Taro T

That's one way of looking at it. More succinct, too.

Haven't been here the past 2 months, but IMHO the disconnect is that while Byram MAY be that guy that can be a top 4 (or maybe even top 2) D-man he's too young right now to do effectively on a bad team that isn't particularly well coached. Byram was available from the Avs because they needed a 2C TODAY and while Bryam can become a top 4 or even top pairing guy, he isn't that on the Avs team that REALLY NEEDED a 2C TODAY because they are in the heart of their window. Byram's window is on the same timeline as a large portion of the rest of this team. Which, while IF the team is good enough to get into the playoffs this coming season would be a great thing because the team SHOULD continue to get better simply flipping the calendar over for the next 2-3 years. But if they miss again, how many of the guys that actually are in their prime are going to "lose their love of the game." Didn't like the trade for 2 reasons: 1. Really like Mittelstadt and his finally reaching a level that he teased he could reach for at least a couple of seasons so that now that we've watched him go through the growing pains but he's now actually a good hockey player he's gone; and 2. rather than bringing in a D-man that's in his prime, which is what we should've hoped would come back for him we got a D-man that's 4 years shy of his prime. He flashes some very good play, but he's still only 22. It's not the fast, puck-moving D-men that the Sabres have too much of; it's the barely in their 20's D-men that the Sabres have too much of. Clifton is the elder statesman and Jokiharju is the only other regular older than the still very young Rasmus Dahlin.

No. Again, that 55% that O'Reilly has (if that is in fact his win %age; for sake of argument, will agree it is) is the aggregate of how he does on ALL face offs. He doesn't give a rat's bippy whether he wins the game's opening faceoff or some random faceoff outside a blue line. He is going to lose more of those than he's going to lose when he actually gives a care. Can we at least agree that the poor faceo off guy going up against O'Reilly is going to try hard EVERY faceoff, so that he doesn't look stupid losing even more often than O'Reilly is going to try on one that doesn't matter? Let's say there are 20 faceoffs total that O'Reilly takes. (So we can easily get to that 55% - 11 out of 20) He doesn't care about the 8 in the neutral zone and only wins 3 of those but loses the other 5. (Though he doesn't care, he still comes close to winning 50% even though probably only 1 of those wins is clean.) Well, of those other 12 faceoffs that ARE important, he's won 8 of them and only lost 4. So, the next time he takes a key FO, we expect him to win 2 of of 3 of them rather than only 11 out of 20. Also, of those 8 he wins, he's probably going to win more of them cleanly than he'd win cleanly on ones he doesn't care about. Not sure how to explain the concept any clearer without writing a dissertation. (And YES, ALL of these #'s are hypothetical. But would wager that he's better on ones that matter than ones that don't.)

The one in the offensive zone will likely win it more often than not, as he has the edge of better positioning relative to the opponent's stick placement. But O'Reilly isn't going to win the "key faceoff" against an "average" opponent ONLY 55% of the time. He'll win it significantly more than that because he's better than the other guy and he actually cares. That 55% or whatever it was that was quoted for him takes into consideration all those FOs that he didn't really give a rat's rear end whether he won or not and even included a few where the PLAN was for him to LOSE the draw. And sometimes, if you've got a good coach that cares about matchups, even one of those ho-hum draws could be important. Suppose Detroit's 4th line had just been on a short shift in the 2nd period on the road and there's a draw at their offensive BL. The bald guy decides to keep the line out there because Crosby's line isn't due up until 1 more shift from now but the Pens coach throws a modestly (though not fully) rested Syd & crew out there. They win that draw and then force the play in the Detroit end forcing high %age chances and an eventual icing. It was a nothing faceoff; but it enabled the Pens to start to generate flow and momentum. In the aggregate and on the average would that FO matter when lumped in w/ 100's of others? It wouldn't seem so. But if it was parsed down and viewed as the event it was; then yes, it did most likely matter. That seems to be what those who say that FOs do matter are getting at. In general, they don't; but they individually are and all other things being equal, FO skill is a very good skill to have. Lastly, FO proficiency is HIGHLY correlated with age/experience. Rookies are typically very poor at it but if they work at it and get stronger, they can get much better at it. Another downside to having such a young roster. Could see Cozens becoming a very good FO man; maybe even Krebs. But they're both pretty bad at it right now.

Have no idea what stats YOU quoted. The posters my 2 replys were directed at were replying to somebody other than you. And yours truly's comments were in relation to that poster and the one he was quoting. Considering you were not the person the reply was directed at, it is not at all surprising that it has nothing to do with what you said previously. 😉 Don't know what those were. Have about 5 minutes between tasks to take a quick look at this site. Didn't go back and reread the previous 2 pages of posts in this thread.

So, you don't see that there is a situationality to when O'Reilly or Crosby win those FOs? Would almost have money on it that O'Reilly's career FO% is higher in the O-zone than it is in the neutral zone. Could see either or both of them (meaning ROR or Crosby) being right around 50% there because it doesn't matter as much as other faceoffs matter. Would also expect that his D-zone win rate is higher than average even though it's likely lower than in the O-zone because he doesn't have the same advantages in the D zone as in the O zone. Where and when a FO occurs goes a long way towards just how hard a guy is going to try to win it. He's not going to get his opponent used to facing his best move and possibly figuring out a counter at CI or the other guy's BL very often.

Yes. There's also the fact that really good faceoff specialists oftentimes don't go "all out" for neutral zone face-offs or others that may not be happening at critical times; but they darn sure are going to use their best moves to get the win when it could mean the difference between 2 points and 0. Would also be interested in seeing FO %ages broken out by handedness (LS, RS, CI) and where the faceoff occurs (O zone, D zone, or neutral) as those will also factor into how well a guy does at the dot. The teams definitely have that info; not sure if the other sources make that public or not. Plus, on every single FO, a winner and a loser is declared, but many end up in an additional scrum or 2 as there isn't a clean win and those tend not to be dangerous very often; but a clean win in the offensive zone will far more often than not result in an uncontested shot where the goalie has to be moving to square to the shooter. It's a free high danger chance and those turn games. And that clean win in the D zone can lead to a nice breakout rush that some teams are very poor at defending. (Heck, not faceoff specific but look at the Sabres PK. There were times where they were worse off due to a clear than had the puck continued to have been bouncing around harmlessly in the corner because the opponent got a full head of steam bringing it back up ice and the Sabres had no idea on how to slow that entry down until the puck was in the slot and it was too late.) And, as you would almost definitely agree, faceoffs don't matter - except when they do. And a whole lot of small don't matters can add up to a big does matter. (That last one not just referring to FOs.)

Back in the day, teams almost never had 8 D on the roster; they'd run 7 D and 14 F's. But with limited practice time and whatnot with the most recent CBAs, it seems teams have a tendency to run with 8D and only 13Fs as it makes practices run much smoother. (If you're running 1/2 ice drills, you always have a line and a pairing resting up ready to go next and if running full ice drills, you've got one of each ready to begin play from each end.) Until we see them run 14-7, am going to assume it'll be 13-8.

Truthfully, didn't realize that they'd consciously chosen to end the salute. They did do it after the Washington game to end the home portion of the season. Hadn't honestly noticed that they weren't doing it after any wins between those 2 games and wasn't here since mid-February so didn't realize people were talking about it either. Had noticed they hadn't done it a couple of times, but even down the stretch they weren't winning every night they played at home. So, didn't realize it was an every night thing. When they would be doing the salute, we'd usually have our backs turned saying goodnight to the people sitting near us. The night of "fi-re Don-ny" heard Dahlin's take twice (only heard Tuch's once) and he was definitely more upset with the fans than the players, like most of the rest of the team was.

Thank you for the reply. Not trying to create an argument, but am curious if you take Dahlin to task over his reaction to the "fi-re Donny" chants as well? He was at least as vocal in criticizing the fans as Tuch was at the time. Personally, don't take issue with either's reaction to that evening, but don't take issue with others taking issue either.

Am perfectly fine with Johnson starting the year in Ra-cha-cha if he doesn't crack the top 6, and personally have him at 7. Pretty sure Ruff typically ran 8 D on the roster, so that's where the expectation was that Johnson will be up with the big club. Am also perfectly fine with them having the 9, whether it be Clague or some other tweener brought in primarily to help with the Amerks or should there be several D out, be the one in Buffalo sitting while Johnson is playing in Ra-cha-cha. But, realistically, there are going to be D getting injured, and expect that Johnson (especially now with a season of pro hockey under his belt) will be better than Bryson. So, he'll be in the lineup quite a bit and he'll be earning an NHL salary quite a bit. Will be mildly surprised if he gets less than 50 games total this year because the only way that happens if if the D stay crazy healthy this year, Bryson is as good as he was 3 years ago, or Johnson regresses significantly. None of which seem overly likely.

This team was the Avs in the last year of Patrick Roy as the head coach there. They were WAY too focused on puck possession and no where nearly focused enough on driving to the net and forcing chances from high danger areas. Swapping gears briefly to their defending, the Sabres had absolutely no answers for when a team drove the puck below the goal line and then back into the slot. Why might that have been? Could it be that they never ever faced that situation in practice as the Sabres never did that offensively themselves. Driving the puck below the goal line and passing it back into the slot could lead to a really ugly odd man rush against if that pass misses. How many times this past season did the Sabres work the puck to the slot, but have a contested opportunity to get a shot off and rather than attempt the shot, they passed it to a teammate who was in an uncontested spot but with a much lower percentage shot available (if ANY shot was available)? Those decisions aren't on the players. Those are on the coaches. You don't get an entire team's worth of players get to the highest level of their profession but yet not have enough confidence in their shot to actually shoot. Sure, you get a Power who doesn't feel his shot is hard enough to get past an NHL goalie because he's only ~20 and doesn't have full man strength yet, and the team is young so he's not the only one, but you don't get the entire bloody team so afraid to shoot from that high danger region unless it is by design. MHO.

Not sure precisely what you mean by this? Would be interested if you could elaborate. He battled through some sort of injury that happened as camp opened / right before camp and was (along with Thompson and a few others) pretty bad the 1st 1/2 of the season. He seemed to get healthy around January and he started looking like his old self about then. His poor start was a significant part of the team's poor start; but as alluded above, not sure that it was part and parcel of immaturity.

From hearing Adams talk about his D, really expect all of his top 8 are going to be back. And, while sure, anybody could be traded, and he would be a key piece in a package for something else the Sabres need; just can't see them getting rid of the only RHD they have that's remotely close to being ready for prime time. (And sure, they could bring in somebody else to then replace Jokiharju, but again, Adams talks VERY highly of his D. Personally, believe they're too young to be high end, but they (minus Johnson) have a LOT of NHL experience for their ages; MAYBE Adams will be right and that experience will leave them fully cooked/baked/finished(/however you want to describe it) this season.) With a couple of glaring exceptions, (such as an inability to defend the puck below the goal line; or an inability to box out/tie up sticks in front of the net) the D itself was pretty good at defending (they didn't get much help from their F's IMHO), so maybe there's something to Adams' belief in his D.

2 seasons ago, there were no better options. Last season, one of Dahlin or Tuch should've had the C and though few here would like this next call (and it would've made for a VERY awkward trade deadline) but Mittelstadt should've had the other A. The team NEEDED to have the younger guys that were top pairing / top liner that others look to to take on that leadership role. And, in a worst case, we would've found out that Dahlin and Tuch weren't capable in those roles and Adams could at this point be looking for more than just a 2/3W and a 3/4C and possibly shuffling the 4W's. He could be looking to fill a leadership void. My 2 cents. Ymmv.

Presuming all are healthy, a big if considering there's no word on how Samuelsson is recovering from the shoulder injury, would have him the typical 7 but taking a few games from Jokiharju. He would be the 1st guy into the lineup when the inevitable injuries hit. Bryson is the 8 out of the gate.

This season: Out of the gate: Levi & Johnson As injury replacements: Kulich, Rosen, Savoie, MAYBE Novikov Next season: Out of the gate: the 3 F's above As injury replacements: Östlund, Novikov, maybe somebody else. Don't follow the prospects nearly closely enough to say who's in that very last group of "maybe somebody else," but that's pretty realistic IMHO.

Europe, other AHL squads, see if they can get 2 way contracts on bad teams to have a shot at finally living out their dream. Lots of options, though a lot of them claimed to have liked playing in Ra-cha-cha, so there is that. Would expect finding out who Appert's replacement is will go a long way towards finding how much of that team is back.

Presuming most of the UFA's come back, yes, they should be. But a LOT of that team can go where they choose this off-season.

That could very well be correct. He and the rest of the organization clearly expected to have a really strong October regardless of the personnel simply because that's what they got the 2 previous years even though they were regularly playing teams that looked better than them on paper (and actually were better than them). So, just being down one middle six W wasn't expected to tank the start of the year. But they totally didn't factor in (nor did yours truly) just how badly treating the preseason as a look at the kids they might be bringing up as injury replacements in January or February rather than preparing to go from day 1 would slow up that fast start they expected. And had they had the October they'd expected, then there's a very good chance Kane is a Sabre by the end of December. Hopefully, that was a lesson learned - you can't take ANYTHING for granted, because the other guy certainly isn't going to do so.

He 100% is a believer in the vision he has for making this work. And he COULD be right. It's just that there is soooooo much variability in when (or even IF) kids will develop that even if he IS right, he could still be wrong. Which is where their inability to convert just one more regulation loss from a year ago into a win is such a tragic event. People would've been fine with the step back this year (not happy about it, but ok with it), if they'd've made the playoffs last year. It wouldn't've adjusted Adams trajectory nor urgency but it would've placated the fanbase. And, even though 93 points would've been good enough either of the last 2 years, it still isn't actually GOOD. But it would've been good enough. Personally, have faith that the skaters on this team can be good enough. Not fully convinced the coaching will be, considering how much of it wasn't good enough last year and is being brought back anyway. The wildcard in it all is will the GT be good enough? If it is, can't see none of the 5 good teams in the east taking a step back while at least 3 other teams besides the Sabres actually become "good"; so they'll be good enough to make the playoffs. If it isn't, maybe the rest of it will be good enough to get them in, but not nearly as certain. Would REALLY like to see Adams hedge his bet some; but he hasn't done it once in the previous 3 years. Don't expect to see him start doing it now. Which also raises the angst level of this off-season.

And some of the plan was downright bizarre. Pretty sure Patrick Kane was the plan's replacement for the injured Quinn even though both were on the same timeline more or less to become available. The Sabres being so futile the 1st 2-3 months of the season is a big part of why Kane chose Detroit over Buffalo. But, had Adams made a move to actually replace Quinn, the team might've been good enough to cause Kane to sign up and then he'd've been essentially bringing in 3 "middle 6" or maybe even 2nd line W's that the team ended up as it all played out not having on day 1. Wonder if that "top 9" winger that Adams is planning on chasing is still Patrick Kane and bringing in Ruff is part of making that a reality?

Don't recall and can't find the notes. Thought it was Adams himself, might've been Okposo.

Except it was the previous season. When Comrie was finally healthy again, the players (aka Okposo) lobbied for management to keep UPL up in Buffalo rather than return him to the Amerks thus birthing the "3 headed monster." Absolutely would believe that management asked for Okposo's input on moves and how the season was progressing as Adams has stated repeatedly that he does solicit opinions and has "honest conversations" with everybody in the organization. And, with that said, no, the roster deficiencies were NOT on Okposo or any of the other players. They fell in large degree on Adams and to a far lesser degree on Granato.

And that's why he gets 1 game. But Soucy is already in the process of giving McJesus a shot when Connor gets whiplashed into him. Honestly, at least 9 times out of 10, the shot to the back when he's not anticipating it at all is going to be the more dangerous hit. And, as stated earlier, without it, the shot from Soucy is harmless. (Btw, the hit from behind is SUPPOSED to be a MAJOR and a Game. Zadorov is the one that should've been catching supplemental discipline. My 2 cents, ymmv.) Might go back and watch the end of the game, because am curious about what exactly McDavid did to get Soucy to give him the love tap on the shin pads, the blindside shot from Zadorov, and the crosscheck from Soucy. Guys on the team that just won the game don't normally randomly start attacking an opponent when the horn sounds.