't really his game, but that's the role he's cast into.

I would wonder at Buffalo being able to sell Pettersson on extending unless they have some way of knowing they could get it done. Is Zucker who is rumored to want to stay in Buffalo trying to sell them as a place for his former teammate? It stretches even my vivid imagination to think that would happen, yet weird stuff sometimes does come to pass.

------------------------------------------------------------

Seeing some mention Ostlund - he seems still further removed from making the jump, probably at least another full year out at best, probably fall of 2026 is more reasonable. That doesn't seem NHL ready.
 
From a bird’s eye view there is

One team that has a serious need for a controlled veteran presence and they have a boatload of young prospects.

And

One team that has a serious need for young prospects and they have a boatload of veteran players.

I’m not a fan of either team but if I were the Sabres I would want to look at Rust. Is there room for a Rust for Quinn swap?

I can’t really process where the value is in that scenario…I’m not sure what the expectations are for Quinn…but I do know Rust has scored more than 2x as many goals this season and is cost controlled. Tuch Rust is a nice mix to stagger for top 9 wing. Let’s you do fun things with the other wings, mix n match to create diverse threats home/away.

Rust is controlled. Multiple years of term.

I know reports have said he isn’t moving but it’s my guess. Lock it in. If doobey doobey doo wants nice thing he’s going to have to part ways with nice things.

Can’t decide who has to add….i don’t think anybody has to….Quinn’s pedigree makes it tricky….if he weren’t such a high pick I’d be adding on Buffalo’s side, but he is…
 
Last edited:
Leafs87 said:
On a rebuilding team? Neither the missing piece to turn this around….

If I were a Buffalo fan I’d imagine the first round is the highlight of the year. Trading one of their NHL ready prospects (who are we talking about anyways?) would like wasting a year all to get Glass or Rakell….
Click to expand...
There is no rebuild happening. We need a vet top six winger and partner for Power. Rakell kinda checks the box and we are going to be having a log jam soon.
 
StlBigFly said:
From a bird’s eye view there is

One team that has a serious need for a controlled veteran presence and they have a boatload of young prospects.

And

One team that has a serious need for young prospects and they have a boatload of veteran players.

I’m not a fan of either team but if I were the Sabres I would want to look at Rust. Is there room for a Rust for Quinn swap?

I can’t really process where the value is in that scenario…I’m not sure what the expectations are for Quinn…but I do know Rust has scored more than 2x as many goals this season and is cost controlled. Tuch Rust is a nice mix to stagger for top 9 wing. Let’s you do fun things with the other wings, mix n match to create diverse threats home/away.

Rust is controlled. Multiple years of term.

I know reports have said he isn’t moving but it’s my guess. Lock it in. If doobey doobey doo wants nice thing he’s going to have to part ways with nice things.

Can’t decide who has to add….i don’t think anybody has to….Quinn’s pedigree makes it tricky….if he weren’t such a high pick I’d be adding on Buffalo’s side, but he is…
Click to expand...

I think Rust makes a lot of sense for Buffalo but I really doubt he'd waive his NMC to go there. I also think Rust has a severe "what will he do while not with Crosby?" risk that would rightfully scare teams off from him. I think Rakell is a bit less of a risk with that because he was a productive player for a long time while playing for Anaheim.

He does fit the veteran leadership Buffalo seems they'd want to add, I'm just skeptical he'd waive his NMC to go there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: StlBigFly
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom