Ruotsalainen got sent away for the year.

First line is probably right.
Skinner-Staal-Cozens will probably be the 2nd line.
The third line is the biggest question right now if I was the coach it would be Thompson- Ruotsalainen-Reinhart.
4th line Girgensons-Eakin/Lazar-Okposo. If Ruotsalainen doesn’t make the team Eakin will be the 3c while lazar will be the 4c.
Defense will probably stay the same from last year unfortunately they aren’t going to cut Risto’s ice time.
Montour-Ristolainen
Dahlin-Miller
McCabe- Jokiharju.
Ullmark
Hutton.

He really should make the team 15 goals in 16 games in the Liga this year. Plus he’s 23 he doesn’t need anymore development.

No he is just loaned.

I can see a lot of this. Cozens and ruotsalainen could make it very interesting, and thompson, mittelstadt, and okposo could find it difficult to get ice time. The most obvious things i see wrong are- thompson is not a center, girgensons is probably on the 4th line, and montour will probably be the rhd that will play his off side. And of course ristolainen will not be on the third pair, im losing track, but we are on gm #4 and coach #5 and every one of them seems hell-bent on playing him 25 minutes in all situations.

First of all your idea is as good as any of ours as we do not get to watch the chemistry during practice.
Is it not nice to be able to discuss if Olofsson should be on the first or third line as there are many possibilities.
Or which of Mittelstadt, Cozens, Thompson, Ruotsalainen will be on the team.

While we all of great ideas, both Hall and Eichel are great playmakers with Taylor actually getting more pts from assists than Jack.
Who knows what Krueger will do.
I have said this before but up 9 players had career worse years under Krueger.

You can all shoot holes in my lines but here they are:
Skinner Eichel Thompson
Hall Staal Cozens
Olofsson Ruotsalainen Reinhart
Girgensons Eakin Okposo
Mittelstadt Lazar in the press box.
We have to put Jeff back with Jack, both will have career years if we did that.
Tage can use his big body to make space for either of them and pick up garbage goals as well
Taylor can drive his own line as he did in NJ, Cozens will be better than Sam was at the same age, I could easily see him get 60 pts.
That third line could be better than any second line the Sabres iced in the last dozen years.

Either Montour or Miller play LD with many different pairings working well.
With more offense, there will be fewer shots on net and therefor fewer GA.
Let me remind every one only 7 GK who played more than 30 games had a better 5 on 5 SV% than Ullmark.
No GK had a better SV% on shots greater than 30 feet than Ullmark.
Get a better PK coach who will force the skaters to be more aggressive instead of sitting back in the box.
Get a better PP coach who will demand more movement when the team has the extra man on the ice.

It could be a very exciting year with Hall and Staal while adding Cozens, Mittelstadt and Thompson.

Interesting, its 3 lines that could be 3 scoring lines. I dont see reider, who im pretty sure was brought in specifically to help the pk. I dont think thompson is good, like at all, im fine with him being in the lineup, maybe he got better, but i wouldnt put him near line 1.

I as you are not certain about Thompson.
He played very well in Rochester during the regular season this year and last year.
He was the best player in the 2019 Amerks playoffs and the Sabre prospect challenge.
If he is ready, he would be a good addition to the top line.
Let me add, big players take longer to develop.
I think he is one of the tallest NHL players.
Time will tell. TBH his big body could create a lot space for Jeff and Jack to move.

Lazar >>> Rieder
Lazar wins over 50% of his face offs Rieder about 20%
Lazar had more SH TOI/gm than Rieder (his SH TOI was the fifth highest for the flames)
Lazar had the same # of pts and one more goal playing 17 fewer games than Rieder.
Lazar had a better PDO and much better +/- than Rieder, while having a much lower OZ starts than Rieder..
I think Adams was mesmerized by Rieder equaling a playoff record with 3 SH goals.
There were much better players than Rieder (or Irwin, or Davidson, or Eakin) to sign and one of them was Johan Larsson.
But my concerns about Adams are for another day as I have already posted twice about his signings.
Now it appears we will have almost $10,440,000 tied up in our fourth line while most teams have less than half of that.

Well that is my rant of the day.
I am sorry if I bored you.

I agree with all of this but continue to believe that Kruger is not a problem. Sure some of his lineup decisions were questionable like benching Miller and playing Bogosian. I have a feeling that must have had to do with something off the ice or something done during a practice though. You say that 9 players had career low years, do you know which those 9 were?

Thanks!
IDK what will happen next year, I know the team is better with Hall, Staal, most likely Cozens and Mittelstadt or Thompson or both.
Will it be good enough to be in the playoffs, IDK.
Most prognosticators say no.
IMHO if a team with Skinner, Olofsson, Hall, Staal, Reinhart, Eichel, Cozens, Dahlin cannot make the playoffs, we never will.

I expected the Sabres to be better in '19-'20 after adding Jokiharju, Miller, Vesey and Johansson.
But they were actually worse.

To your question:'
Miller, Montour, Vesey, Okposo, Skinner, Sheary, Rodrigues, Hutton and Pilut.
I know Pilut has a short career but he went from 6 pts in 33 games to ZERO pts in 13 games, then he bolted to KHL.
One can say Hutton had vision issues, but look at the teams he was asked to play against.
NYR, NYI, TBL, CAR, TBL, TOR, VAN, PHI and VAN for example.
He allowed 5 or more goals in 7 of the 12 consecutive games he lost, some one had to know he was not right, but he was still given tough assignments.
Maybe a case can be made for having too many offensive defensemen and only one puck why Miller and Montour's production dropped like a pebble in a creek.
To me it was obvious the Vesey, Skinner, Okposo, Sheary and Rodrigues were just mis-cast.
Only Jack, Victor and Sam had more pts/60 than Okposo, yet he was relegated to the fourth line duty.
Who puts Skinner with Sobotka?
Rodrigues was coming off his best season, then under Krueger he had the LOWEST TOI/gm than any forward.
Sheary's ice was also limited, but his pts/60 were just behind Okposo's.
Sheary's TOI/gm was lower than Larsson or Girgensons.
We had one scoring line all season, maybe move Sam off of the top line.

The PK was too soft and passive.
Is that fault of the HC or the PK coach, IDK.
It was obvious to me that the killers stayed back in their box and allowed the PP team to roam freely never challenging the shooter nor puck carrier.

The PP unit stood around and watch Jack play with the puck.
There was not any movement.
Everyone was a statue hoping jack would find a passing lane.
Is that the fault of the HC or the PP coach?

I have too much to unpack and I could go on for ever.
But before I close, I was very disappointed that the team never once stood up for Skinner when he was challenged.
Some people question my evaluation, but the result is the team did poorer last year than the previous year.

Absolutely. I agree that many players were miscast. Our depth this coming season looks a lot better than it did last year.