Comments Welcomed | Buffalo Sabres Draft & Roster

Comments Welcomed | Buffalo Sabres Draft & Roster

well hello everybody Bill Thorton SoCal saber here we’re going to talk a little bit about the sabes today I’m G to cover some of the draft real quickly and then I’m going to talk about the roster status and the free agencies which started today and what’s been going on and my thoughts on it well first of all the draft uh kind of wanted to start it off the way I thought it was going to be a lot better because immediately they start to trade back trade back and so because the number and I’ll show you let me show bring up some stuff and show it to you okay okay round one they traded their 11th pick to San Jose for the 14th and then the 42nd pick so now that means that’s good to me because you got more than what you give away in 14th and 11 they’re CL close enough and then that 14th uh they did use the 14th pick to pick a cona helenius and if you’d watch my uh pre-draft uh video uh there was like three or four guys that are around and said there and and I said that if they get to 11 and these guys are still I would go with the leanness why he’s a center okay centers are hard to come by it’s 511 18 9 pounds fair size 18 years old so we’ll take be a couple years before we get to see him so then in the second round they want uh they use that number 42 pick that they just acquired to get Adam kber an 18-year-old defenseman a right shot defenseman and they’re hard great size 66 215 so then they traded the uh the number 43 pick to Washington for a already established guy Beck malinin 63 at 200 lb a left Winger fourth line we’ll see how all this works out so you know I said okay well we needed looking at the roster we needed to get some third and fourth liners back in there anyway and get get some size on this team all right so then the third line the 71st pick that they got from Colorado they got Brody Zimmer an 18-year-old right winger right shot 511 192 that’s good size he’ll he’ll grow he get even bigger okay fourth round the 108 they pick Luke Osburn a 17-year-old defenseman shoots left 6 foot 172 pounds at well at at 17 years old we can probably expect him to get up to 190 or more I don’t like to see any defenseman under 190 anymore the 109th pick they traded for to uh win a peg for the 123rd and 219th pick then with the 123rd pick they picked Simon Pierre brune an 18-year-old defenseman another right shot 6’2 196 pounds and then we went to the fifth round 140 was traded to Minnesota and uh I don’t know what happened with this 161st I’m I must have missed something anyway going to the sixth round at 100 at 176s they pack Patrick Gary a 20-year- old defenseman left shot 6 foot 185 lbs then in the seventh round they picked up zes zelenoff an 18-year-old right wing six 6 foot 180 pounds and two at 29 they picked up Riser leenders a goalie an 18yar old 6181 that’s a little bit short for nowadays goalies that but my overall feelings about it was wow no little guys this year that’s none of these 5 foot n Daniel Brier type guys so that was pretty cool that was good that that happened anyway so anyway that leads us to where we are now with a with a a bunch of things I I want to show you okay so let me bring up something else here I’m going to bring up you the roster now okay I got a lot of different colors going on here okay the yellows that you’ll see on there they were uh guys that were either unrestricted free agents or restricted free agents and qualifying offers were made to them the one that surprised me and then it turned around to be good is they did not make a qualifying offer to Jacob bryen they let him become an unrestricted free agent okay then they signed him today as a free agent in one year for a lot less than what his qualifying offer would have been so go figure that out the green are the free agents that have been signed as of this video so I don’t know where they’re going well the big thing let’s talk about this first Jeff Skinner contract bought out now that leaves a hole that they need to fill of I’ll say Aver 25 goals who’s going to fill that I mean they got to get somebody in there that’s going to fill that all right and uh you know and they bought them out but so so let me show you what that buyout means for cap pits it’s great for this year but it’s not going to be so great in the future let me show you this one see if I can bring this up for you okay dead cap hits this is Jeff Skinner six years they’re going to be taking cap hits for him only 1.44 this year which is good then it goes to 4.4 then in the third year which is always the the last year of a buyout because it’s a three-year buyout is always the most so they’re going to take a 6.4 cap hit in the third year then it’s going to go to 2.4 for three more years because the buyouts are always twice as long as what the contract was so was this good I don’t know I think it’s the biggest reason not because of offense the biggest reason I think is Lindsay’s in there he wants these guys to play defense better and Jeff’s defense is not you know what you would call the best in there so let me go back back to this roster here again okay so now the greens are guys that you see that we signed as free agents already today Jacob Bryson is a d so yeah he’s going to be on the team he’ll be the sixth or seventh goal or seventh or eighth goalie probably then up in here they picked up this Sam laferty as a free agency they picked up Dennis Gilbert a defenseman Nicholas this guy’s a right- Winger and J and Jason Zucker who’s a left Winger so they’re going to start filling in some of these spots here like I already put the guy from the draft trade right here but you know I’m not sure if some of these contracts are now two-way contracts uh because the details were not Spilled Out on that but they get him and what is malstrom as soon as they get him in the trade he’s a restricted free agent with arbitration rights so that could go any go crazy anyway so anyway they did make qualifying off off I I expect Henry Yoki Howard will be one of our top six go or Defenders pton Krebs probably move up to here I’m saying Brandon brro at Center maybe the guys that I’ve highlighted in blue are guys that I think uh I forgot Isaac Rosen let’s get him colored up here have a really good shot oh yeah coolage I already got him there in the top but let’s get him so Yuri kulage I’m saying makes the team as far as Brandon brro and and uh uh Isaac Rosen which he won’t let me highlight this guy for some reason what’s going on here uh they uh maybe Brandon brro Isaac Rosen maybe maybe may even Matthew seavo maybe he’ll P push bankton KBS back down to the fourth line where he learned a lot from playing a couple years with kyak poo and zamus gergus since he learned a lot he’s got good offensive skills but he can bounce around so maybe they’ll flip him down to the fourth line to get the season started and have somebody like Matthew seavoy make the team we’ve been waiting for this guy he was our first round pick like two or three years ago but he was too young to play play in the AHL so played a little bit there last year so it’s what the roster looks like right now you know I want to show you a couple go back here now to uh so I don’t know what they’re doing with these these signings you know I thought with all that cap space to go out to try to make a big splash well I didn’t make a big splash and uh they didn’t make during the draft you know there was a lot of well well-known names that were moving around during trades and everything so one of the conspiracy theories now is that the Sabers are blacklisted and nobody wants to deal with them team wise for trades that’s the theory I saw that the other day and another one that I don’t like because I am a saber fan I’ve been a Buffalo hockey fan since they were the bison’s playing in the odd in the AHL so I’ve been a fan for a long long time and the one thing I don’t like is already people are saying this is we’re you know the development Camp just starts today and they’re saying if the Sabers don’t make the playoff this year Kevin’s Adams fired my goodness holy we got a long way to go before that’s going to happen and now they’re going to and they’re going to start screaming about it already because he didn’t make make no big trades that’s what I’ve saying so I don’t know what to what to think let’s go back to the contracts again look at this okay the one thing that upsets me a little bit this Jason Zucker that’s coming in okay he’s going to be make got a $5 million cap he’s only one year $5 million capit he’s getting paid more than Alex tuck this year I don’t know why they I they really really re need to renegotiate tux contract let’s get him out here get him get them paid more all right we got some extra money now let’s get them paid and get the these new guys like this I’m sure is not a better player than tck let me look see if I can find something on this guy okay while we’re talking okay boy I can’t find him all right here we go all right he’s been playing a while he’s he’s had uh well he’s been playing since 2013 let me see what he’s got his head set count one two three or three four 20 goal seasons one 30 goal season but it’s been a while his last 20 27 in 2022 2023 with Pittsburgh maybe this is the guy that they want to uh that’s bigger that they want to the fill that uh Tucker I mean Skinner spot get that 20 to 25 goals that they need okay he’s 192 pounds he’s 5 foot 11 and he’s 32 years old so we’ll see how this is going to be interesting how this all unfolds you know and as you’re seeing the me back here let me go to this back here to that down here under goalies see I got a question mark on the goalies I still think they’re going to do a free agent signing of a of a veteran goalie and bring them in to be upl’s backup so that then they can put de Devon Levi into the AHL for one full season instead of up and down and up and down and up and down with the three- goal system and all of that stuff that them give him time to get one at least one year under his belt on there in the AHL before he comes up now because upl’s got to be the starting guy the way he finished after January of last year he’s got to be the starter these are only guesses up here you know with Skinner moving out I put moov JJ petka up here this zooker guy you know maybe zuker would go in here in the second line with the because he’s a little bigger with cousins and Quinn move kulich down here and have another scoring line and you know Jordan greenway’s big so I’m going to be interested to see how all this falls out you know guys go down there and hit that like button and leave me some comments you know it’s a you know a lot lot the digest right here tell me what you’re thinking if you’re not a saber fan what’s your favorite team and what did uh did uh you know uh well what am I trying to say what what is your favorite team so anyway that’s it for this broadcast I hope you enjoyed it and uh SoCal saber saying thanks a lot for stopping by thank you for your support take care of yourselves out there be kind to each other and stay safe

SoCalsabre talks about the Sabres 2024 draft and current roster status in this Comments Welcomed | Buffalo Sabres Draft & Roster video.