All Activity

Remember the deluge of daily DOGE twitter posts boasting about all their discoveries of fraud and abuse? The more they blew their own horn, the more convinced I was that they are a big nothing burger. Not only haven’t they saved much but, as in the case of the NSW, their cuts actually cost us money. I predict other cuts will end up costing us more as well.

Hey where the heck is @Marvin

Doan and Kesselring ranked 1st and 5th respectively on Utah in terms of Corsi at 58% and 54% They were 7th and 3rd in ESGF% at 53.7% and 56.5% And they ranked 1st and 7th in terms of xG% at 60.6% and 53.3% Neither player was getting the most mportant minutes, but they were clearly winning the battles in the matchups they were seeing.

I rest my case i’ll let your fantastic posts re: what Benson contributed last year as my evidence for why this is unlikely and a poor way to contract a team with an eye on securing winning

Doan

My point was: 1.) it wasn't a failed plan 5 years in a row. 2.) UPL has only had 2 seasons as a 'starter' (more than half the games) and in terms of being very good vs. very bad, hes at 50%. I'm not saying he is going to be good, but I'm not writing him off as 100% bad. His "good" year he was just as 'good' as he was 'bad' last season.

For the sake of argument let’s say Benson’s offence drops off precisely zero when compared to JJ’s. Goals, assists, all of it. Benson steps in and *is* JJ at F, with the same old good D he provided last year who did we add that is the new Benson? Or rather, provides what Benson did last year? We can’t use him twice in the calc: remember, Benson is Peterka’s offence now. We didn’t lose Benson’s D, either. But we need to replace Bensons O now

Analytically speaking, the Sabres have dumped 3 of their 6 worst ESGF% players: Lafferty, Clifton and Cozens. Two others in the top 6 — Bryson and Malenstyn — have been pushed down the depth chart. Clifton, Malenstyn, Lafferty and Bryson were also four of their worst five Corsi players and four of their worst 5 xG% players. The most prominent departure, Peterka, actually had a very solid ESGF% of 54.2%. His Corsi was 49% and his xG% just 45.3%. In terms of real goals, when these players were on the ice at ES, the Sabres were outscored: Cozens 46-56 Clifton 41-51 Bryson 27-38 Malenstyn 17-33 Lafferty 11-26 Peterka was on the ice for more goals against than any other forward, but at 82-77 was a + player overall.

I think if you feed Benson the minutes Peterka got, he'll reproduce that playmaking. I think Buffalo doesn't need to replace the rush offense. They to have another style to play.

Which new player that we added at F is as good of a rush creator, and which F that we added is as good as he is at playmaking, whatever level you’ve determined that to be? Is Peterka’s playmaking regimen replacement level? Is his playmaking “not as good as the numbers might suggest”, or is it “replacement level and thus negligible to the success of the team”. this is the discrepancy I see

Peterka wasn't a good playmaker, he was a good rush creator. I think that's different. You also don't account for any regression in Peterka. His 2nd assist rate matters.

I think it's broader than that. They've added Norris, Doan and Kesselring and they expect growth from Quinn, Benson and Kulich. They also want to score more on the power play. Combined, they think those factors should at least mitigate things. But I think that's an afterthought in terms of off-season strategy. I think they are almost entirely focused on cutting their goals against significantly and transforming from a -20 team goal-differential team to a +20 team, which almost certainly will earn them a playoff spot.

Unless they make another move I see them scoring 240-245 goals.... giving up 265-270. How many goals do you think JJP scores this season? Next season? The season after that? He's 23, he has a few more years before he hits his prime. Nearly 30 goals in back-to-back seasons as a 22 and 23 year old. The types of goals he's scores I don't see there being any regression... just 100% progression.

No I am saying it outright - I don’t think anyone in line to replace him will be as good of a playmaker. Certainly the forward additions we made won’t be I’m not interested in delving into our “we can expect improvement” stock when considering the loss of Peterka. When we are a 79 point team - we need all of that we can get allotted to simply the improvement we *already needed* That’s *had we kept* Peterka It’s not only frivolous because it’s counting on a maybe, it’s frivolous because we are assigning “internal improvement” to so many places we’ve forgotten we are only about to win fraud bingo

@Hank eye roll away, doesn't change the fact DOGE is and was a scam.

These are great numbers But I was referring to front runners though in the sense that we tended to win by a lot, and lose by less. Ie a lot of the goals came in games we didn’t technically need them whether struggling in tighter games is a negative stat has always been an interesting point of discussion. The way we’ve seen the offense move around year over year combined with the overall result lands my bias firmly at “area of concern”.

We're also giving all that Peterka playing time to others. You're saying none of them are as good of a playmaker. If you're not saying that outright, you're heavily implying it.

How is leading the NHL in 1st period goals garbage time? Front running is valid, but garbage time would be leading the league in 3rd period scoring and still have a losing record. The Sabres scored 92, 84 & 86 by period. Those are fairly consistent numbers. They dominated the 1st with a differential of +24 (68 goals allowed). Where they failed is when the game's intensity picked up in the 2nd period, the defense and goaltending collapsed. They allowed an NHL worst 214 goals in the 2nd and 3rd period (107 each period).

Yes, Tage will still score some. But I would wager my house that Peterka’s assists being completely removed knocks down at least a few of the goal columns of other players It is only Peterka’s goals being removed in our calculations. None of his teammates are having his goals taken away. You don’t need to remove one for every assist, but we are removing zero Equally erroneous It goes both ways - Peterka’s goals were indeed aided by the assists he was the benefactor of, too: but I don’t see a reason to suspect Peterka’s offence was any more empty-calorie than than the majority of our forwards

I’ll always leave the nitty gritty to the smarter folk like you all I am presenting to the board is the idea that I believe what JJ contributed on the playmaking front deserves some consideration rather than nothing at all: and I do not see it being considered when it’s routinely oversimplified to “goals.” There is certainly also a playmaking and offence facilitating production gap between Peterka and Doan that also needs to be accounted for i do not believe the apt consideration would be “replacement level” re: JJ’s playmaking.

The problem isn't the youth in the top 6 forwards. Zucker, McLeod, both might end up with Top 6 minutes. Benson might be the only one under 200 games. It's the inexperience in the top 6 defenders. They by their very construction will have only 1 guy with 300+ games played.

You are using 30 as average (based on games played and most likely a two man rotation at the position * teams) and I would consider 15-20 to be average. My definition is his rank amongst other “starting players”. I guess some teams have embarrassments of riches in the position (2 inside top 30) and others teams have better defensive structure that can place two goalies inside the top 30-35. But if your starting goalie is ranked below others second string net-minders, I consider that player below average.

Upl had 1 good year in 5. Bet accordingly.

Tom is right that the fans uphold the true nature of the crest far more substantially than any executive. I always say it: we were here long before them, and we will be here long after they’ve gone on to their next money making opportunity. The frustration with the sabres is that they’re no more striking juxtaposition in sports between how throughly a franchise and its fans need and deserve winning relative to the lack of effort on the part of ownership and management

A real gm could have made the playoffs. Adams is a failure and the Sabres have mediocre to bad stats across the board. Peterkas 2nd assists are a function of him playing with Tage Thompson. If you feel Tage can't score without Peterka carrying pucks in or shooting them in, then say so. Fancy stats tell us how Peterka scores. The question is what does removing that mean for everyone else.