nfreeman

VO — I fixed it.

This kid is going to be a freaking star.

This is fine as regards your willingness/unwillingness to be optimistic, but I assume you are willing to give KA a reasonable amount of time as GM to determine whether he’s the right guy? Separately, it looks like DG pulled the plug on Krebs centering for Mitts and VO after the first period tonight. I thought they weren’t good but were somewhat less terrible than the Mitts/VO line was before Krebs joined them in the Colorado game. In any case they gave up an ES goal in the first tonight, and DG swapped Krebs for Jost, but kept Mitts and VO together, with Jost centering them. That trio was terrible in the 2nd and 3rd, and put up zero resistance on SJ’s 3rd goal, which SJ scored immediately after the Sabres went up 5-2. Mitts might’ve been stapled to the bench after that goal. I thought Krebs dragged down Zemgus and KO in the 2nd after DG swapped him in for Jost, but that line, including Krebs, played pretty well in the 3rd. I continue to think Mitts and VO cannot play on the same line.

I'm kinda looking forward to seeing whether Krebs magically turns the Mitts-VO line into a fancystats dynamo again tomorrow night. As a related matter, and further to @Taro T's point upthread about usage, i.e. the opposing lines that the Mitts/VO line was facing, I found a site that provides that info: https://www.naturalstattrick.com/game.php?season=20222023&game=20365#shiftchart (although if Taro or anyone else knows a site that provides that info in a better format, pls post it.) It looks like Taro is mostly right, but not entirely, about Mitts' opposition vs Colorado: the line he faced most frequently was Colorado's 3rd line, which includes Newhook and Galchenyuk, but he faced their top line (MacKinnon/Rantanen) for close to the same amount of time as he faced their 4th line, and if you include their #2 line (Compher/Cogliano), Mitts faced their #1 or #2 lines more than he faced their 4th line. I point this out because, optimistically, it means that inserting Krebs at C and moving Mitts to wing, in a small sample size, made a big difference in that line's ability to compete and not get caved in -- and, importantly, it wasn't only in sheltered situations. Again, I'm looking forward to seeing whether this continues.

Well, yes, if he more than doubles his career-high scoring total of 25 pts, his value will probably increase relative to where it is right now. BTW, his shooting % this season is 14.3%, which is well above his career average of 11.3%, so it's not terribly likely that he'll maintain his YTD scoring pace. My point was that at present, no one would give the Sabres a #1, and probably not a #2 either, for him. Do you disagree? I agree with all of this and just have one minor quibble: I don't agree with the use of "bias," which has a negative connotation with implications of dishonesty, as a synonym for "opinion." GA has an opinion on Mitts, which is that he think Mitts is a better player than he's showing right now. His opinion on Mitts differs from the opinions of many others. I think he's probably wrong, but I don't see "bias" anywhere. Good call -- I can definitely see this happening.

I agree that there is no rush to make a decision and move on from Mitts or Krebs, but it is nuts to think that anyone would give the Sabres a first-rounder for Mitts. I doubt they’d get a second for that matter.

From the Athletic today: The power play has put a dent in Luukkonen’s numbers, but he’s been solid otherwise. At five-on-five, he has a .919 save percentage and a 2.25 goals-against average. His goals saved above expected is positive at even strength, too. … The Sabres’ goalie situation hasn’t been perfect this season, but it’s tough to isolate blame when Buffalo has given up the sixth-most high-danger scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick. As a team, their high-danger save percentage is ranked in the middle of the league. They’re just giving up more of those chances than most teams.

Good stuff here. I did notice that Cozens' line was out frequently vs Compher's line and frequently got the worse of it. I don't doubt that DG gave Mitts favorable matchups, but I also think Krebs was better last night than Aspy or Vinnie was on Mitts' line during the past few games.

So, as I think @Brawndo pointed out in the GDT, Mitts’ line did much, much better in the fancystats last night with the insertion of Krebs at C. They had the vast majority of expected goals while they were on the ice. I think that may be overstating their performance, as Mitts in particular coughed it up a bunch of times and I don’t think the line had a ton of chances, but they also didn’t get brutally caved in like they have been recently. Cozens’ line, OTOH, didn’t do nearly as well despite scoring 2 goals. They were well in the minority in expected goals while on the ice and Cozens had a minus-2 while JJP and Quinn had minus-1. I think they were getting tougher matchups, and Colorado is really loaded, but they certainly had their hands full. I’m still deeply concerned about Mitts and VO, and very high on the Cozens line, but last night provided a glimmer of hope for Mitts, VO and Krebs and a cautionary note about the Cozens line.

Well, they fell behind 2-0 to TB and 1-0 to Detroit and came back and had the better of the play in both games (until the late-game chokes, of course). And they didn't go to pieces after blowing the lead on the road in Detroit, either -- they dug deep, killed off a long 5-on-3 Detroit PP, controlled the play in OT and then won in the SO on an extremely sweet play by a prized rookie who is reputed to be a good leader/attitude guy. I get the pessimism and the "I'll believe it when I see it" perspective -- this franchise has earned that and then some. But I don't think they are quitters.

Avs forward lines: (Does anyone know how to copy and paste the images from dailyfaceoff.com, which include the jersey numbers? This used to work last year but I can't seem to make it work now.) Artturi Lehkonen Nathan MacKinnon Mikko Rantanen Andrew Cogliano JT Compher Logan O'Connor Alex Galchenyuk Alex Newhook Jean-Luc Foudy Dryden Hunt Jayson Megna Anton Blidh Defensive Pairings Devon Toews Cale Makar Samuel Girard Josh Manson Jacob MacDonald Erik Johnson

I generally agree, but in the curious case of Casey Mittelstadt, even though I'm pretty down on him at present, I'm also willing to go the rest of this season before making up my mind. His NHL career has been spent in a deeply dysfunctional environment. The franchise changed direction multiple times and he got bad coaching and a revolving door of JAG teammates. When you add injury (he was hurt most of last year and pretty clearly not at 100% when he returned), Covid, the Eichel saga, poor conditioning and immaturity early in his career, an unhappy fan base, etc., the net result is an environment where a young talented player is pretty unlikely to develop well. As I've said elsewhere, Mitts has good size and very good hands and is a decent skater. The big question is whether he has what is needed between the ears. Right now it looks like the answer is no, but the Sabres don't need to decide right now. He's under contract this year and next year for $2.5MM per year. If DG can turn TT into a franchise #1C, which he appears to have done, he might be able to turn Mitts into a solid NHL 3C. I wouldn't bet on it, and I'd include Mitts in a trade that brings back a good player, but if that trade doesn't happen I want to see what happens with him for the rest of this season.

Well, that is a less terrible comparison, but I have much higher hopes for Quinn (which are starting to ripen into expectations) than Vanek 2.0. Vanek was talented and could light the lamp, but he was the kind of guy who brought his team down instead of lifting them up. He was an unpleasantly-natured scoring accessory, not a core guy -- kinda like Evander Kane albeit without the true dirtbag baggage. I see Quinn as a core guy who will lift up his teammates, never stop working his butt off and definitely never cause a problem.

So last night, the 3 members of the Mitts/VO line again had the least ice time among Sabres forwards -- Mitts and Vinnie each had 9 min and change, while VO had just under 9 min. Interestingly, the "4th line" of Zemgus, Jost and KO all were around 18 min, making them the 2nd line in terms of ice time. I thought they were very effective last night, although more so in the O-zone than in the D-zone. I'll say it again: DG knows, just like everyone else knows, that Mitts/VO isn't working. He doesn't want to mess with the other 3 lines, which I get, but I don't see what his options are. It's not sustainable to have a line continuously getting caved in like this.

Who? Cozens? If so, that is just a terrible comparison.

Part of me wants DG to healthy-scratch Mitts and VO for the next 5 games and tell them that if they want to play in the NHL, they need to make it their business to learn how to forecheck, maintain possession and create chances in the O-zone and not smile at the opposition and serve them lemonade when the Sabres are in the D-zone and trying to close out a game with 5 minutes to go. The other part of me cannot see either of them getting healthy-scratched for even 1 game. I still think it's more realistic that DG will separate Mitts and VO and combine them in some manner with Zemgus, Jost and KO.

Well, mitts and VO sure didn’t do anything tonight to dispel the growing doubts about their viability on this team. Their line was terrible again.

Well, Quinn sure looks like the real deal. Well done by KA. Serious question: when was the last time the Sabres had three rookies that look as good as Quinn, Power and JJP?

Yikes. I didn't know about the contract when I posted the thread. I think we're firmly in NFW territory on this one.

Here's someone who definitely fails the "wants to be here" test. But he is a goalie who was 20-14-2 last year on a lousy Kings team, so...

FWIW, DG was on WGR this AM and Jeremy White asked him several questions about the Mitts/VO line. DG, as might be expected, spoke supportively and positively about Mitts and VO. He pointed out that Mitts has been very productive on the PP, while admitting that the Mitts/VO line needs to improve at 5-on-5. DG also said that the other 3 lines are playing very well right now, noting that a couple of weeks ago only 1 line was playing well, and that Jost has fit in very well with Zemgus and KO. He said that he didn't want to change those 3 lines, and the solution would come from coaching plus improvement from Mitts, VO and Aspie, plus rotating Krebs and Vinnie into that line. He expressed confidence that they would get there. DG is certainly more confident about that than I am. We'll see.

The Harrington tweet is interesting, but as it's just his guess, I don't think it means anything. I don't think Mitts has much trade value. AZ isn't trading Chychrun for a package where Mitts is the best or 2nd-best piece. Regarding VO being placed with Cozens and JJP -- I'm pretty sure they tried that about 5 games ago for 2-3 games and it didn't work.

I've been thinking about this in the context of how bad the Mitts/VO line is at the possession game and I've come to the conclusion that a huge part of it is indeed mental/hockey IQ. Mitts has good size, decent skating and excellent hands, but I don't think his hockey IQ is particularly strong. In his first couple of seasons the characteristic about him that most stood out to me was that he consistently overestimated how much time and space he had to work with when trying to beat a defender. As a result, the defender took it away from him pretty much every time. Mitts doesn't make that mistake nearly as much, but as you point out he makes tons of other mistakes that indicate a low hockey IQ. I also don't see the innate sense of where the puck is going that guys like Quinn and Skinner seem to have. The result is that his line is terrible on the forecheck/possession game. I don't think VO is quite as bad as Mitts is at this, but I'm starting to think he isn't great at it either.

One thing I worry about regarding Mitts is that I'm pretty confident that one of the franchise's objectives for this season is to figure out whether Mitts is a long-term building block -- so I think it's pretty likely that they are going to continue to feed him all-situations ice time, regardless of how much he's pooping the bed. Losses like the one last night are the inevitable collateral damage.

I think Comrie's bad outings generally coincided with the injuries to the Sabres' D group. That, combined with lack of scoring from anyone other than TT, created a very difficult situation for him and the team. We'll see how it goes when he returns.