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Thank you for this, this is extremely well researched! and I believe this 100 percent! As long as Norris stays healthy, the overall effect we will see with this team is gonna be massive. I'm hoping the same will be said for Peterka and Kesserling, harder to quantify as one is a winger/scorer and a defenseman but I do believe the same will be true to the overall team cohesiveness

Your last note is the important one. If you don’t have the right guy, you have to find the best guy. Cozens didn’t work. Tuch doesn’t. You might have to try a kid with some skills and hope he grows into the role. Norris has the quick touch thing and the shot. I think we may see him there first, even though he’s not a distributor at all. Another option: Norris has proven he can succeed in the Tage slot. Thoughts on moving him there, Tage to the bumper?

Yes, Norris is worth a shot. Maybe it helps. Definitely need someone who can win that draw more often than not. Regarding the bumper, like my other comment, it's a veteran spot. We think of the point guy as the PP QB but the bumper has to be aware of everything and think very fast (react fast) for an effective PP. You don't get to hold and control that puck you shoot or pass to the right spot almost instantly. You also have to handle the physicality of being in that spot. Quinn plays too soft imo. I don't think we have a guy for that spot at this time.

Been spending the last week of summer on the south Jersey shore. Sunny and mid 70’s all week.

He's not ready. He needs to be faster in his decision making and needs to improve the accuracy of his shot. Eventually I could see it, but that's a complicated spot to play effectively. Effective bumper needs to be aware of everyone all the time.

My previous favorite topic, Cozens and how he hurt the Sabres so much. As far as helping the PP, Getting rid of Cozens is step #1. In the 20 or so games after he was traded, the Sabres were 13 for 52 on the PP without him (25%, which would have ranked about 6th or 7th in the entire league). In the time he WAS with the team, they were about 16.9% with him (5th worse in the league). Finding a guy who can score more than him, or at least someone who isn't a black hole out there (once the puck goes in to Cozens, it never comes back out.) How much did he hurt the Sabres PP? Well the eye test tells me he didn't have vision or passing ability to set up anyone (not all, but many of his PP assists were incidental, not intentional), and many of us think he doesn't see the ice well. As for the stats? -In his time with the Sabres, he is 2nd among forward in PP time (only Tage has more), so he has had tons of opportunity. Most of it on PP unit #1. -In almost 760 minutes of PP ice time with the Sabres over 5 years, he had a total of 12 PP goals. He averages about 2.5 PP goals per year. There are about 180 other forwards in the league with more than 12 PP goals over the same time, many with LESS ice time than Cozens had on the PP. -He averaged 0.95 goals per 60 on the PP for his career. Who on the team is better than that? Benson, Quinn, Greenway, Tuch, Thompson, Zucker...along with a bunch of guys no longer with the team (Reinhart, Okposo, VO, Skinner, Peterka, and Mitts to name the most prominent ones) BTW, Josh Norris in a pretty big 200+ game sample size is at 2.8 goals per 60 on the PP, scoring at almost 3 times the rate of Cozens. -107 guys over the time Cozens has been in the NHL have had over 750 minutes of ice time on the PP. Where does Cozens rank in terms of goals among those 107 guys? 106th. 2nd last. The only guy who scored less PP goals than him with that much ice time was Ryan Strome, but he only had 1 less goal than Cozens but had 16 more assists. -Go back to last year after he got hurt in the fight vs Philly for one additional example: In the In the 4 games BEFORE he got hurt Cozens was on the powerplay. The sabres scored ZERO PP goals in any of those 4 games. In the 2 games Cozens missed, the Sabres scored PP goals in both of those games. When he came back he went right back on PP#1 and they went another 4 games without scoring a PP goal. -In the past decade, 10 forwards have over 500 minutes PP time for the Sabres (Cozens is one of them). Cozens PP shooting percentage? 9.6%. The rest of the forwards combined? 16.3% (none of the other ones are under 10%, just Cozens.) Needless to say, since he has been in the NHL, Cozens is likely the worst forward in the entire league in PP production that got used on a regular basis. Zucker had 11 PP goals in one season with the Sabres, 1 less than Cozens had his entire career here.

Like, you do hear people credibly say: “The Ramones? Sure they were great. But the best DIY punk band ever played in the So Cal valley in the 70s. They never made it big.” You will never hear someone credibly say: “Tom Brady? Yeah, he’s great. But the best QB ever knocked around in a semipro league in Texas in the 1980s.”

The essential, fundamental distinctions between pro sports fandom and music fandom are so vast that I reflexively dismissed the metaphor out of hand.

An interesting philosophical (metaphysical?) perspective. As I think this board makes clear, a lot of fans (supporters? 💀) express their fandom - at least in part - by carefully analyzing what works and doesn’t work with the club’s personnel, strategies, etc. A tale as old as time, really. “Monday Morning” or “Armchair” quarterbacks have been around for decades. I don’t think the foo sh1ts with this. Not even a little bit. Okay - a little bit.

I don’t have to imagine, there are song edits and album rearrangements and mashups all over the internet. You don’t know people who say “great book/show/movie, but I hated what they did with the character…”? Or walk into a house or garden and say “what a beautiful spot, you know what would make it even better…” It might not be your thing but it’s just a common manifestation of the creative aspect of human nature.

The analogies I've used over the years are many. But can you imagine being a fan of a band, and you enhance your enjoyment of being a fan of that band by rewriting all of their songs so they don't suck?

Speaking for myself — but I don't think it's a stretch to project onto others — of course it's not our job, it's an interest and a form of personal entertainment.

What, now you're accusing some of us of being Bob Woods? Interesting. Or are we Adam Oates?

I'll get there. But, really, it's not our job. I do understand why some fans would look at our front office, our coaches and our roster and say, "Only I can fix it."

Another player who is surprisingly ineffective on the PP is Alex Tuch. As in "doesn't deserve the ice time he gets" 198 NHL forwards got 100 minutes of PP time last year. Tuch's ranking: Goals: tied with 15 others at 146th Points: tied with 8 others at 124th Goals per 60: 160th Points per 60: 145th This aren't new numbers. He's averaged 4 goals and 10 assists on the PP over the past 3 seasons despite being second in ice time over that period by a wide margin. You could make he argument he's there for tips, entries and retrievals — which he should be good at — but he's not succeeding

And this is where Josh Norris comes in: 61.2% on PP faceoffs last year. He's also effective on the PP in general: he averaged 3 minutes a game last year and his career goals per 60 on the PP is 2.83 These are the Sabres numbers from last year in that stat: Zucker 3.16 Thompson 1.90 Benson 1.70 Peterka 1.61 Krebs 1.46 Tuch 0.95 This. Or maybe Quinn. Bumper is the most unsettled, least effective spot on the unit. it's a spot that some teams utilize to deadly effect. You need quick hands and quick reads to make sudden plays in tight, the ability to find seams and create space, and an accurate shot. Benson can read plays and pass in traffic better than any other forward, but he lacks separation and a killer shot. Quinn has the hand skills, but frequently isn't sudden enough. Still he creates separation and has a deadly wrister. I think you lean into one of those guys, hoping Benson's shot has improved, or Quinn's willingness to get to the net and make good puck decisions has returned.

Lame. We may have to bag skate you to get you into regular season form.

It all comes back to this.

Lots of good points! On the drop pass. Yes the trailers are often two far behind but at times, Dahlin the primary puck carrier did not set it up correctly. The basic Idea of the drop entry is for the carrier to skate to the attacking defender then set a screen to open a lane for the second skater to exploit a hole or a pass to through 3 remaining defenders at the blue line. Many times Dahlin being Dahlin he just would deak out the defender then drop the pass back (he was better at it later in the year). When he gets past the defender he should just keep going deep into the zone letting people chase him around. It kind of raises the question about why your doing the drop pass in the first place when you have 3 defenders who can carry the puck into the zone against just about anybody? Let Dahlin roll and create behind the net and keep a second D man on the ice to cover the point. The Sabres gave up 8 short handed goals last year and it seemed like it should have been more. They not only have to score more on the power play they have to defend better. Yes it's probably only a swing of 2 or 3 goals but they tend to be important ones when they happen. Wild slap shots that miss the net are part of the reason. 100 mph shot that misses creates a big rebound the other way. Some of the players covering the point were not very good at it. I Thought it might improve with Skinner gone but when Dahlin goes to the net someone has to be back. I am an advocate for using 2 D men on the Buffalo power play. The lack of movement and screens are obvious.

Perhaps a little reminder is in order. Nope, no smoke here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/assault-allegations-donald-trump-recapped

That's fair. It gets me to thinking that having a billionaire owner - especially one who once signed off on a slide deck with a slide that had the word "Lifestyle" in its title and contained a picture of his yacht under construction - is a huge obstacle to being a supporter of a pro sports team.

Some of you guys should put your name in. No, seriously, it's amazing you never got beyond SabreSpace.

Terrific analysis. Everything you described was observable to the hockey unschooled (like me) because the same patten of play almost always existed. What got me the most irritated about the PP was the resistance to adjust, embodied by a stationary Tage shooting the same blasting shot from the usual location. How about some movement, how about players rotating positions, how about more quickly moving the puck? And as you point out, how about taking the puck behind the net forcing the defense to react to you instead of you reacting to the defense? It's the forcing a square peg in a round hole mentality. In this case being stubborn is being stupid. As @LGR4GM has pointed out on a number of occasions, with hockey, like most sports, there is a basic/standard strategy used in the game. It's not rocket science. However, even within its basic nature there needs to be some variation and adaptability to way the opposition is reacting. The Buffalo Sabres have set the standard for bad ownership, bad GM work and bad coaching. What's worse than being stupid is being stubbornly stupid!

I like both terms but currently do not want to be called a supporter because it sounds like I am contributing to Terry’s yacht maintenance program.

As you and others have said, zone entry success would lead to a bump in goals just from spending more time in the zone. I can’t stand watching a glacial paced Power retrieve the puck, dawdle to the red line and drop it 80 feet to kill 20 seconds of precious PP time. The drop pass (30 feet) should be one of 4-5 options to keep other teams guessing.