How far away from being elite is Owen Power for the Buffalo Sabres?

How far away from being elite is Owen Power for the Buffalo Sabres?

All right, we got a hilarious end to the LML rumors in Buffalo and a look at Owen Power today and I’ll explain why he is light years ahead after year three of where Rasmus Dalene was after year three. Coming up on the Locked On Sabres podcast. [Music] Your Locked On Sabers, your daily podcast on the Buffalo Sabres, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What’s up everybody and welcome in to this Wednesday edition of the Locked On Sabers podcast and thanks for making us your first listen every day. You can check us out wherever you get your podcast and that does include watching us on YouTube where you can watch the show. Part of the locked on podcast network, your team every day. Be sure to check us out on our Locked On Savers text club as well if you’re looking for alerts or what was going on with Lula Mel this morning. Uh among other things, today’s episode is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. Right now, new FanDuel customers can get $200 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Sneaky Jody Biosi here on today’s show. Excited to get to a lot of things. By the way, one thing did not tease there that we will also get to the Rochester Americans finally returning to action after basically two weeks off, 13-day break between games in the AHL playoffs, which is obviously pretty tough. And we talked to Mike Leone a couple weeks ago and he does not like those breaks, but they had to deal with them. I’m also uh this is the finally realized or figured out what the radio or podcast equivalent is of the Jordan flu game, and that is having a cut on your tongue, which is absolutely the most annoying thing possible. But we’ll get through today’s show. Um, and hopefully I don’t sound like a you know, with my voice as we get through the next 25, 30 minutes with you. get to some hockey talk as the playoffs roll along as well. And you’ve got Leafs and Panthers tonight. And if I’m Toronto, I am tense after being up two nothing and having it look pretty good in game three. That Marshon Gold that bounces in, man, if I were in Toronto, I’d be fuming and maybe they blow it here. We’ll see. That’s easily the most interesting series in my opinion. Before we get to today’s main subject though about Owen Power, as we continue our exit interviews, we look at each player as the season ended last month, what they’ve got to do going into the offseason, what they just did, and what they need to get better at. So, that’s coming up with Power a little bit later today. One of the more interesting players in my opinion looking ahead because the Sabres are going to need some breakout candidates and he might be one of them. But Lou, okay, real quick on Lou because we did a whole show on Lou a couple of weeks ago because he is the most qualified or the most credible, the most well-known hockey executive that was made available at the end of the season. He’s not even technically, I don’t believe, available yet. The Islanders just announced that his contract would not be renewed. So, he is under contract, as far as I understand it, with the Islanders until June 30th. I’m sure he’s allowed to talk to other teams, but he’s technically still working for the Islanders. And there was a report yesterday that the Islanders have considered even keeping him on in a very similar role to what the Sabres are looking for right now, a sort of senior adviser staying in the organization. So, we talked about Lemarelloo and there was the report from Dave Pagnota last week from the fourth period that the Sabres had reached out to Learella and Ken Holland. and LML and Holland were not interested in a senior advisor role, which to me made total sense because LML especially I believe is the type of person just knowing about him for years and years and talking to people that cover the Islanders, Gil Martin from Lockdown Islanders, talked to him about this this morning that Lou wants to have control. Now, he might not be able to anymore. He’s at an age where if he just wants to work in a hockey department, then he’s got to know he can’t have control, but he just doesn’t strike me as any type of person that is going to go work for Kevin Adams. So, when I saw, okay, LML not interested, made total sense. Then, little shocker. Oh, wait a minute. Lou Lamarella spotted at the Buffalo airport and it looked exactly like him. I guess we didn’t know 100% because if you looked at the picture, it is taken from the back left. So, you kind of get a little look at the side of his head, but you see the hair and the bald head and the white hair and like that’s Lou. And it was pretty hard to to think that it wasn’t. Uh 98% chance that that looked like Lu Laarel. So, I’m thinking I know a lot of others were, “Oh, senior adviser LML, he’s here to talk to the Sabres.” When I saw that, I thought, well, we already know he wasn’t interested in senior adviser. Is he here because the Sabres are offering something more, president of hockey operations, bumping Adams up to president and having Learella stay on as the general manager, some other structure that gives him more control than a senior adviser would have. None of that’s true. the funniest thing possible that it could be for Lu Laarel, who confirmed was in Buffalo yesterday. Uh Lu Laarel is just here to update his Nexus account. That’s it. Which, by the way, is something I did a little bit earlier in the week, so I’m very familiar with this process now. Did that for the first time. Nexus, if you’re not familiar with it, is basically like your fast pass at the border. So, you got your own lane all the way on the right. It’s always almost always the empty. you can kind of bypass all the border crossing uh lines and you can get through to Canada if you’re going to and from a lot in and 10 times, you know, 10 times quicker. So, as someone that just did this this week, you have to interview in person. You have to interview in Canada and then you have to interview in the US. You go across the border, they interview you there, they send you back across the border, interview there, and then you’re on your way and they send it to you in a couple of weeks. Just went through this. So, okay, LML has to be here in person, but that’s why he was here. He just had to update his Nexus account. It’s pretty hilarious. I do buy it. I do buy it because I It was hard for me to believe that he wanted the senior adviser role. It is just amazing timing and an amazing coincidence. Maybe it is too good to be true. you. I’m sure some out there don’t believe it because it would be pretty remarkable if hey the same week that the Sabres for the first time in the 40 years that Lemarel’s been working in the NHL are interested in his services, he just happens to have this thing that he has to do in Buffalo, New York. It It’s kind of like the Mavericks winning the NBA draft lottery a little bit earlier in the week. like it’s too good to be true, but sometimes in life things that are too good to be true happen. You know, the power ball is a 300 a one in billion chance to win, but every month somebody wins it. And maybe uh that’s what just happened with LML. It was a one ina million shot that in the same week the Sabres wanted to talk to him, he had to come to Buffalo for something else. Uh, but that’s what Darren Dreger says because Darren Dreger says he was spotted in the airport in Buffalo, apparently there to renew his Nexus. So, if you were hoping for Lulu La Mel, uh, you’re probably not getting him. I do believe though, looking at my text, their text club here for lockedown sabers and Twitter that most Saber fans weren’t really into it, even as a senior adviser. But we talked about him and one thing that I did like about Lemarel that would work for the Sabres is the man was willing to spend and trade draft picks. Four years in a row they didn’t have their first round pick trading for Alex Romanov and Gabriel Jean Gabriel Pio and and others um along the way obviously a Bo Horvat. So he was aggressive um but I’m not sure it’ll matter because I don’t think he’s going to be working for the Buffalo Sabres. All right, when we come back, Owen Power. Owen Power to me is one of the keys to this team taking another step forward. We’ll get to that and why if you are worried about him, I just you should c you should kill that feeling right now. Get to that coming back here on Locked On Sabres. Today’s episode of the Locked On Sabers podcast is presented by Wonderful Pistachios. I love my wonderful pistachios. I always take them out on the golf course. That’s where I like to have them. They’re a go-to for me. Just throw them in the golf bag. And if you’re having a tough round after hole six and you think you need some energy, bam, just handful of pistachios. So, crack into a good source of protein with wonderful pistachios. One of the highest protein nuts. Each 1oz serving has six grams of protein, giving you over 10% of your daily value. Plus, they are packed with fiber and better for you unsaturated fats that’ll keep you feeling fuller a lot longer. Uh, no shells, wonderful pistachios for that graband go ease. That’s what I like. Um, but if you like the shells, you like the crack sound, you know, maybe you just like the snack meditation of it, that’s available to you as well. So, whether you’re running some errands or you’re golfing or whether you know you just need a snack for work, pistachios are the great, wonderful pistachios. It’s a great way uh great snack. Work as hard as you do. Get snacking and get cracking with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit wonderfulpistachios.com to learn more. Back here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast, the Sabres are not, I think, going to hire Lou. Um, we march closer to the draft and then to free agency thereafter. On our exit exit interview series today, we are going to be talking about Owen Power. Owen Power, former first overall pick of the Buffalo Sabres, of course, just completing his third full season with the Buffalo Sabres. He is 22 years old. He will turn 23 in November of this coming season. He is already obviously on his long-term contract. He is a bit of a polarizing player for this team. And I I kind of figure that he will be a polarizing player for the majority of his career. I’m guessing at that because what is one of the biggest criticisms and critiques that you hear about Power right now? It is that he is not physical enough. And that was never on display more than when he was one of the two that were most heavily criticized and blamed for the New Jersey game in February where Tae Thompson got run and nobody did anything about it. The two biggest culprits for not responding to that were your two 65 or bigger defenseman and Matias Samuelson and Owen Power. Now, I always believe Samuelson was more at fault for not showing up in that moment than Power was. Power Power definitely to me always comes off as a guy that does not have that burning hatred fire in him. You just don’t see any emotion on the ice almost ever. You never see emotion in interviews. He’s a very stoic, very well-levelled personality. That’s Owen Power. He is to me the last type of dude I would ever expect to get into any sort of melee, cause a melee. But for me, with him, I don’t really care about all that stuff because he does provide so much value in many other areas. For me, I almost want to forget that he is 6 foot6, 226 pounds, and likely going to get even bigger than that. Although, I don’t want to forget it totally because I do think his size, while not blasting dudes coming across the ice, not really winning many battles in front of the net, he still uses his size in other areas that allow him to provide value. one of those areas that is an area he’s criticized for. I do think he improved at in the second half of this past season 24-25. He got a lot better at shutting plays down in his own end. And whether that was winning a battle along the boards or whether that was having your head up and being one step quicker than the forward with the puck and getting it back and then getting it up the ice and out. lot of good defensive plays, even if they weren’t so heavily reliant on physicality from Power in this past season. That is represented in a lot of the numbers with Power this year defensively. So, yes, though, I hear you. He’s got to get a little meaner. Just a little. If he’s if he’s right now like a like a two out of 10 on the mean scale, I bump get him up to a four. I I would like to see that because I do think he could be a force if he gets into that, you know, that mode, that attitude a little bit as his further as his career continues to develop here. So, that needs to happen or would like that to happen. And the other thing that needs to happen for sure is something that Lindy Ruff talked about with me late earlier in the season on WGR, which is, you know, he just doesn’t have his man strength yet. And you don’t really ever know when that’s going to show up for a guy. He used the reference of Tyler Meyers at the time, how Meyers was frustrated in the first couple years of his career because he had this giant frame, but he wasn’t winning a lot of battles because he wasn’t as strong as guys that were smaller than him, but they might have been 8 to 15 years older and they’ve got that man strength. And to me Myers, it took a few years. Lindy compared that to Power is he doesn’t have it yet. He wants to develop it and there really want that to be a focus of this off seasonason which obviously is why the injury the power sustained going into the offseason is pretty tough. Luckily for everybody involved that’s not going to hold him out into the beginning of the season but it could kill a couple of months of needed training strength training especially for power to get bigger and more physical going into next year. We’ll see what his body looks like when he shows up to training camp, but he will be one of the two, three critical players that I’m going to be looking for that. What does your body look like when you show up to training camp? How much stronger do you look? Power, that will be one of the things. But let’s talk more about what makes Power. Because all these are more the things that you’d like to see him improve on. What Power did last year was establish himself as an all-around great defenseman in my opinion. And a lot of that does come with those shutdown plays that he had in the second half of the year that weren’t as present earlier in his career. But what makes Power is the calm, cool collectiveness with the puck, quarterbacking a rush, and maintaining possession for his own team. Owen Power gives you all of that and he does it with his size. It is very difficult to get the puck from him because he is very smart at using his reach, using his body positioning and leverage. He is a very fluid skater. I would call him even a very good skater just in general. I know he’s not the quickest guy in the world, but he’s not slow with his, you know, quickness either. I think you’re looking at a very good very good player on the offensive end and I do think that is what makes him great and will make him hopefully elite which he is not yet but I think he is on track still to be an elite defenseman in the National Hockey League. I continue to think about Victor Hedman for this and nothing that’s happened through three years when I think I would have first and others would have first compared him to Victor Hedman has me thinking any differently. I think he is a Headman style defenseman the longer and longer he gets going in the National Hockey League. So, what about some of the numbers and why if you’re holding out as like I’m not really buying it. I’m not buying it. I I think he’s too soft. I don’t think he has that number one defenseman upside. Let me just throw out the comparison of Raspusi because after year three, which is what Power just finished up after year three with Dalene, we were in a dark dark place with with Rasmus Dalene. It was tough to watch. He was getting bullied on a nightly basis. He wasn’t creating a lot of offense. He was getting walked night in and night out by opposing forwards. It was bad. And look what he’s become. One of the best defensemen in the sport. Power is ahead of where Dalene was at this point in their careers. Offensively, it’s not that hard to look at. Now, I took out Power Play for this because it’s tough to compare the two on that front because Dene has always been a number one power play defenseman and Power never has. The power play minutes are very different. So let me just look at even strength for the sake of this exercise. In year three, five on five points total. Owen Power 28. Dalene 12 by the way. How about that? 12 five on five points for Rasmus Stallene in his third year. And because they played a little bit different amount of games, that was a co shortened year. More accurate here is going to be points per 60 minutes of ice time at five on five. How many points did you have for every 60 minutes of ice time? You had power 1.25, Dene.74. Huge gulf between the two. and evolving hockey. If you look at their goals above replacement, you have a huge difference there as well, where you have Power in year three is an 83rd percentile defenseman on the overall versus Dalene who in year three was a 31st percentile defenseman overall. So, you have power ahead of where Dalene was at this point. And Dene figured it out. Different types of defenseman in some ways, body types. I know, but I think Power still has it in him and is still even tracking towards being a legitimate top pair defenseman. Maybe a guy that could become even as good as Rasmus Dalene is as he enters age 23, 24, and 25 especially. So, I’m high on power. Now, the one thing we have to mention about power in this segment is the man needs a good partner. And when we start getting closer free agency and the trade market, we’ll do whole episodes on power options. To me, power partner options. It is the number one thing to me the Sabres have to solve this off seasonason of anything on the roster that they need to find. That is number one. You got to get power a good partner. He has played more with Henry Yoki Haru in the last three years than anybody else by far. That needs to be way better. Ideally, a veteran defensive defenseman that takes some of the pressure in his own end off of him, gives him a little bit more freedom to jump up in rushes and make a little bit more of an aggressive offensive mindset. I think that stay-at-home defenseman veteran, maybe a guy that he can really grow with um that has been in the league for five to 10 years at least is the right type of partner for Owen Power. And again, we’ll go through some options on that front. I was texting with a buddy earlier today about Drew Dowy being that guy. Um because I think the Kings might want to move on from him, but you know, well, you know, I shouldn’t say that. I’m not plugged in there in LA. If I I’ll say it this way. If I were the Kings, I would want to move on from him. I’m not sure the Kings agree with that, though. All right, when we come back, the Amirs finally back in action. Preview their series coming up here on Lockdown Sabres. Back here on the Locked On Sabres podcast or for the uh the purposes of these next uh five or so minutes, the Locked on Ammers podcast as Rochester finally gets back in action. A 13game break uh 13-day break is over. They’re back at it in Rochester at home tonight 7:05 against the Laval Rocket who is based just outside of Montreal like basically in Montreal. Um be like referring to the Bills the Orchard Park Bills I believe. So the Rocket this is a tough tough challenge. You might even be able to say that I mean just by looking at the standings you could say this that the Amir’s road to winning the Calder Cup this is the toughest team that they’ll play again basing that a lot on what did these teams do in the regular season and the Rocket were the only team in the AHL this year that crossed the 100 point threshold 72 games opposed to the NHL is 82 games tougher to get to 100 points 4819 and three. This was the best team in the AHL all year long in terms of the point totals. Um shouldn’t say all year long actually because the Amirs were actually above them at one point in time. The Rocket got hot down the stretch and looking at some of their splits and some of their lineup stuff and roster stuff. This team was the best defensive team in the AHL all year long. Allowed the fewest goals in the entire league. Scored almost as much as the Amirs did. There was only a ninegoal difference between the two. They are physical. They are very physical. They are big. They can be mean. This is But to be fair, that was said about Syracuse a lot in the first round and the Ammers had no trouble with that and they responded um in in hindsight to that. So, you got two games here at home in Rochester and big challenge for Devin Levi who only allowed two goals in the first round of the playoffs. And then, of course, best of five, Rocket are actually the better seed. You have two games in Rochester and then three games in Laval. So, you’re looking to get your two home games and maybe, you know, you just got to get one of the three. If you can accomplish that, hey, we just need one of the three out there. That mentally, I think, is the right way to approach it from the Amir’s end of things. So, you get a couple of weeks to get everybody healthy and get some of the bumps and bruises off of. But, Michael Leone, coach of the Emmericks, even told me said in the press conference again today, like he’s not really a big fan of these long, long breaks we have in the AHL. uh both teams are doing it and you kind of gota you kind of got to make do with it. So was looking at some odds on this today by the way. There are odds on this. The Amirs are underdogs in this game. The only odds I found in was just for the 60inute period. So you know what the score is at the end of 60 minutes of play. The Rocket favored at plus 112. The Ammers plus 170 and then a draw to the basically the game to go to overtime is plus 325. So the Rocket are favored in this series. If you’re wondering about big names on their roster going into this series, um, as a casual observer of the AHL and a more hardcore NHL guy thinking about prospects and whatnot, like there’s not really a ton here when it comes to these guys on that play for the Rocket. um highlevel prospects and like guys that were drafted super high like there really there really isn’t much um so far put it this way in the playoffs Lauren Dewin all these French dudes going to be tough for me six points in four games Alex Barry Buouyet also six points in four games have been the two leaders Logan Mayu one player that some people might recognize because he was a first round pick and he had that you know that incident Ident shouldn’t call coincident. He had that revenge porn thing that happened a couple of years ago um that he did and was a do not draft guy for many teams. He plays for Laval and he had three points in the first series in four games as well. And then when it comes to the when it comes to the goalending, uh Jacob Fowler is the name that you’re looking at and he had 61 saves and 64 shots in round one against Cleveland. That’s a 953 save percentage. as good as Deon Levi was in round one. This guy was almost as good. So, you’ve got a big matchup, best team in the AHL all year long. And um it’s going to be a a slugfest I think between these two teams that I’d expect it to go five just reading through the numbers on these teams and their splits and the the records on the year and you know the Amir did not necessarily have a great uh success against this team during the regular season. Their most recent game being a 4 to2 loss in April but they did have some injuries in all of these games they played against the Rocket. Um, in fact, I believe I must have wrote it down wrong. Maybe they did lose every game they played to the Rocket all year long. No, they had one win. There was one win back there in uh in December. Um, and then another one in November. Forget to look at the early part of the season here. Uh, so two wins on the season and a bunch of losses against the Rocket. So, good luck to the Amirs home game. And if you’re looking to go to a game that a little bit tough for this series if you’re based out of Buffalo because you got a weekn night game here. Um but you’ve got Friday. Friday night 7:05. That to me is easily the number one game that if you’re a Sabre fan looking to go to an Amir playoff game you should be looking to go to. Friday night 7:05. All right that’s going to do it for us. Thanks everybody for listening. And if you want to check out some more in the Stanley Cup playoffs, be sure to check out Locked On NHL Game Night. Every game, every night until a Stanley Cup champion is crowned, check out Locked on NHL Game Night on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast. And we’ll talk to you tomorrow after the Amirs. Hopefully win here on the Lockdown Savers podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

Sabres defensman Owen Power is a lightning rod for Sabres fans because of his lack of physicality, but his offensive game and improved defensive game have him closing in on being an elite defenseman in the NHL. Sneaky Joe compares Power’s third season to Rasmus Dahlin’s third season, in which Power is light years ahead of where Dahlin was.

What does Power have to improve on to become an elite defenseman? When will he develop his man strength? Plus, Lou Lamoriello spotted in Buffalo? And the Amerks FINALLY start their next playoff round.

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