TrueBlueGED

Hypothetical for Dudacek and people of his ilk ( :p ) : would you rather pay Jack $10.5x8 now before he has proven he deserves it, or $12x8 after he has proven it?

Matt Duchene is one of those guys who should be a lot better than he is. He's a very good offensive player, but he should be a bonafide star with his skills. At this point in his career I'm not willing to give him a pass "because Colorado."

Hey look, the guy who says "watch the games" doesn't think wingers have defensive responsibilities! Less responsibility than a center does not equal zero responsibility.

Watch him in the defensive zone some time, then tell me about his 100% effort.

Wow. Now I feel old.

Fantasy heartbreak: I thought I won by 2 points. Then I noticed you still had Anderson going. Sadness ensued. I suppose he could break a limb while fumbling his next carry, but aside from that, I'm d-u-n dun.

I like football enough to make that decision. Luckily for me, I'm a degenerate and, ya know...

Yes, I know. And my point was how moronic that is.

The way streaming works for NFL games couldn't possibly make less sense. I was outside doing landscaping while listening to the game....from my laptop...connected to my Bluetooth speaker. Because I couldn't just play it on my phone from, yes, my home network. It's dumb. Was this contract drawn up in 1975 and never altered? Sheesh.

This is correct.

Pre-draft analysis of Lamar Jackson is going to be fun. Over/under for the number of comparisons to Vince Young and Mike Vick is set at eleventy billion. And I'm taking the over.

I think you're underestimating the criticisms they faced. There's a reason the Vanek Face meme took off! Lazy, overpaid, soft can't win with 'em. Meanwhile, the Matt Barnabys of the world are still revered. Buffalo fans love em some grit n grind. This is one area where I, *gasp*, agree with PA. You can be great and soft, you can be bad and gritty, but lord help you if you're merely very good and soft.

My biggest problem with pushback against analytics is this standard is never applied to the eye test. You, and plenty of others, approach the data with mindset inherently allowing you to dismiss things you disagree with. Bill James had a great quote about statistical analysis: If you have a metric that never matches up with the eye test, it's probably wrong. And if it never surprises you, it's probably useless. But if four out of five time sit tells you what you know, and one out of five it surprises you, you might have something. With hockey analytics, when a number falls in that 20% range, the tendency is to toss the baby out with the bath water. Meanwhile, the best GMs in the world are right far less than 80% of the time, and get hailed as geniuses. Huge double standard, especially when it comes to something like Ristolainen, where we and Sabres fans everywhere have a (quite understandable) vested emotional interest in the numbers being wrong.

And if he does, I have faith Botterill will give him that time.

Way to blow up your "Eichel isn't worth $x because points" argument :nana: :p Some writers have developed contextual methods which do a better job of accounting for it than many around here are aware of or would want to admit to. There's still a missing piece*, as there's a reason some analytics darlings can't make the jump to a tougher role (hi Pysyk) while others can (hi Leddy), but it's not like no attempts or progress have been made on this front. And let's be honest with ourselves, too: as Sabres fans we're going to be inherently defensive about the notion that Risto might only be an okay middle-pairing player, because such a prognosis leaves our blue line situation quite a bit more dire. *My theory is most writers are making an underlying assumption of linearity--the "newest" thing is regression analyses, which are relying on ordinary least squares models and R^2 statistics, but I suspect hockey data violates the underlying assumptions of OLS in about 300 different ways. My best guess is there are significant non-linear interactive effects between skill/role/stats that have yet to be uncovered, or perhaps even investigated properly. For instance, I think it has been satisfactorily shown that because of the fluid nature of hockey, matchup differential isn't as large empirically as the conventional wisdom holds. But I don't think the conclusion that "because this variance is small, competition doesn't matter much" is not one that should be so hastily drawn. Perhaps playing against tougher competition is so much more demanding that even smaller increases in those minutes cause an amplified decrease in performance against other, lesser players. Stuff like that hasn't been explored.

Pffffft. That game's not even the best in the series, let alone best game of all time.

Nonsense! I love Willie! Think he's going to be a star as soon as this season. I just think he's gotten about as optimal of a development path and placement in the NHL as one could possibly hope for, whereas Alex has had the opposite, and that disparity is driving some of the pessimism around Alex.

35-48-83, assuming he plays every game.

Mostly what Dudacek said. I think he's a mid-season call-up, gets time with skill, and doesn't go back down. That said, even if he develops and plays like I think, his style is such that plenty of fans will still hate him. Soft, skilled wingers aren't exactly a Buffalo favorite.

I'm reasonably confident that if you staple Alex to Jack's hip, like Willie was to Matthews', and give him PP1 time, he'd get to ~55 this year. I don't expect either of those things to happen, at least until December. Nobody could pass tonight, I swear every prime scoring chance was ruined by a pass to the skates. I've been critical of Hamilton's play by play in the past, but I thought he was quite good tonight, and thought he had some good chemistry with Duff. A pleasant listen all around. I think Bailey can be an NHL player, but I'm becoming more convinced that he's an energy guy on the 4th line...and I'm not sure he'd accept such a role. Baptiste was disappointing, I expected more. It was pretty clear to me there were no natural centers on the ice. The blue line was a disaster--Guhle definitely needs some real Rochester time. Good thing Botterill added enough on the blue line to facilitate this. Hischier had some flashes, but didn't show me a whole lot. Then again, I fully expect NJ to stifle his talent. C'est la vie.

So you feel the same way for goals and assists? If not, why? I think Coller is sorely missed at WGR, but let's not get carried away here. He's not even close to a pioneer in the field.

Not sure I'd buy a jersey with it, but I kinda dig it for a hoodie.

It wasn't. It was zone coverage and he released to the safety, who was uh, not in position.

I don't think anyone is actually predicting their demise.

Brady looked like dogshit last night, and it was glorious. Not drawing any conclusions on one game, of course, but father time *is* undefeated...it'll happen at some point.