I think ppl shouldn't look at his junior number and expect that with the Sabres.. Because he's low on points doesn't mean he's under performing. Its clear the org see's him as a bottom 6 player who can win faceoffs, win battles and kill penalties. How he is being used in Roch is what to expect when/if he comes to Buff. Him and Cederqvist have really good chemistry (at least to my eyes) and can see the both of them be in our bottom 6 in the future.
D is a priority, of course, but if you can get a good striker at the right price, why not? Our third line is still in need of improvement, and Cozens' link has also cooled down a bit and received criticism from Granato. We really have a lot of assets with which we can improve 2-3 positions and our pool of prospects will still remain huge.
I love Konecny and wanted him at the draft at 21 but we got Lehner instead. I completely agree the defense should be the focus but the market seems like it will be much easier and cheaper to get a forward.(unfortunately)
Well, I hope Adams has been calling teams like Columbus, Arizona, Chicago, Philly, San Jose, Vancouver, Nashville, LA and Anaheim all this time and asking about cost of their players.
Maybe we can get a 3rd line forward and a top 4 in a trade if Adams takes back a Salary dump. Who knows the possibilities. Lets hope we are buyers at the deadline. Faceoffs is a big problem right now. Either someone needs to get better or we need to bring in someone.
If Buffalo traded for Chychrun in January, I would not protect the 1st rd pick for two reasons - lower the cost of additional trade assets, and I would expect the team to be better and compete for a playoff spot so why bother protecting.
It's not even necessary to return cap dump, especially since teams like Anaheim, Chicago, Arizona and San Jose are rebuilding and we have a lot of assets to trade: picks, prospects, players who may need a change of scenery and can be available (Olofsson and Mitts).
Honestly we don't know it, I just remember the whole Sabres media painting him as a culprit.
Not if it costs Kulich
I would argue that Chychrun immediately makes our defense like Tampa and Colorado, when they could use top 4 players even in the third pair, and they had a good balance of ice-time players and in case of injury, such a player immediately goes to the top 4. Granato just doesn't want to use all of our AHL defensemen for too long and rightly so, but Dahlin, Samuelsson and Power just get tired of playing 25+ minutes a night. Chychrun would greatly help with this.
Have Chychrun anchor his own pair and play more even minutes across the pairs. Depth issues resolved. Everyone gets to breathe except the opposition.
A lot of possibilities with Chychrun on team.
There's no arguing with this. It's true of every player.
He is a decent player there, but I don't think he would be here. Without any info besides my own gut feeling.
It was the right call. The decision not to upgrade that position is the one that should be questioned (Lybushkin is a lateral move at best).
100% a fair point. But you already have the following ELC players potentially trickling into the lineup over the next 5 years
