dudacek

Being too young only matters if you play young. Being too small only matters is you play small.

Not disagreeing with your underlying point, but it reminded me of something I do disagree with that's become a bit of a summertime meme. If: UPL plays like a legitimate starter Lyon plays provides 30+ good games Norris stays healthy Greenway stays healthy Benson takes a step Quinn takes a step Kulich takes a step Power takes a step Kesselring is what he's supposed to be they replace Peterka's offence they play better team defence and they fix their special teams they might make the playoffs. No, none of those things happened and they missed the playoffs by 12 points. They need some of those things to happen to give them a chance to make the playoffs. Ottawa didn't jump from 78 points to 97 by dramatically overhauling the roster. They made one big move (Ullmark), a few support pieces and the players played better, collectively. That's typically how it works in the NHL. If all those things above happen the Sabres will be this year's Washington Capitals.

Fantastic tape of the Carnival Kid playing the game as it was meant to be played. Winning battles, going to the dirty areas, making smart passes and working his ass off. What are people's expectations for #9 this year?

I love fiddling with line combinations as much as any fan, but check out one of the sites that tracks this stuff. It’s so all over the map though the course of a season I’m not sure it matters. To me it’s about ice time and situational use.

Östlund is a better player right now but he’s 2 years older and not as edgy. I think their niche is each middle-six centre. I take Helenius, but it’s close enough that I’d let the buyer have his pick and not sweat it

Because players don’t play together nearly as much as depth charts indicate. Malenstyn played away from Lafferty nearly as much as he did with him

Jobst won’t be back, confirmed https://www.buffalohockeybeat.com/sabres-wont-re-sign-mason-jobst-for-rochester-amerks/

I tend to agree. By my eye test last year: Good defensively: Greenway, McLeod Tuch, Benson, Dahlin Bad: Cozens, Quinn, Peterka, Lafferty, Power, Clifton, Samuelsson, Bryson Fine: Krebs and Zucker Adequate: Thompson, Kulich, Jokiharju, Malenstyn and Byram By reputation Doan is good, Timmins Kesselring, Norris and Danforth are fine. We shall see if that survives the Sabres, and if Power, Quinn and Samuelsson- who were all better under Granato - can bounce back.

1. yes it works like +\-, all 5 get get blame 2. Not according to 2 of these stats, he was fine in the 3rd.

The good defenders: Least shot attempts against per 60: Benson 50.58 Dahlin 52.61 Malenstyn 55.5 Krebs 55.68 Greenway 56.32 Least high danger shots against per 60: Benson 1.84 Greenway 2.23 Dahlin 2.44 Power 2.48 McLeod 2.48 Fewest expected goals against per 60: Benson 2.2 Dahlin 2.36 Malenstyn 2.45 Lafferty 2.55 Tuch 2.58

Money puck has an interesting section I hadn’t really checked out before: basically defence per hour: The bad defenders: Most shot attempts against per 60: Clifton 63.4 Zucker 62.1 Peterka 61.5 Kulich 60.6 Quinn 60.4 Most high danger shots against per 60: Peterka 3.41 Lafferty 3.16 Byram 3.06 Clifton 3.04 Samuelsson 2.94 Expected goals against per 60: Peterka 3.0 Bryson 2.9 Quinn 2.8 Zucker 2.8 Clifton 2.8

Thompson ranks 4th among Sabres forwards in Corsi, 3rd in GF% and 2nd in xG%. He’s above 50% in all three measures. He’s also almost certainly playing against good players.

I fully understand the limitations of +\- but I disagree it should be ignored. The object of the game is to score more than the other guy. It doesn’t show if a player is good or bad, but it shows how successful a player was in the manner he was deployed.

I’m speaking in terms of player to player comparisons on different teams. Generally speaking, a sheltered offensively deployed defenceman on a good team (Gostisbehere?) is going to have good xG% and a defensively deployed defenceman getting tough minutes on a bad team (Vlasic?) is going to have bad xG%. I’ve read many posts saying Seth Jones and Bo Byram are supposed to be bad because xG, when each was demonstrably good enough to get significant minutes for Stanley Cup winning teams.

Could you clarify? I understand the Sabres 10-game win streak scenario where fancy stats correctly predicted the team was getting bounces and wasn’t going to sustain. But does it have any predictive qualities when it comes to individual players?

I was very much in favour of trading the reality of Peterka for the concept of Kesselring and Doan. The concept of Peterka for (what might be) the reality of of Kesselring and Doan is another story.

Absolutely. It might narrow the pool of available players but not in a crippling fashion and ownership still has a great deal of control to keep themselves off of NTC lists. Come on Kevyn, two of the best teams in the league last year were Edmonton and Winnipeg.

I haven’t read the particulars on how, but that has apparently been dealt with in the new CBA

It does create a competitive imbalance so from a parity perspective it should be limited. But the human perspective - that people should have freedom to decide where they work - I’m in favour. The fact the NHL limits it to veteran players seems to be a fair compromise to me. Semi-related, it’s not the drag on team creation some make it out to be. I’m not drinking the Kevyn Adams koolaid on that one.

xGF% is an interesting stat. It gets thrown out in some quarters as the defining characteristic of how good a player is, but it’s really just a measurement of high danger chances allowed versus created that is heavily influenced by team factors such as system, deployment and teammates. It has all the same inherent weaknesses as plus/minus when it comes to player comparisons. Or do we really believe Jordan Spence, Shayne Gostisbehere and Nate Schmidt are elite players (ranked 2, 3 and 4), while Brock Faber (169), Brandon Montour (177) and Seth Jones (209) are terrible?

Dahlin was 50th, 1 slot behind Kesselring, who led Utah. But Utah overall was very good at that particular stat, with 5 D in the top 79. It remains to be seen if he (and Timmins, who also is good at this stat) can elevate Byram and Power (165 and 168) at all, or if they get pulled toward the bottom in Buffalo.

Chicken or egg, half the D were a terrible match for the system last year. People talk a lot about how Byram’s fancy stats got inflated by Dahlin. They don’t talk about how they got deflated by the other guys. Clifton, Bryson and Samuelsson were truly awful in Lindy’s system. As in 208, 202 and 223 out of 240 D who played 300 minutes last year.

Speaking only in terms of their play defensively, the Sabres seem to believe: Norris > Cozens Doan > Peterka Danforth > Lafferty Kesselring > Jokiharju Timmins > Clifton They also think Lyon is more capable of supporting/challenging UPL than Reimer was because age limited Reimer's workload. If you think that's basically boils down to Kesselring, I guess we'll see.

This is what Lindy has pinpointed as the Sabres biggest problem and you've heard many players talk around. As far as they coach is concerned it boils down to players not understanding how to manage games. it's not so much about structure and effort, its about making safe, boring decisions when you've got the lead: not cheating on offence, not turning pucks over at the bluelines, getting it deep and getting off. Not forcing your goalie to get into hero puck mode. Cozens, Quinn, Samuelsson and Clifton IMO were the worst offenders. Two of them are gone. Peterka and Power were good players that needed to improve in this area, Lafferty and Malenstyn bad players who needed the same. Two more gone. Will the changes be enough to reach critical mass for the team as a whole? Will the critical mass be enough to get the goalie back on track? To me, those are the questions that will make or break the season.

Moneypuck however, allows you to do that if you want to play around. https://www.moneypuck.com/goalies.htm UPL ranks 21 out of the 30 goalies who played 40 games in low range shots, 26 on medium and 29th on high-danger The previous year he was 24, 5th and 19th out of 34 qualifiers.