Randall Flagg

Who are the available people who have been NHL GMs and Coaches recently? GM: Dean Lombardi, Ray Shero, Ron Hextall, Garth Snow? Coach: Gerard Gallant, Peter Laviolette? Any combination of those with RaKru as hockey president would be infinitely more promising to me than what we have right now

Ah yes, my favorite GTA V mission, when Trevor tries to run away after you decide to kill him

We'd still win. Pray we never have to find out, though.

True, but we are 3-5 against Ottawa in our last 8 games, stylistically they seem to have figured out that if you badger Jack and shut down his line, we have nothing. And their team speed opens us up. Detroit is twenty points worse than Ottawa, who is 28th in the NHL. 25 points worse than us, only 53 games into the season. Meanwhile, we are 10-2-1 against Detroit in the last 13, getting 11 of our last 12 possible points against them We're cruisin tonight

I'll also get trend lines and stats in there.

I just plotted team ranking versus ranking in hits over a span of the last 6.5 NHL seasons. I can do blocked shots and faceoff wins tomorrow.

Columbus is 6th in points out of all 31 teams. Philly and Vancouver are 9th and 10th. 10 of the top 14 NHL teams are in the east

Thanks.

Risto was having the best season of his career, but I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't see the same January collapse that always claims him, over the last few weeks.

397 wins for the top 15 teams, 399 wins for the bottom 15 teams, with Dallas in the middle. Where'd you find these stats?

2019-2020 5 teams in the top 10 of faceoff percentage are in the top 10 of NHL standings this year. 1 of the top 10 teams are in the bottom 10 of the NHL standings. 4 of the teams in the bottom 10 of faceoff percentage are in the top 10 of the NHL standings this year. 4 of the bottom 10 faceoff teams are in the bottom 10 of the standings. 2018-2019 4 top 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 3 top 10 F% teams in bottom 10 of standings. 3 bottom 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 4 bottom 10 F% teams are in bottom 10 of standings. 2017-2018 4 top 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 2 of top 10 F% teams in bottom of standings. 2 bottom 10 F% teams in to p10 of standings, 5 bottom 10 F% teams in bottom 10 standings. 2016-2017 2 top 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 4 top 10 F% teams in bottom 10 of standings. 4 bottom 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 2 of the bottom 10 F% teams in bottom 10 of standings. 2015-2016 3 top 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 2 top 10 F% teams in bottom 10 of standings 2 bottom 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 6 bottom 10 F% teams in bottom 10 of standings. 2014-2015 4 top 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 3 top 10 F% teams in bottom 10 of standings. 3 bottom 10 F% teams in top 10 of standings, 3 bottom 10 F% teams in bottom 10 % of standings Got bored at this point. So, 22/60 top 10 faceoff teams in the last 6 seasons have finished in the top 10 of the standings. 15/60 top 10 faceoff teams finish in the bottom 10 of the standings, an average of one fewer great faceoff team per year. 14/60 of the bottom 10 faceoff teams in the league have finished in the top 10 of the standings, while 20/60 of the bottom 10 faceoff teams in the league have finished in the bottom 10 of the standings. Again, an average of one more bottom 10 faceoff team per year is bottom 10 than top 10. Of ten top ten faceoff teams in a given year, 3.6 of them are top ten NHL teams, 2.5 of them are bottom ten NHL teams, and 4.9 of them are somewhere in the middle. Of ten bottom ten faceoff teams in a given year, 2.3 of them are top ten NHL teams, 3.3 of them are bottom ten NHL teams, and 4.4 of them are somewhere in the middle. I have to say, this is hardly riveting stuff. It seems to be barely better than a coin flip. Sorta like faceoffs themselves, with even the BEST centers in the league at them. This is not to discount the idea that it's really nice to have guys who are great at faceoffs taking them in important moments. It was nice to watch ROR break NHL faceoff win records as we plummeted to last place before trading him. But I wouldn't let this skill drive my search for players or my team building moves (though, in building a team with a strong center spine, I have to think you'd come across good faceoff players as good centers tend to have this skill). Gonna spread out the above numbers to count how many times each faceoff split has given us playoff teams: 2014/15: top 10: 5, bottom 10: 6 2015/16: top 10: 6, bottom 10: 3 2016/2017: top 10: 5, bottom 10: 5 (with 3 other bottom 10 teams filling out the next 3 closest playoff teams) 2017/18: top 10: 6, bottom 10: 5 2018/19: top 10: 7, bottom 10: 4 2019/20: top 10: 6, bottom 10: 6 So over 6 years, 35 of the 96 NHL playoff teams have been top 10 in faceoffs, while 29 of the 96 playoff teams have been in the bottom 10 of all faceoff teams. Try doing the same thing for goals, goals against, goal differential, and even shot metrics, and they'll be far more decisive in doling out playoff spots, tbh. The score was a couple loser points away from being 35-33. Again, this argument isn't particularly riveting from a team-building view, even if it's of course better to win faceoffs than to lose them. I think the idea is just that faceoffs comprise a couple dozen out of hundreds of different kinds of puck battles that happen in a given game, so while the advantage is obviously good for any puck battle, their effect by themselves on the standings can be overstated. Also, I've been noticing that so many times, a center can "win" the battle such that the puck's trajectory on the ice is back towards his own team, while someone else then loses a battle and the puck goes to his opponent. The center gets the L even if he does the better job at puck drop. The opposite happens just as often. It muddies the water quite a bit for stats that have the characteristic that ROR averages only 1.6 more faceoff wins per GAME than a league average centerman. It's relevant - but as game-changing as a billion other things you can also control in your quest for team building

It is funny how everyone decided to jump in all at once to take their swings

It's in the same class of reaction picture as this one. Completely apolitical, just plain useful for internet communication. Obama had some good ones

I don't think there's any way the Sabres lose this game.

I think Gallagher is one of the top 3 ideal RW fits for Jack Eichel in the entire league and have thought that for a while. I know Hertl just had a bad injury but IMO the guy can be the second most talented player on our cup winning team And then Cirelli because I still like him but haven't watched a lot this year, and most of my interest in him is banking on development from what I view as a very strong foundation, whereas the first two are sure-things already I'd have Hertl above Gallagher if he hadn't just blown up his knee

In order of interest: Gallagher Hertl Cirelli Arvidsson Kase Laine Strome Kapanen In order of likelihood: Kapanen Strome that's it

FTR this isn't snark - Any time your team does something new like this, especially in goal, you have a nonzero chance of striking gold. It's far more exciting than status quo

IMO the wrong GIF should be allowed anywhere. It's a good GIF. just IMO.

There are about six different iterations of taking two of those players that would get us out of this rut instantly lol

Glad I get to be there for the beginning of a new era of elite, stable Sabres goaltending!

Sign me up for this, presuming they know their stuff on these WRs and can get some offensive help in free agency.

And pi's input shouldn't be lost or ignored either. dudacek just has me feeling like I do when watching Bolt run 9.58, or watching Eichel slice through defenders and pick corners

No insult to Liger who is doing a good job. Im referring to the fact that I feel like you could create a closed, complete, consistent set of hockey mathematics out of the logical axioms dudacek has provided

Dudacek's recent several-week-long defense of Sam Reinhart is perhaps the most full, thorough, efficient, all-encompassing thing I've ever seen on display at Sabrespace. I can't consume the words fast enough

Knox' drop numbers were disgusting. I think he dropped something like 19% of ALL targets. But it was almost always because he was looking up field too early versus just plain having bad hands, which makes me think he's coachable. Which is good because he is a freaking beast and has a lot of potential And I saw that RB mock draft too. No way it happens