Randall Flagg

Offensive zone start rate for Jack with Pominville vs. without him is also almost 20% higher - while that's not a great measure of anything, that's a large enough difference that it changes how you'd describe their deployment. Of course their goal split was better, that was when the team was riding ridiculous shooting percentages on the least dangerous shots in the league while getting .960 goaltending. Eichel's expected goals with Skinner but without Pominville are incredibly similar, despite the nature of the shifts being less offensive. And when you dive into the tape, there's simply no way you can come out, while knowing the key things the Sabres need to get better at for this season to have a chance, and say "this team needs Jason Pominville." He didn't DRIVE any of that. While he had some legs early on (just like 17-18) he was a passable passenger because he's a smart guy, but once the feet slowed down and the points stopped going in (I think it was something like 6 points in his last 17 games with Jack) he was a nuisance. Not because he constantly gave the puck up or was out of position, but because of how many plays were left on the table because he knows he can't do things he used to be able to do. The style of play he brings is going to hinder the Sabres' efforts to become a slot-driving, shot-funneling offensive machine.

I watched and read a lot of in-depth things on Belichick in particular last spring. This is really what it boils down to.

He was a bad NHL hockey player in the 2018-19 season, but that speaks more to the Buffalo Sabres than it does to him, and says little about what his development this summer and going forward may hold.

Bates' play and versatility this preseason versus the same non-first-stringers Bodine struggled against probably sealed that.

That problem was definitely second to his ability to process the game at NHL speeds.

He is a bad football player

The most bizarre thing to happen in the last year of the NHL is Chiarelli signing him to that contract, both because of the absurd size based on such a small sample, and because the Oilers let him do that before firing him

Draisaitl - McDavid - Kassian Chiasson - Nugent-Hopkins - Neal Nygard - Granlund (the bad one) - Gagner (still??) Brodziak - Khaira - Archibald How on earth could you end up with that roster while trying to win the whole time Every forward not named McDavid/RNH/Draisaitl is either way washed up (Neal) or awful

For some reason I thought that happened early in free agency.

Sounds like fluid mechanics to me. No thanks

I used the words meek and pragmatic to describe Pominville's play, and I haven't moved off of them yet. No freaking thanks

Analytics think both Cirelli and Rodrigues are good, including the analytics that use regression to isolate the player from their teammates/opponents/usage Cirelli spent most of his time with Joseph and Killorn, and his most common opponents on various conference teams are names like Domi, Huberdeau, Ovechkin, Matthews etc. To provide specifics to your questions

Karlsson is also a great all-around hockey player, something Vesey isn't. His goal totals came down on shooting percentage but he was still a capable 1C on a team that should have won at least one playoff series Jimmy is a depth winger on a team that has brutal offensive depth and yet traded him for a third Jimmy could be a good player for us but there's plenty of context with him worth talking about

Ice time and production are never linearly related And players can score goals while being awful hockey players that detract from their team while on the ice - see Sheary's game last year hence getting a player that scores goals for so cheap

The Sabres were among or the worst of all teams in the NHL at consistently generating scoring chances from dangerous areas. They added Vesey and Johansson, and should expect some development from Mitts. Olofsson is a wildcard. Anything can happen, but I think the safe pick is that as constructed this roster is still going to struggle to score relative to the rest of the league. My guess would be that they're still in the bottom third fairly comfortably

"We're gonna be so good in four years when Jack is 27 and Dahlin is 23" "2021 Roster plan" "5-year rebuild plan" Nobody knows the future folks, fix your teams now, win today

Sometimes alarmingly so

I'd also argue that punts mean something And our punters suk

Yeah, after obviously trying to get Allen into a lot of different passing looks in the first two weeks (running like 75% or more pass plays those games), they did the opposite this time - Allen was stuck doing run-run-pass basically every drive. He missed a timing route to Beasley on the outside, had a perfect dart to Cole down the middle later that Cole fumbled after catching, a timing route screw up with Zay that got on Zay a little too quick, but also hit him in the shoulder - his arms were still at his sides if I saw it correctly, he wasn't close to being ready, I'd put that incompletion on both of them - Zay really looks nothing like an NFL WR far too often IMO. Then the play Ogre describes, which was simply stupid, and he'd better not do in the regular season. Two nice passes to John Brown on the 95 yard 2-minute drill they scored on. That was his day, as the rest of the plays in the first half were runs. It's tough to even assign an adjective to such a small set of plays in between what was the point and bulk of the entire offense, plays that had nothing to do with Josh. I'd say he didn't look great, but it means less to me than when he did look great last week, which also doesn't mean much to me because it's preseason I mean Baker was straight trash yesterday (10/26, 72 yards, 0TD, 1 INT) and nobody is gonna say a word about it We'll see what the regular season brings. I lost my ***** when we drafted Allen, but then reeled it in a bit and was patient with him last year. Even then, I still find myself focusing way too much on breaking down the accuracy of each and every throw he makes. Because when I go turn on Brees or something, even he misses plenty of throws, and gets bailed out on bad placement by good receivers. This is of course not to say that Josh is in Brees' stratosphere, as very few NFL QBs will ever get there again. But I sometimes am too hard on Josh when he misses throws here and there - I'd wager that, this preseason, Josh's intermediate accuracy has been completely fine even though you can nitpick individual throws to death, the reality is that you can do that for any QB ever. I'm almost convinced that Josh's accuracy is less of a problem for the 2019 Bills than the lack of receivers that can do things other teams' receivers regularly do. This is separate from whether or not Josh's accuracy is good enough for him to develop into a QB worth keeping long term.

Deon Lacey is making this team Brilliant special teams coverage and just makes plays when he gets snaps on D

Mantha seems to be pretty good and would be fun to do a film dive on.

3 minutes left in the first half, we have one pass completion, and it was fumbled. Me thinks they wanted to work on the run game this week

To be positive, my prediction is that Edmunds is going to be an absolute maniac starting this season

Good thing we go old school and play all our starters

Gore, Spain, and Levi Wallace hurt so far. GG