The 2024-2025 Roster Thread

Chainshot

Give 'em Enough Rope
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Hard to tell how they value borgen. A year ago would have been that ideal 2nd RD, now his analytics cratered and a lot less positivity.

Not sure what's closer to current league value

Defensive defensemen on struggling teams are often savaged in the fancy stat department. It's the opposite of the coin of 3rd pairing guys who get great charts in limited minute/lower quality of competition time or are on possession heavy teams (think Colin Miller in Vegas).
 

Beerz

Registered User
Jun 28, 2011
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I was critical of the Lindy hire, but I'm not the type to post the same thing over and over.

But what the hell, I've got nothing better to do, here's a mini rant about Lindy and the other issues we've been yelling about for years:
  • Coaching:
    • Lindy is a good story, and he's an actual NHL level coach, which isn't something we've had here since... well Lindy. However, he has a history of mismanaging his goalies, mishandling youth, and not getting the most out certain players (see Meier, Timo). So far to my eyes, he just looks a step closer to retirement.
    • The assistants. For f***s sake, the assistants. Has Marty Wilford ever been any good anywhere? We know that he coached Anaheim's stacked defense to their worst career years, and they were all in their primes. Why is he still here?
  • Roster Construction:
    • This core/leadership group gets a lot of heat for being mentally soft, but the problem remains that they're too young. Of course there's going to be struggles with confidence, consistency, and commitment to system play. Almost all kids struggle with these issues until their late twenties. So we should hurry up and trade more of these kids before they turn 25 :rolleyes:. In all seriousness, there are too many kids, our top 6 has four players that are 23 or younger. FOUR! If we have any desire to win now, we need to swap out two from Cozens, Peterka, Quinn, and Benson for actual skilled, veteran top 6 forwards.
    • A little expansion on the above point: Quinn and Cozens make up a third of our top 6. They have been dogshit. They haven't just underachieved, on most nights they've been our worst players, absolute black holes. That's the biggest problem with this year's team performance. In the past couple years, the kid line thing worked for a few weeks and then they'd go silent for several more, so everyone was hoping that another year would lead to more consistency (myself included). Except somehow, Quinn turned into Nic Deslauriers without the speed and physicality. I'm not a fan of trading guys under 25 that have flashed the way that Cozens and Quinn have in the past, but Adams needs to figure out this bullshit fast. These two impact roster building plans for the next decade.
    • The defense is constructed like shit. And this year the pairings haven't made any sense either. Ruff continually put together Clifton and Samuelsson. Ok, they can be a pain in the ass to play against, which is good, but once they separate someone from the puck neither one of them can make a good outlet pass to save his life. And if they manage to get into the offensive zone, then what?!? That's on Lindy. As for the rest, Dahlin is awesome, he stays forever (and I've been super critical this year). I didn't like the Power draft pick, didn't like him in college, and I still don't see it. He started off with serious signs of improvement, but the same issues keep cropping up and it's been killing us. Oh, and Byram is a completely redundant skillset. Get rid of him or Power, bring in something else that helps (I used to dream about Ekholm, now it's been Weegar for the past few years).
I've been complaining about the coaching for a decade since they got rid of Ruff the first time. Anyone pointing out that it must be the players because we've had multiple coaches, I can't get there. Everyone we've hired is terrible, most won't even sniff another head coaching job. The one that has gotten another chance (Bylsma), is busy driving the Kraken into mediocrity (he'll be out of the league in a year). Besides, players that "aren't good enough here" or "only know how to lose" continue to go to other places and play better and contribute to winning teams.

Honestly, I'm at a loss. I have no idea how to fix it. Ignoring coaching and just looking at the roster issues - I looked at the standings and some rosters, with so much parity I can't imagine anyone is looking to get rid of the type of player we could use.
Could we pry Troy Terry out of Anaheim? The Ducks look dead in the water so I'd kick those tires.
I mentioned Weegar already, but is Calgary looking to make a move?
Can we convince St Louis to do blockbuster type shakeup that would bring two of Thomas/Neighbours/Buchnevich over? I highly doubt it...

Timo Meier was hurt all of last year and had surgery after season...
 
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Der Jaeger

Generational EBUG
Feb 14, 2009
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Given the completely flat response from the team, I can believe he told them no big deals were coming and they believed in the group. And the players were like, if the owner and GM aren’t going to try, why should we?
Eh I don’t think that’s what the players think. Especially after comments like what Clifton said recently.
 

Chainshot

Give 'em Enough Rope
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I would've taken a flyer on Kakko. Seems like he can carve out a solid top-9 role somewhere. Adams should've been all over that trade.

It's possible Drury wanted him far and Seattle is about as far as he can be sent. And Drury would know that Buffalo doesn't suck for certain things having been here for a while.
 
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Steddy33

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Jan 7, 2012
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True true. They could've claimed Eeli and it's certainly possible to make a late round pick for Fabbro before he hit waivers.
And Borgen and Kakko change of scenery type moves. This is why I've had 0 faith in this team for 3 seasons now. They don't have the balls or the brains to say hey it's worth a flyer on a guy. They always act smarter like they're gonna block someone too young or not good enough to make even a slight difference.

That and they love to just throw seasons away like it doesn't matter. Looks like they're going to do that again this season. God they suck
 

Fezzy126

Rebuilding...
May 10, 2017
9,213
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Timo Meier was hurt all of last year and had surgery after season...

Didn't realize that, I was pretty sure he was healthy in the first part of the year before getting hurt later on.

Either way, there's decade of examples of Ruff misusing various guys here.

Thank god Adams hangs up the phone. I would have hated to give up Joker and a 3rd and a 6th for Kaapo Kakko.

Given the type of guys Drury has gone after, you think Joker was a player he was after?!?
 

Chainshot

Give 'em Enough Rope
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And Borgen and Kakko change of scenery type moves. This is why I've had 0 faith in this team for 3 seasons now. They don't have the balls or the brains to say hey it's worth a flyer on a guy. They always act smarter like they're gonna block someone too young or not good enough to make even a slight difference.

That and they love to just throw seasons away like it doesn't matter. Looks like they're going to do that again this season. God they suck

Yep. Like, tossing a pick out for Fabbro means one of Bryson or Gilbert hit the waiver wire. And we're sitting here going "so?" They think their guys are better than they are, clearly. Drives me nuts.

Edit - and it's cheaper to not bring in salary. Cheap, cheap, cheap.
 

Sabre the Win

Joke of a Franchise
Jun 27, 2013
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Didn't realize that, I was pretty sure he was healthy in the first part of the year before getting hurt later on.

Either way, there's decade of examples of Ruff misusing various guys here.



Given the type of guys Drury has gone after, you think Joker was a player he was after?!?
What is he seeing in Borgen? His best asset of being a defensive dman has cratered.
 

Beerz

Registered User
Jun 28, 2011
37,254
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Didn't realize that, I was pretty sure he was healthy in the first part of the year before getting hurt later on.

Either way, there's decade of examples of Ruff misusing various guys here.

True.. but every coach has those. He also has favorites that drive you crazy like Matt Ellis and now Peyton Krebs.

This isn't a coaching problem this is a multi faceted roster construction problem. Wrong mix..along with the lack of top 6 centers.. relying on a 21 or 22 year old scared and soft kid playing 20 plus minutes a night plus pk time when he obviously isn't cut out for it.
 

toddkaz

Registered User
Nov 25, 2022
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Didn't realize that, I was pretty sure he was healthy in the first part of the year before getting hurt later on.

Either way, there's decade of examples of Ruff misusing various guys here.



Given the type of guys Drury has gone after, you think Joker was a player he was after?!?
I think that it doesn't matter because Adams is happy with his team.
 

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