Quoting: DickFoligno
So the fascination with Zacha for me is, he brings a lot to the Sabres that team currently lacks. I mean I agree with you in the sense that he's not an elite player, and may never be a guy who gets you >60 points. But he brings a lot of traits to the table the Sabres lack, and he's also still relatively young. I really feel the Sabres can use another really good two-way forward in the lineup, someone with the potential to be a solid middle six shut down center someday, and they could also use more size up front. The other thing is that he's a good penalty killer, and the Sabres don't have enough of them and Zacha was one of the key penalty killing forwards on a top 7 penalty killing unit in the league
Zacha has also slowly improved offensively in each of the past three seasons. This past season he was on pace for a 40 pt season. I'd say right now, Zacha has shown his floor is probably a 30-40 point third line center with a lower ceiling of 50 point middle six center with decent defensive abilities. Whereas with Mittelstadt, right now he is boom or bust, he's got to make back to the NHL and he needs to get his body and mind reconditioned for the NHL. And with Dylan Cozens likely to get every shot to make the NHL next year, and with the addition of a guy like Rossi, and with added pressure on the organization to get immediate help for Jack Eichel, Mittelstadt may not be able to provide that fast enough,and he will have a tougher path back to the NHL, while Zacha we know can at least fill a swiss army knife role on the team, help the penalty kill, play a shutdown role if needed, and center the 2nd, or more likely third line.
The hope for Zacha in acquiring him though is that he develops into one of the top two-way forwards in the game, and a guy who can get you 50 points.
Thank you very much for your great reply.
I normally get, "Well you are too stupid too understand so I am not going to waste my time."
I agree the PK needs help and I am at a loss why they did as poorly as they did. Maybe Zacha is the answer/
I know I am in the minority here but Buffalo is really close to being a cup contender. Go ahead and laugh.
Only 8 teams gave up fewer 5 on 5 goals than Buffalo and all of them had much better goal tenders than Buffalo:
Boston Bruins - Tuukka Rask
Dallas Stars - Anton Khudobin or Ben Bishop
Colorado Avalanche - Pavel Francouz or Philipp Grubauer
St. Louis Blues - Jordan Binnington
Tampa Bay Lightning - Andrei Vasilevskiy
Columbus Blue Jackets - Joonas Korpisalo
Arizona Coyotes - Darcy Kuemper or Adin Hill or Antti Raanta
New York Islanders - Semyon Varlamov or Thomas Greiss
IMO our defense is strong and only going to get stronger.
Who could have predicted Hutton would totally collapse.
Buffalo needs to add one more top six Right handed forward, improve the PK and GK.
I am not a great hockey mind, but let's give Sam two good wingers and put him at center.
He is a great passer and has demonstrated that skill the past few years.
So here is my line up:
Olofsson - Eichel - Kahun/Cozens/Mittelstadt/Thompson
Skinner - Reinhart - Hoffman/Dadonov
One of the top 4 RW candidates - Johansson - One of the top 4 RW candidates
Girgensons - Larsson - Lazar/Okposo
Jack can make anyone score, give Sam some wingers and he will get you 60 pts.
while 60 pts may not seem a lot only 66 forwards had more pts than that in 2018-'19. Three forwards on each top line 31 teams 93 top line forwards,
Here is another good laugh. I moved Johansson and Miller to cap space, the took on Lundqvist's cap hit with first.
You will be greatly amused because I traded for Zacha in which I gave up a pick with Miller.