matter2003

If McClellan has a preference to be on the West Coast because he and his family live there already then that probably played a large role in it... I'm sure plenty of coaches will salivate at being able to coach a young Eichel and Dahlin...if they can harness their greatness they will have a long and successful tenure here. What coach wouldnt want 2 young studs to build around?

We already have that in Dahlin

He isnt the next Braden Point at pick 7...Point was a third rounder...

A player who ends up turning into another Girgensons while some team in the mid teens or early 20s finds a 30 goal, 75 point player.

Maybe, but perhaps they just have a "Feel" for this type of stuff...not saying this is or isn't the case with McClellan, but I think some coaches definitely have a better feel for this type of stuff naturally and seeing things that might be "hidden" than others do.

Is it possible a coach can naturally "see" the same things analytics would tell him so that it doesn't make a difference whether he uses them or not because he's come to the same conclusion?

Maybe but i doubt they would produce the record Housley has over the past 2 years.

I'm OK with it as well...the dude has gotren near 60% of points available over his career including a few down years in Edmonton...

Its obviously been in the works for quite some time if they already knew who they wanted...

Certainly makes you wonder why Thompson was up so long and Olafsson in was in the minors most of the year...but i guess they could argue he was able to play the eay he did precisely because of all that time in the minors...

Ended at 19.5%...not great but certainly not terrible...think they scored 4 or 5 PP goals in the last 3 games tho if I am not mistaken which definitely inflated its season long performance

Expected goals takes those things into account, and the Sabres still should have scored 12 more goals than they did. In addition, the goalies should have saved 9 more goals than they did taking all factors into account. Net swing is 21 goals...that likely equals at least 10 points in the standings.

He reminds me of Winston Churchill

GM C (I think we had enough good players to be closer to 85-90 points than 76---unlike many posters I don't necessarily think Botts did a great job, I just think he has a methodology of how he wants to build this thing and we aren't there yet, and he wasn't willing to risk giving up a lot for vets. I liked the Skinner and Montour trades, juy is still out on the O'Reilly trade but Tage is pretty inconsistent tho young...need to see what the 1st round pick turns into) Coaching F- (what more needs to be said...has any team since the merger in 1970 ever been in 1st place in late November then finished bottom 5 at the end of the year?? It's near impossible to do that.) Goaltending D(combined, advanced metrics show they should have saved 9 more goals than they did) Forwards C-(advanced metrics showed this team scored 12 fewer goals than expected, most of these would be from forwards) Defense D(the team didn't seem to figure out how to not leave people wide open at the back post the entire year and made the same mistakes in game 1 as they did in game 82. They also routinely turned pucks over in their own end as if they intended to give the puck to the other team) Penalty Kill B (mostly pretty good throughout the year in the top 5, tailed off a little towards the end and finished 12th) Power Play C (wasn't that great for much of the year hanging out around upper teens to low 20's ranking among teams, but ended up 16th due to a strong last few games)

Sabres finished 14th in the NHL in Corsi, at 50.24%(all strengths), the first time they have been over 50% in this stat since 2009-2010(granted 2010-2011 they were at 49.99%, but still). This is a good sign and a move in the right direction from last year where they finished 21st in the NHL, and in fact the highest they have finished since the stat began being tracked in 2007-2008 where they finished 50.21%. Even better is the young players on the team are the Relative Corsi leaders(meaning we get more chances than we give up when they are on the ice). Relative Corsi leaders: Olafsson 7.5 Nylander 5.0 Monour 4.9 Dahlin 4.5 Skinner 3.7 Eichel 2.9 Reinhart 2.9 Pilut 2.5 Nelson 2.3 Rodrigues 2.0 In addition, the advanced metrics showed the Sabres had a -12 expected goal differential, meaning based on league averages, they should have scored 12 more goals than what they did. Combine this with the advanced metrics showing the goaltenders saved a combined 9 goals fewer than expected and this is a 21 goal swing which could have gone a long way to getting us into the mid 80's point wise if not closer to 90. The law of averages tends to say this should balance out season to season, meaning that while we certainly didn't play up to our capabilities, some of this might be attributable to bad luck too.

Yeah, but Dahlin was a turnover machine in the defensive end. He also badly misplayed pucks at times as well. I'm not worried, he is only 18, but it is what it is...you expect that from an 18 year old but not two vets like Risto and Scandella...

Dahlin is an amazing talent but he probably made the most poor defensive zone plays of anyone on the team by a mile. EDIT: He did, with a team leading 79 giveaways...Jack was second at 76 but many of his came in the offensive zone. Nobody else was even close. In comparison Bogo had 46, Risto had 44 and Scandella had 41

This was the most obvious firing of all time

You picked a good one..Pominville even got a well deserved send off if this is indeed his last home game...atmosphere was very fun tonight.

Murray's urgency saw the 17 1st and 2nd round picks we accumulated over the next 4 drafts that should have been the cornerstone of our rebuild whittle away to nothing

The problem with this rookie goaltender argument is other teams have rookie goalies step in and do very well...look at Philly...Carter Hart helped them go from worst team in the NHL to just being eliminated from the playoffs a few days ago...well after we were...his 2.77 .919 numbers are way better than Ullmark's too. Look at Jordan Binnington in St. Louis...posting stellar 1.85 and .928 numbers. Being a rookie holds no water for a goaltender doing poorly, as numerous others around the league do very well.

Who knows..we are going to finish pretty low so our odds of getting Hughes while not great are probably 1 in 10 or so...

It's working for Dallas...they have the 3rd fewest goals in the NHL but they are in a playoff spot because they have the 2nd fewest goals allowed in the NHL and have a +6 goal differential

Should have been in December when we could have still saved the season. I mean winning teams sometimes axe their coach 10 games before the playoffs start when they are in the playoffs... we sit on a coach who has no answers for 4 months

Lmao...you know its bad when down 4-0 in the third the PA Announcer says "One minute left in the period" and its the loudest cheer of the night...