Randall Flagg

They did indeed blame the lack of team focus every year on Marv. And I don't think it's sufficient to blame Norwood for SB 25. They were playing against the backup QB and let the Giants' ball control cripple the things they were good at all season. Then, i've heard a lot about horrible time management on the last drive. Also, everything I see indicates that 47 yards on grass was absurd to expect out of Norwood at the time. It was at the far end of his range on turf. Better execution and clock management could have easily made it a more manageable kick

I wouldn't be surprised. The dude is smart and knows that his board battle win percentage is better than his faceoff win percentage lol

What if they had picked up Frolik, but dumped him, or dumped Vesey without bringing in Simmonds, or something like that?

Reinhart only takes faceoffs when Jack gets kicked out of the dot. I'm not sure I've ever seen him put out there for a faceoff, unless Jack has rib injuries, so they've probably done it recently, which makes it a bad time for this comment even if it is correct in spirit

Even considering his long bad stretch of production, and the fact that he's been playing with one or two of the most event-less forwards I've ever seen on the Sabres, as a player who requires a lot of offensive events to produce, Skinner's shift-in and shift-out impact dwarfs that of Wayne. Wayne averages a goal every 241:40 of 5v5 ice time, and a point every 60:25. Skinner averages a goal every 58:00 of ice time, a point every 40:50 (and while he's never been an assist-getter, that is absolutely exacerbated by playing with guys who are some of the least impactful offensive forwards in the entire NHL, while Simmonds' teammates aren't nearly as averse to all sorts of hockey things happening). Simmonds generates a shot on goal roughly every 9:25 of ice time, Skinner gets one every 5:30 of ice time, almost twice as often. Skinner's 5v5 shooting percentage is triple that of Simmonds even with his 22 game goal-less streak. Skinner has drawn 17 penalties and taken 9, Wayne has drawn 13 and taken 21, so you can take all of the goals and game momentum swings that come with these stats and compare them as part of the players' impact. Skinner has almost 50 more individual scoring chances for in almost 100 minutes less play at 5v5, and shot locations incorporated into that data have his individual expected goals almost double that of Wayne despite playing those dozens fewer minutes. Again, this is a bit of a ridiculous feat given that one of Frolik, Lazar, or Sobotka has spent a lot of time on the ice with Skinner. Not to say that these guys don't have their place with him, because of his lack of defensive zone abilities, but it's impressive that Jeff has been able to create chances at this volume despite that. Wayne's defensive zone metrics aren't any good either, NJ was better with him off the ice than with him on it. Only the G/A/P argument has them close really, and that's the worst hockey argument there is, because it told me about a hundred times that Tage and Berglund and Sobotka would be better for the team than Ryan O'Reilly. That Sheary, Vesey, Johansson meant that our middle six would be good because 18 + 17 + 15 = a good number, etc. etc. etc. Empty calorie scoring means nothing for me, and no matter how much Marty and PA want to talk about Jeff Skinner, Jeff Skinner's game has a decade long history of being anything but empty-calorie offensively in both raw production and offensive zone impact, and that core is still in his game this year despite his struggles

One thing I hadn't thought about - Sobotka's number isn't 17, it's 71, he just had to use 17 here because of Rodrigues. Now that Rodrigues is gone, Sobotka will almost certainly wear 71 if he is back before the end of the season.

Jeff Skinner has not been a worse hockey player than Wayne Simmonds this year

There are people on hfboards worrying that Jason set us up so that performance bonuses likely to be reached this season could wind up costing us a couple million dollars in cap space next year. It would be an incredible gaffe if this is true. Can someone smart here please elaborate?

Are those numbers out of line with what college Mitts through this year's NHL Mitts would be expected to put up? Combined with the qualitative descriptions from those two, 19 points in 29 games is not particularly enticing for a guy in his D+3 season. Our first, a defenseman, and Mitts, could probably get us a pretty nice center

Inkman and Ogre are both comparing his AHL stint to that of Nylander fwiw.

That was Chad, who I don't like and who has been misleading before. But, he broke Scandella to St. Louis before it was reported, and broke Evan Rodrigues to Pittsburgh yesterday. You have the right summary of what he said. Though, it was that the SABRES felt their offer was better, not necessarily that Florida deemed it that way but looked away from the division instead. But that is reasonable speculation. I think Jason is going to find a 2C this summer. We can't be sure he'll be a good 2C, but I don't think Jason is going to let the offseason slip away without making the move like he did last year.

Makes me wonder where we'd be with a good goalie. :)

Somebody either here or on twitter had made a comment like "I wonder what he'll be wearing." I said to myself "oh yeah, the Sabres probably retired 17" because I know the retired numbers have a lot of teens in them, and I didn't think that closely about it after. Then today, I saw his 17, and was like "oh, I guess nobody has really worn it since maybe Gragnani or something" Sorry Vlad! It's been a lot of months.

I don't like the Oilers either. I really like McDavid though

It's gotta feel pretty exciting to have two new guys coming in at this point of the season.

I was wondering what felt weird about him taking 17.

I will never be convinced that the Oilers don't s u c k this year

Understatement of the decade. This would be as exciting as the Bills' drought ending

I was really, really hoping that the trade of ERod would lead to no more PerreaultForever posts with the word "ERod" in them, as I've read about fifteen thousand of them in the last couple of months. My hopes have been crushed ?

But the idea that Ralph could be as good as Marv isn't that outlandish to me since I was raised viewing Marv as not that great of a coach, if a great leader of men

I would much rather know the first's value than trade it with protection. Because if it were to win a top three slot, all of a sudden the Sabres have more net asset value in their organization, by quite a bit, compared to if it was 9th or something. I know that that would still hold true technically with lottery protection, but then we already have a player that was worth a "meh" first rounder. But in my case, we could now trade a player worth a GREAT first rounder (and add some stuff)

I'm okay with one of Cozens or Mitts on a third line with Mojo and another strong, proven middle six player. Not with each other though

Some great teams coming up. If the Sabres win 7 of the next 11, they will get really close. But they're playing teams that have run them out of the building recently. Tomorrow is at Colorado. Colorado has outscored us 20-6 in the last four games, all losses, each game an average score of 5 to 1.5. The Flyers are up soon, and have beaten us 4 of the last 5 games, those five games averaging 4.6 goals for Philly and 2.2 for Buffalo. We play Carolina twice coming up, and they have beaten us ten times in a row, usually in close games, but we haven't beaten them since the very first season post-tank. Washington is coming up as well, and they beat us 6-1 earlier this year, 5 of the last 6 games, and 9 of the last 12 games. Boston is coming up as well, they've beaten us 5 games in a row. These teams comprise six of the next 11 games, and the others aren't easy either (road games in Winnipeg, in Arizona, in Vegas, in Montreal, and home against the Penguins). The thing about the Sabres, to me, is that they're remarkably consistent - they apply relatively uniform effort from night to night. It seems like almost all their variation comes from how they match up with their opponents. For every team they've lost a bunch to recently (the above and Tampa, and a few more), there's one they beat essentially every time they play them the last couple of years (Detroit, Pittsburgh, LA, San Jose, New Jersey). They are a team that is very plainly what their record says they are, IMO. There's a very good chance they fall on their faces in the next 11 games, because of the daunting schedule. It would be blamed on something unquantifiable, but is in line with who they are as a roster. If they don't fall on their faces, then it's not particularly ridiculous at all to think they could go on a run and nab a playoff spot.

It would also likely cost a first. It would be a huge mistake to trade that first without knowing its value pre-lottery.

I do have to say that SB 25 does not look good for Marv, from what I can see of the situation in hindsight.