dudacek

I was thinking about how McLeod and Tuch seem to be fantastic penalty killers. And how Benson, Greenway and Malenstyn look pretty competent as well. Are our PK shortcomings largely the fault of the defence and/or the goalies? Does anybody have access to PK SV%s and can access how our guys stack up?

According to Fairburn, this is one of 4 times in the past 14 years the Sabres have recorded 10 wins in 13 games.

It is different, because my point still stands at 1 goal 5 assists and -7 and theirs still does not.

If he starts showing half the offence he did as a junior, he could become a Sabre legend. He's got the game this fanbase has been craving for decades.

I've been a Quinn guy since before we drafted him, but when it comes to looking at what's not working right now up front, Quinn in the top 6 is most obvious piece. Also,we have too many callow, smallish roster players who project best as top 6 forwards. Benson plays defence, Peterka creates the most offence, Kulich is probably the sturdiest and can play centre. To be clear, I'd trade any of them depending on the return, but we shouldn't keep them all and Quinn seems the most expendable.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with this, certainly the bit about we should not expect it to carry over. Not sure that I did a good job of nailing the distinction, but the bold comes close to what I was trying to get to. I do believe both winning and losing can become a habitual, so when you're trying to turn a lumbering disaster like this around, wins are always preferable.

But are they actually noticing? The Athletic’s latest power rankings were cooing how the Senators got the “2023 Cozens” as Dylan was on a stretch of 1 goal and -7 in 11 games. It’s not surprising how many narratives get accepted at face value, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

Not trying to trigger anyone here, but I think these wins do matter. Not in the macro front office planning sense of a “hey, maybe we aren’t so bad” course correction. But in the micro dressing room sense of “winning matters, winning needs to matter, and players need to feel some sense that there is a path available to get there.” I think about sports psychology, about the “Dahlin’s gonna want out” fears, about “kids can’t develop in a losing culture” worries. Wins are the balm.

I think the boundaries are arbitrary and the meme is a defence mechanism. Just like that other meme we used a see a lot of when there was still hope around here: “if you take out (insert ***** streak here) we’re actually (insert optimistic spin here). Losses are losses. Wins are wins. It’s not when or how, it’s how many.

The facts might be true, but underlying conclusion that they only get hot when it doesn’t matter is false. Sabres are currently on a streak of 7 wins in 8 games. They also had a streak of 7 wins in 9 games in November And another of 6 wins in 7 games sandwiched around the 4 Nations in February. Last year they rarely put together lengthy runs. But the one they did have was a 6 of 8 run in late February. The previous year is the one probably responsible for setting up this meme: 7 of 9 to finish strong and just miss the playoffs. The ironic thing there is the meme kinda falls apart because they were in a playoff race and the games did mean something. And their best streak that year was 8 of 9 to finish December. So 6 recent streaks like this and only one of them in garbage time? Of course nobody will remember this because it’s not a good story.

It's the sort of move that Jim Rutherford would have the balls to do if he decided EP40 is not the answer. And it's the sorta move Kevyn Adams and Terry Pegula would need to do if they have any hope of igniting any off-season interest in a severely alienated fan base. Kinda supports the idea of "that's OK, Josh, don't push that injury, we need you healthy for next year." Kinda supports the idea of Pettersson being babied into the off-season as well. Kinda supports the idea of the Sabres captain walking away from his pre-deadline meeting feeling good about the team having a plan. Dammit man, no one gets my conspiracy juices flowing like you do.

I go a little deeper, but I agree those were the three biggest roster holes this year: 2C, 3W and 1G. Those players underperformed their roles in dramatic fashion. But it doesn’t stop there: Owen Power was expected to take a step forward toward being a legit 2D. He was nowhere close. His points climbed a bit, but he dropped from one of team’s better plus performers to one of its biggest minuses. Mattias Samuelsson was supposed to be a leader and a shutdown defender by now. He was neither. His Corsi, +/- and xG% all declined and he was a major factor in a struggling PK. Jordan Greenway played fine, but he was available for less than half a season and was the teams only middle-sixer with size and defensive acumen. And it’s not really their fault, but Zach Benson and/or Jiri Kulich were miscast: 25ish points are not enough for where they were being slotted in the lineup. Add that to Clifton’s poor year in the #5 slot, the coaching staff’s utter inability to find a use for Jokiharju in the mix on defence, and the complete misses of Lafferty and Aube-Kubel as 2/3rds of the new-look 4th line, and there are a lot of areas where upgrades are needed. That’s about half the roster below where you need it to be, and that is assuming Byram, McLeod and Zucker can repeat career years and the question of 2G gets answered. Norris for Cozens addressed one question mark. Maybe Bernard Docker for Jokiharju addressed another. There’s a ton of others that still need answers.

Apparently the Canucks were very much interested in Norris before we got him and probably still are. He is a good friend of Quinn Hughes, who Canuck fans are desperately frightened may not want to re-sign if they have another year like this one.

I think sometimes this conversation bogs down in a weird conflation with "offence" meaning forwards and "defence" meaning defencemen. Really it's about the differential, isn't it? To me "offence" means "ability to score goals", plain and simple. The Sabres are 7th in goals for per game this season right now.* One of the reasons why is because their defencemen are so good at offence: Byram, Power and Dahlin are literally 6th, 24, and 35th in points by defencemen: 4th, 14th and 16th in ES points. They are also a reason why the team is 29th in goals against. Replace them with 3 Brent Pesces and I bet good money Peterka and Thompson and Tuch will certainly score fewer goals. The hope is they allow fewer as well. The key is finding the balance. If Dylan Cozens (for illustration purposes) weighs down every linemate he plays with, you get better replacing him with a player who doesn't. Doesn't matter if that player does it primarily through offence or defence. he just needs to be a "plus" or even just less of a minus. Bowen Byram is good offensively and lacking defensively. He's also +12 in a first-pairing role on a minus hockey team. Sure you can replace him with a player who's better defensively, but if that player is a -8 in the same role, he didn't actually make the team better. EDIT: I see you guys already covered this in the time it took me to write it. 😄 *** *(Unrelated, but an interesting discovery: the Sabres were 22nd in goals for at Christmas time. They've been the league's best offence since — from 2.82 g/GP up to 3.64. Not sure what's changed, but that's over 42 games, a full half-season sample. To Thorny's point, their goals against also went up, but not nearly as much — 3.47 to 3.55; they have improved both their record and their goal differential by scoring more goals.)

He's not and has been RW for 90 per cent of his shifts this calendar year. Could be a factor of what's best for Kulich, but I think RW is where Lindy wants him. Now Tuch/Thompson might be the best RW combo in the league, but the idea of betting on 2 of Norris (1 season above 35 points) McLeod (1 season above 30 points) and Kulich (1 season, 22 points) seems, umm, a tad optimistic?

Sabres picking 9th at the moment. Last night probably means they won't finish in the bottom five

He's been fantastic. Makar gets the Norris, no questions asked, but I think objectively the next three this year have been Werenski, Hughes and Ras. It's a shame the Buffalo stink will probably rob him of his first post-season all-star team spot, which will go to a less deserving candidate like a Morrisey or a Bouchard because their teams are more successful. I see fan bases touting guys like Sanderson and Seider, when their numbers aren't even close.

While I think his development has been incredibly frustrating at times and in no way should he be counted on above a bottom 6 role next year, I commend Krebs for turning himself into an NHL hockey player. He’s committed to the team and to his teammates. His production (tied for 234th among NHL forwards) is that of an average 3rd liner. He’s 86th among NHL forwards in hits. His +/- is even and his FO% a tad above 50%. He used to constantly turn the puck over, but his giveaway per 60 rate has improved just behind Benson and Thompson for 4th on the club among forwards - 112th among the 358 NHL forwards who have played 50 games. He seems to enjoy contact and has improved in terms of winning battles. He’s conscientious about picking up his man and skates hard on the backcheck and the forecheck. We’ve seen signs that his muffin of a shot has improved. He brings energy most nights, and has just enough skill to fill in with skill guys if needed. He’s kinda become that Swiss Army knife #10/11 you plug and play where needed. That James Patrick quote really resonates when I think about Krebs: “the league tells you what kind of player you are”. It seems to me that Peyton started off with the wrong idea, but he has listened and worked hard to transform himself into that player. Is he important? No, but he is useful and one of the few Sabres who has improved this year.

Found it. Was a screen shot of a website that doesn’t indicate the source. And it was 90.91% Corsi and 100% xGF for the entire line. The xGF % was so high because they did not register an xGA. Extraordinarily small sample size.

Oh I probably got it wrong, or the source did. Shouldnt have posted off memory when I didn’t even look to closely.

Peyton Krebs also is 3/5/8/+8 during this 7-of-8 heater. Easily the most productive stretch of his career and also the definition of a small sample blip.

Saw somewhere that his analytics were almost perfect last night. Over 90% SAT and 100 xGoals?

So sad looking at the standings. How long have we waited for the Bruins to fall? And the Penguins joined them. And the Rangers fell apart. And we sat on the bench and watched Ottawa, Montreal and Washington seize the opportunity. What a waste.

I think this may be the first time I’ve typed these words, but Sam Lafferty looked good today. No one ever talks about him because he’s been such a non-factor, but my god has he been a disappointment. I was actually happy when they signed him after watching him last year in Vancouver. Today he looked like the player I thought we were getting.

I’ve seen plenty of games where the Sabres have gotten off to a good start and then it becomes real obvious how much better the other team is over the 2nd and 3rd. Haven’t been many times I’ve seen the shoe on the other foot. That was one bad Boston team. The production still isn’t there; he’s gone 0/4/4/+2 on this 7 wins in 8 games heater. But the eye test says hell ya, and the analytics back that up - he leads the team with a 55.8 SAT% over that stretch and with 56.3% on the season. It’s so weird how with so many kids you see the offence and you say ‘don’t worry the D will come’. He’s one of the only guys I’ve ever seen show the D first.