dudacek

And ***** Terry Pegula too.

And ***** that guy too.

I see no evidence whatsoever that JJ Peterka prioritizes winning or is facing the end of a short career window, or has undergone anything near the amount of suffering you’re referring to when you say “historically bad”. There is no martyrdom happening here. There wasn’t even a “well, he tried.” My goal is for the Buffalo Sabres to rise out of this purgatory and it’s a job I expect everyone wearing that crest to be working toward for as long as they are here. To me, the hypocrisy would be excusing those who don’t. I’ll say it again: ***** JJ Peterka.

This is pretty much where I am on the deal. I'm going to add that the Sabres ineptitude in no way gives Peterka a free pass to run for the hills that way he did. If Alex Tuch says goodbye the way Sam Reinhart said goodbye there will be no ill will from me. Same with Ras, same with Tage. Those guys paid their dues, upheld their part of the bargain and earned the right to carve their own paths. To my eye, JJ was treated very well by this organization and given every opportunity to be part of the solution. Instead, he pouted and forced his way out of town at the first chance he got — seemingly because he was unlocked from Tage's wing and asked to backcheck harder. Maybe stuff will come out later that somehow justifies his entitled behaviour, but right now I don't care if this sounds like an old man rant. ***** that guy.

Levi is the only other one I'd consider and he does goalies separately. Mrtka 17, Helenius 52 and Östlund 72. Savoie was 53 for anyone who still cares.

So basically two shifts in the model: you used actual player games missed histories instead league averages. you didn’t adjust for typical growth/decline patterns. And we still can expect an offence in the league’s top half without Greenway and Norris getting healthy. Interesting. Maybe there’s more there than it appears.

Of course not, he’s actually saying the opposite. He saying there’s no simple direct correlation between JJ’s goals and wins and losses. There’s a butterfly effect with every move: Maybe Tage slumps to 25 goals without JJ Maybe Power explodes for 60 points with Kesselring Maybe Rosen takes JJ’s slot and scores 28 goals too, but with better defence Maybe Benson and Kulich don’t score any more than this year, and with elevated minutes are even worse at defence than JJ was.

I loved the old model, big crowd, families, watching the power brokers all in one room. Sure it could have been tweaked into a better broadcast, but the format was unique to hockey and something I looked forward to. A lesser carbon copy of the NFL draft sucks.

Thanks for this. It matches my impression of how Terry has operated the Sabres under Adams. It always seemed to me that Murray got fired mostly for runny a sloppy organization that embarrassed Terry, and Botterill for running a bloated operation that he refused to prune. Their results played a role, but were secondary. Adams steers the ship in a way Terry feels comfortable with and results have been secondary. And that is a failure that is fully on Terry. All the other stuff we complain about — culture, interference, spending — probably has some basis in fact, but it doesn't matter as much as we think. What matters is Kevyn Adams hasn't identified, acquired and developed a good enough team. Period. Full stop. Kevyn thinks he's smarter than he is.

I always go back to my signposts: Forwards generally break out — basically become who they are — in their 3rd or 4th season, after 200ish NHL games. Defenceman take a little longer Peterka (3rd year, after 161 games), McLeod (4th year, 217 games) and Krebs (4th year, 214 games) followed the model last year. Right now, the Sabres have the following players as candidates Byram 246 games, 5th year Power 242 games, 4th year Quinn 178 games 4th year Kesselring 156 games, 3rd year Benson 146 games, 3rd year I'm not expecting a fully formed Doan (62 games, 2nd year), or Kulich (63 games, 2nd year) to appear yet.

Another way of looking at is seeing how individual Sabres scored without the puck: Dahlin 90% Kesselring 81% Benson 73% Tuch 71% Timmins 59% Jokiharju 56% McLeod 54% Byram 48% Krebs 47% Samuelsson 46% Power 45% Thompson 44% Malenstyn 41% Danforth 40% Norris 39% Greenway 27% Kulich 26% Lafferty 19% Zucker 16% Quinn 16% Clifton 13% Cozens 8% Bryson 3% Peterka 2% For some reasons they don't have a Doan card, but reports say his play without the puck is a strength of his game. It seems pretty clear that roster has improved in this area, at least as measured by this metric. Also, the fact the Sabres had just 5 players among the top half of the league last year in this metric seems pretty reflective of their need to improve.

From the article: It’s a weighted combination of their production (goals, assists, expected goals, blocks, penalty differential) and their play-driving (on-ice expected and actual goal stats), adjusted for difficulty (quality of competition and teammates). The cards also show each player’s market value based on total contributions. The cards showcase both offensive and defensive ratings. I just showed the defence.

Random factoid: Josh Doan played with Owen Power as teenager with the Chicago Steel.

🤷 I read it as Kesselring is really good without the puck, Jokiharju was better defensively than people say, and the other guys we moved on from were really bad.

I have no idea how to quantify that the way I tried with the goals for potential. In terms of in/out with the skaters this is what the athletic model has to say about their defensive impact: Peterka 2% -> Doan (not ranked) Cozens 8% -> Norris 39% Lafferty 19% -> Danforth 40% Jokiharju 56% -> Kesselring 81% Clifton 13% -> Timmins 59% Not even sure how the stat (I believe it is a percentile relative to the league) is calculated, so take that for what it is worth.

Interesting. And one of them was the Sabres, 293 wasn’t it? Im inclined to agree with you if I was a betting man. But after doing this I also think it’s not out of line to believe this team is capable of overcoming the loss of Peterka’s goals. Scoring 19 goals? No. Being a positive player? Yes

I ran a bit of inexact model that tries to project what kind of offence we could reasonably expect from the current lineup. I took the three-year average of each player, added a % to the U25 kids who have yet to break the 250 game mark (Power, Byram, Kulich, Doan, Benson and Quinn) and subtracted a % for the vets who have passed their peak and the age 30 threshold (Danforth and Zucker). The percentage was based on this model. https://medium.com/@mattdesfosses/the-hockey-aging-curve-b0f33b91d1e4 And I got something that looks like this: Thompson 44/37/81 Tuch 33/39/72 Dahlin 18/53/71 Norris 34/28/62 Quinn 19/29/48 Zucker 21/24/45 Power 7/36/43 Byram 10/32/42 Benson 15/26/41 Doan 17/24/41 *(rookie, small sample size) Kulich 25/15/40 *(rookie, small sample size) McLeod 16/24/40 Danforth 12/16/28 Kesselring 6/22/28 Greenway 10/14/24 Krebs 8/15/23 Timmins 4/18/22 Samuelsson 4/12/16 Basically, the above is based on all 18 projected starters playing the full 82 games, which won't happen, and no one else playing at all, which also won't happen. The fill-ins almost certainly won't be scoring at the same rate as the starters so it trends to the optimistic. To factor in injuries, I took 89% (the mean NHL games lost to injury is 11%) of the above total (303->270)) then added in the amount of goals scored by Sabres skaters not in the top 18 for games played last year (12). And I ended with a grand total of 282 goals. The NHL median last year was 245. Obviously this is math and what actually will happen is impossible to predict and we'll all apply our own biases (Quinn will get 30! Doan might not even make the team!) But I think the logic is pretty sound in terms of giving us a ballpark figure of what this roster might be capable of and it's better than I would have expected given our moves. EDIT: the single biggest question mark to me here is pretty obviously Norris and his availability, then the small sample sizes of Doan and Kulich.

Brought in some grinders: Jeannot, Eysimont, Kuraly, plus Arvidsson, didn’t really lose anything. Pretty marginal, but still 2nd best of our competitors, according to the model.

According to this data-driven ESPN article, yes the Sabres are better. https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/45700988/which-32-nhl-teams-added-lost-most-value-offseason-three-year-gar-draft-free-agency Article concludes they are the league's 12th most-improved, but the amount of improvement is negligible. Our adds were the 8th best, but our subtractions were the 9th worst. Of the teams around us, only the Rangers declined significantly (unless you count the Leafs). and only the Canadiens made significantly improvements, followed by Boston.

Sounds like Luke Osburn’s year caught the attention of USAHockey. He’s been invited to the Summer Showcase this summer, which s generally camp for the WJC team. Zeimer and Kleber, who made the team last year, will also be there.

There's injuries on every team every year. And as unexpectly bad a some players were, there were also breakouts from McLeod, Peterka, and to a lesser extent Byram.

Thought Clifton already set that market.

Is that the consensus? Actually asking, have not seen those discussions. Would it surprise you to learn that 9 teams have had worse records than the Buffalo Sabres over the past four years, who have never finished bottom five in that span? In answer to your question, not sure if it was bottom 5 in the league, but Montreal was consensus last in the division just this year and surprised. (Before anyone jumps on me for defending the Sabres, they suck, I’m just responding to his post.)

2Cs on playoff teams (based on ice time): Draisaitl 106 points, +32, 21:31 Tavares 74 points, +10, 18:14 Hischier 69 points, +9, 20:23 Hintz 67 points, +18, 16:53 Dubois 66 points, +27, 17:18 Hertl 61 points, -3, 17:07 Rossi 60 points, +15, 18:15 Cirelli 59 points, +30, 18:41 McLeod 53 points, +13, 16:50 Bennett 51 points, -15, 17:27 Schenn 50 points, +3, 17:34 Danault 43 points, +20, 17:40 Staal 36 points, +15, 15:26 Lowry 34, +18, 15:26 *Mittelstadt 34 points, -12, 17:00 *Norris 33 points, -5, 18:20 Dach 22 points, -29, 15:40 Interesting exercise and kinda eye-opening. *Short-season totals. Each was traded at the deadline and Nelson and Cozens took over.

I'd say first bold was true for too many NHL games. It's why Levi hasn't stuck. Second bold, I haven't seen that as an issue in the AHL. The questionable goals I've seen at the AHL level are more of the Ryan Miller whiffs from distance type. It's an interesting point to break down, but in general what you seem to be talking about is his ability to make high-danger saves, where a shooter has time to pick his spot? Don't have time to do a deep dive in to that, but I did see and post elsewhere on here where (big) UPL struggled the past 2 years in high-danger situations, whereas (small) Levi and Lyon were very good (top 10). I have no idea if that was representative of the league as a whole. Personally, I think coaching is pushing past the Robin Lehner giants by cross-crease movement attacks and controlled lateral movement is becoming vogue as the pre-eminent goalie skill, but that's a whole other discussion.