Taro T

Probably.

Pardon the pun, but that was a serious dick move on Byram's part.

One thing getting neglected in your discussion w/ @Thorny (& btw, absolutely love it when you 2 are in a debate - it's always great stuff) is that the '21 Sabres wouldn't have been nearly as bad had they NOT considered an injured eyed Hutton to not just be a quality NHLer but a quality NHL STARTER. The quality of the skaters was FAR above the quality of the goaltending (especially when Ullmark being out injured is factored into it). Give that team a legit coaching staff (something we have not seen in Buffalo through Adams 1st 5 seasons) and a legit NHLer to go with Ullmark and it wouldn't have been the disaster that went 18 games without a W. Though their record was similar, they were NOT the '22 Blackhawks. And if that '21 team had been able to be kept together, they weren't that far away. Get a goalie to pair with Ullmark and Danault in FA and a couple more pieces and even though that '21-'22 team probably wouldn't have made the playoffs with losing Eichel for 1/2 a season; they SHOULD'VE been able to get in that next season. Goaltending, Eichel and Reinhart entering their primes, Dahlin and Montour along with most of the rest of the support pieces that team would've had would've been pretty good on paper. (They don't play on paper, obviously, but the talent on that team that got blown up was in reality a lot closer to the 81 point paced squad we saw the prior year than the 0.350 one we saw in '21. MHO. Clearly, ymmv.)

Personally, wouldn't expect more than 60's out of Quinn should he stay healthy. But IF Cozens gets his game back, and he very well could, wouldn't be shocked to see Quinn at a PPG.

And Covid cost them a realistic chance at going 5 for 5 to the Championship round and possibly a 3rd Championship in that stretch.

Yep. Needed 6 assists to top his coach on the all time playoff assist list and ended up with 9. Will be interesting to see how the youthful Firewolves deal with the adversity of a must win game in a sold out enemy barn. Let's Go BAN-DITS!!!!!!!

Bruins ruined.

The last game he was going against 1 of the 2 best FO men in the league - Victor's own TD Ierlan. He was fine that game and good enough again tonight.

And therein lies the rub. If the "core" have bounceback years coming back healthy and under Ruff, this team probably should be pencilled into slot 7 or 8. If they look like they did last year; then we'd better hope that UPL's improvement wasn't a mirage, that Levi is also ready for prime time, Benson and Quinn take leaps forward, and the new F's don't have the same acclimation period that Clifton had last year. Having great luck at staying healthy might also be necessary to have a shot in that latter scenario.

Yep. Year 2 is when these guys start to get expected to go outside their comfort zones (though honestly not sure just what that would be in Benson's case) and with that expectations rise. Really looking forward to seeing how both Benson and Quinn handle their 2nd full seasons in the NHL. Those are 2 that should both bring more than they did last year; and with Quinn presumably getting a full 82 (or thereabouts) in; he himself could go a long way to replacing the lost Mittelstadt production.

Personally, don't believe either Kulich nor Rosen are locks to be on the roster out of the gate unless there is a major injury or 2 soon before or during TC. Maybe 1 makes it out of camp even without injures; but if Adams is true to his word of adding at least 2 good F's that aren't currently on the roster; there isn't a space for either anywhere but the 4th line and neither provided the "identity" that Adams says he wants out of the bottom 6. Injury call-ups mid season; sure. Forcing management to keep them there after that call-up; maybe. Out of the gate; not so much.

Hopefully that one works out as well as the Babdick experiment, but not happy when they make moves that actually make sense.

In an ideal world, yeah, UPL would get a deal right in that range. But, we're in the world where Adams is most likely planning on running UPL & Levi back as the only 2 NHL caliber goalies in the organization. That likely buys UPL & his agent some additional leverage. Still not fully convinced that UPL can get out of his own head when there is legit competition for the starting job. IF he can, he could end up in Vasilevskiy territory. He showed starting around January a quickness under control moving from post to post few big men can exhibit. But he never did that at the pro level prior to that stretch. So, he's overcome a lot of issues that had been holding him back and that particular one, he'd given no prior indication that he could do so and yet he did it. So, he could very well get out of his own head when somebody is credibly trying to steal his job. (Overcome 1 major issue, you have a credible chance to overcome another.) Glad the next contract isn't out of my bank account because there's still a very real chance whatever way they decide to go with his contract they end up betting wrong; still would like to see Adams do what he should've done last off-season and bring in a credible veteran backup to compete with the 2 kids. (More credible than Comrie.) And let the best 2 play in Buffalo and the other play in Ra-cha-cha unless it's a near wash between Levi and one of the others for the 2nd job in which case Levi starts the year in Ra-cha-cha because he can. How they play during the season then determining if there are reevaluations in the pecking order. Though UPL turned into a very nice "feel good story" we need to remember he played himself out of the starters job a year ago and was really bad in this past pre-season. Think it was @dudacek who pointed out, it wasn't Levi nor the coaches that played him out of a job; it was UPL that played himself out of a job. If he took the right lessons from that, he could be a legit starter in this league for a long time. We'll know this fall whether he did take the right lessons. (But they have to decide what to pay him before that is a known. Hoping they guess right.)

Will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Just like the Bandits are Hamilton's kryptonite, the Firewolves have given the Bandits fits this year and last. (Bandits only win of the 4 came last year in the weird game where both teams only scored at the end where the Bandits' bench is and the Bandits scored more in the 2nd and 4th Q's than Albany had scored in the 1st & 3rd Q's. BUT, Albany hasn't faced Buffalo since they signed Ferrell which means Albany won't win pretty much every single faceoff. And the Bandits D and Vinc himself have been significantly improved this season since trading for Dawson and getting Weiss and the Robinson brothers back healthy. Expecting (hoping?) the experience of the Bandits is enough to overcome the Albany firepower and goaltending. But wouldn't have any money riding on this one. It should be a great series.

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.