dudacek

I really think possession numbers aren't much different than +/-: they're an attempt to apply a team stat to an individual player and are moderately useful in context. While possession (SAT) makes obvious gains by expanding the sample size it also loses by tracking something far less important when it comes to the outcome of a game. Something else I consider when comparing a 52% player to 48% player is how that translates to being outshot 26 to 24 in a game. I know @thorny is going to tell me every inch matters, and he's not wrong. But I can't help but think that when comparing two players it's not something too dramatic;

Who would you rather have? Thompson Cozens Quinn Dahlin Power Levi Or Celebrini Smith Eklund Dickinson Ferraro Askarov

To what? Possession numbers as a meaningful stat, or the numbers themselves?

Isak Rosen was pick 14 in the 2021 draft. 11 players taken in that draft are NHL regulars, 3 of those players (Wyatt Johnson 23, Matthew Knies 57, and JJ Moser 60) were picked later than he was. 143 U21 prospects played at least a game in the AHL last year. Rosen ranked 3rd in points with 50, behind Logan Stankoven’s 57 and BradLambert’s 55. When you add in the AHLers who are a year older than him, he still ranks 7th. Im not a real fan of the way Rosen plays, but it would be a mistake to say he is trending toward a bust.

Historically, JJP has had a lot of success at the right half-wall, which is a spot that was unsettled at PP1 for the Sabres last year. My first choice for that spot is Byram, but given Appert's history with him, and think we'll see JJ get the first shot there and I wouldn't be surprised if he's successful. Quinn worked the left half-wall for Appert, but I would be shocked if they moved away from Tage there. I think he gets first look at the bumper spot, which Lindy seemed to suggest was going to be a focus. He's got the skills to be a weapon there, and I think he'll be an upgrade on Skinner regardless of how he's used.

After Dahlin, the Sabres' best returning possession players >40 games played are 2 Tage Thompson 53.2 3 Zach Benson 53.0 4 JJ Peterka 52.8 5 Ryan Johnson 52.5 6 Peyton Krebs 51.9 7 Mattias Samuelsson 51.5 All stats from NHL.com https://www.nhl.com/stats/skaters?report=puckPossessions&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20232024&seasonTo=20232024&gameType=2&playerPlayedFor=franchise.19&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,40&sort=satPct&page=0&pageSize=50

The Sabres 3 worst returning possession players >40 games played are 18 Jordan Greenway 47.3 (tied with Patrick Kane and Erik Cernak at 437th out of 611 skaters) 17 Henri Jokiharju 48.7 (366) 16 Connor Clifton 49.1 (335, tied with Brad Marchand) The lowest ranked NHL player with more than 40 games played was Boston's John Beecher at 36.9%

The Sabres best possession player last year was their best player. Rasmus Dahlin recorded a 53.7% total, tied for 84th in the NHL with Nikita Kucherov, Adam Fox and Vladislav Gavrikov out of players who played at least 70 games. What I thought was an interesting bit of context: Of the NHL's most-used defencemen (more than 18 minutes ES per night), Dahlin ranked 9th overall. In that same category Owen ("trainwreck in his own zone") Power ranked 12th with 51.5%

On the flip side, the players the Sabres walked away from included their three worst possession performers last year. 21 Tyson Jost 43.6 20 Erik Johnson 46.6 19 Victor Olofson 47.0 Other guys who moved on: 15 Zemgus Girgensons 49.7 12 Casey Mittelstadt 51.0 11 Eric Robinson 51.2 10 Jeff Skinner 51.2 9 Kyle Okposo 51.3 I did not dive into their deployments either

The other players the team acquired recently aren't nearly as strong. Bo Byram was 50.2% in Colorado, but dropped to 46.5 in Buffalo Jason Zucker was 47.7 in the desert, 49.1 in Nashville Sam Lafferty was 48.4 in Vancouver Dennis Gilbert was 49.2 in Calgary Nick Aube-Kubel was 43.2 in Washington Beck Malenstyn was 40.7 in Washington The board has talked elsewhere about how the latter pair's numbers were coloured by historically difficult defensive deployments. Which is a good spot to point out that possession numbers are certainly influenced by who you play with, when and where. I did not dive into the deployments of the other new acquisitions

The best possession player last year currently on the Sabres is Ryan McLeod. He ranked 34th overall at 56.7 He put up 53.9 the previous year in 57 games as a sophomore.

The gold standard for possession teams is Carolina: adjusting for players who played at least 70 games, every one of the top 9 possession players in the league were Hurricanes. Jesper Fast and Jordan Staal led the way with just over 63 per cent. Only 11 NHL players hit 60% and only 43 hit 56% 50%, obviously, is the mark of a middling possession player

The New Jersey Devils under Lindy Ruff were an excellent puck possession team: They ranked 5th last year at the time of his firing, and 4th overall the year before that. Even the 28th-place team of three years ago finished above 50% and 14th overall

Some individual player conversations and the weight that some people put on possession numbers inspired me to to take a deeper look at how the Sabres stack up. First of all, some context: shots for and against charts generally follow team and individual success, but they don't necessarily dictate it. Nobody will be surprised to learn Carolina, Florida, Edmonton and Dallas were top 5 in this area last year. They may be surprised to learn LA was 4th, New Jersey 7th and Philadelphia 8th. Buffalo was right in the middle of the pack, finishing 16th at 50.7 per cent. Teams right around them include Toronto, Tampa, the Rangers the Senators, the Jets and the Flames. Detroit and Montreal were bottom five and Boston, Washington and the Islanders weren't much better. https://www.nhl.com/stats/teams?report=percentages&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20232024&seasonTo=20232024&gameType=2&sort=satPct&page=0&pageSize=50

Here's a stat that surprised me, considering my perception of last year's offence: The Sabres ranked 12th in the NHL in goals for at 5-on-5 last year, tied with the Bruins with 174 Just five more even-strength goals would have tied them for 6th overall. They scored more 5-on-5 goals than Tampa, Carolina, the Rangers and the Panthers But at 5-on-4, they scored just 34 times, ranking 29th. Tampa had 67, Carolina 61, the Rangers 56 and the Panthers 59 It seems pretty simple to me: fix the power play and the offence will be fine

You write a lot about baseline competence, To me, that’s what Chevaldayoff has shown. It ain’t excellence and comparing it to the Sabres incompetence doesn’t change that. (It’s like we’ve switched accounts 😁)

I like Johnson, but I see him with Clague on the 5th pairing right now. I thought he was behind Bryson last year and Bryson was brought back to give Johnson room to develop in the minors. Meanwhile, Gilbert brings a more needed skillset and to my mind he’s ahead of both of them. I hope Johnson’s given the Prospal order: rip up the AHL and force us to give you a slot

Barring serious injury, no Sabre prospect will get more than a cup of coffee. Kulich would be my pick if an injury to an offensive forward opens a hole. He’s a 3rd year pro who Prospal publicly challenged to rip up the AHL this year to earn his chance. Im glad the Sabres are at a point now where they can say that to their top prospects.

Craig Rivet apparently has coached against McGroarty for years and says he’s one of the most entitled kids he’s ever come across. Sounds like if Chevy did his homework he might have avoided this situation entirely.

You think it’s remarkable to have general hockey opinions that aren’t filtered through 13 years of Sabres ineptitude? Thats kinda surprising to me

Soon-to-be captain doing captain things. https://www.nhl.com/news/rasmus-dahlin-taking-larger-leadership-role-with-buffalo

Interesting write-up on Leinonen here. Hope he can resurrect himself into a prospect again. Most interesting think to me was the photo. Kid look slike he's lost a lot of weight. https://www.nhl.com/news/buffalo-sabres-prospect-topias-leinonen-embracing-new-opportunity

It feels like I've been reading stuff like this from Winnipeg fans for years, without ever seeing them move past the pretender stage. I'll be more impressed when I start seeing him wrack up some playoff wins.

I don't expect Krebs to score a bunch either, but I wouldn't be surprised if scores more than his average of 7. Said another way, McLeod has played 219 NHL games and has an average of 11 goals a season. I'm not expecting him to score 20, but if the over/under is 11, odds tell me to take the over Yes it probably does, as I was trying to allude to in my initial post about Malenstyn. Cozens, Krebs, Benson, Peterka, Quinn, Power and Byram were all in the NHL by age 20. it feels that you are arguing that I should not expect a big leap from any player over 200 games (basically, Cozens, Krebs and McLeod) I generally agree, but it has never been my argument here to say otherwise. My argument is that when it come to matching career averages for all of these guys, the smart money is on the over.

Trying again: I think players generally score more frequently in their 2nd 200 games than their first. Anecdotally, my imperfect research indicates that tends to be true I think the Sabres have a high number of players with 200 or less games. Therefore, I will not be surprised if a majority of those players outscore their career averages