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Tonight's the night

This is from yesterday at practice: Ellis had his own net meaning he is the likely starter tonight.

Well, I am not a "won the trade" guy. Doan is fine, he is being pushed by getting 1st line and PP minutes. Doan looks more of a middle 6, than bottom 6 to me. Kesselring was the big piece of that trade.

This team never wins 3 in a row and they never win the game that puts them over .500 so...

It seems like we've been here so many times... The glass ceiling they can't break through. So for the Sabres... Getting to this point is the steel rebar reinforced concrete ceiling.

I think looking at xGF% over the course of a week (about 3 games) is a bad idea. xGF is a measure of in part of shot efficiency but also volume impacts it. If my team takes 50 shots from all over and your team takes only 20 from roughly the hd areas, our xGF might end up close. I'd guess what you are seeing in the last week is a Sabres team that played 2 really dominant games and the stats are reflecting that. It is why we have to be careful using stats in the micro, sometimes they look good for a short period of time. The Kansas City Chiefs are a great example. There were loads of stats last year that said they weren't that good of team and they won like 10 one score games. This year they are are like 1-5 in one score games because eventually they got where ppl thought they would. Stats should always be combined with the eye test and should always come with description. Yes, I actually do believe the eye test provides valuable information, contrary to what some might think.

It's the dreaded move above or below .500 game

A guy like Bryson can have a good shift, a good. Or even a good game where he could be the best player for the team over that short period of time. Two things you have to consider however.... What situation was he playing in, as if in who was he playing against and what was the game situation? And also, someone might be the best player for a short period of time, but those numbers should even out over a long period of time. The analytics I don't think are wrong, it's just that when you take such a small sample size, it is just that... A snapshot.

Agreed, you cannot draw conclusions from analytics alone.

Calgary & Vancouver scare me 😃. They shouldn't but that's how the Sabre's roll. I'm saying 3-3 to keep this board alive.

And if one player looks great, guess what? He’s not out there for 75% of the game.

Hockey is the most random of the major league sports (baseball is close). On any given night a team can get "goalied", or they can score a month's worth of lucky-bounce goals. The best teams have a base, a system, a structure, an ethos, to fall back on, that in the long-haul of a season allows them to overcome the randomness of individual shifts, periods, and games. The Sabres do not have that, and there is little reason to think or hope they are about to, because having it starts with off-ice leadership (owner, GM, coach).

Maybe? Isn't that why they brought Ventura in? Not sure how much influence analytics has had on recent acquisitions. It was more of a joke than an actual statement of fact though: If the Sabres were built based on analytics rather than traditional scouting, it would follow that they would look very good analytically but that does not necessarily lead to winning. Haha. Get it? Haha.

2 wins, 4 losses.

It's hard to suggest after 14 years it has anything to do with luck.

The analytics department built the Sabres?

Methinks you are suffering from the shiny new toy effect.

I like some of the analytics... And they can tell you a lot, but you cannot draw absolute conclusions from them.

And that last one invalidates their statistical method. 😉

Because you keep taking shots at stats and you're flat out wrong. I know it's hard for boomers but we're not required to just let you spout whatever and then not counter it with facts. Stats literally tell you about things happening on the ice. That's what they do, you wanna argue that they are interpreted incorrectly go for it. You don't understand the stats, what they tell us, or even all the ones that exist. I'm not required to also ignore them because of your knowledge gap or to not defend them for the same. There is so much evidence the eye test doesn't tell you everything. Let alone before we introduce bias into the eye test. Eye test is tool, subject to the whims of the watcher.

Matches the eye test, actually. He's been playing very well. This is what happens when you let the analytics department build the team. The team looks great but still loses.

I hope as a fan that I never get to the point where I’m so enamoured by a GM’s work that I would defend their every move, even when they make an obvious mistake on a player transaction. I hope the opposite is also true. I think we fans are generally too quick to want to declare winners and losers in trades. Given the ages of these players, there is a long way to go on judging this one. I was not thrilled with the trade at the time, mostly because I thought, and still think, Adams backed himself into a corner and was reacting to a negative situation of his own creation, rather than proactively making a trade to make the team better. I would not reverse the trade today though. Right now, as with the McLeod and Byram deals, I am pleased with the trade on the micro-level, but it has not proven to be very impactful on the macro-level.

Extend him!

They’ll go 4-2. Losses against EDM and WPG. Then again they could go 2-2-2 picking up just half the points available which I think is what they are on track for the season.