mjd1001

So we are looking at the same data and just weighing it differently. When someone says "one of the slowest in the league", I think there are 2 metrics 2 use. Overall top speed, he is near the middle of the leage. In speed bursts, he is toward the bottom but not on the bottom. I kinda average them together...and I 'average' Bad speed burts (but not in the bottom 10%) with 'middling' top speed...and I get a combined 'below average', not 'one of the slowest in the league'. I respect your point, however.....that how OFTEN a player uses their speed might be more important that overall top speed.

So if everything goes correct and he is able to play after 8 weeks, he'll be around for maybe the last 8-10 games of the year.

I'm almost there with you on this, and I wasn't before. He had a 'decent' and 'encouraging' rookie year. That was after he played great at the end of his stint in Rochester. Got hurt, came back off of a tough injury and immediately showed progress from last year...in a very small sample size playing at about a 25 goal, 60 point pace with 3rd line minutes. That may not be enough to PROVE he is or should be a core player....but very little has been show to say he shouldn't.

I'm not saying he is going to be worth much on the open market, but one of the slowest players in the league is just not true. The NHL edge tracking site is up and there are two ways to measure him (or anyone else), I brought this up in another thread: -In terms of 'pure speed' top speed hit, he is middle-of-the-pack on the Sabres. Top speed not even close to Tuch or Zemgus (the top 2 on the team), but better/faster than Benson, Okposo, Greenway, Quinn, and most of the D-men. -In terms of how fast he PLAYS, they have a metric that measures that also, how many times/how often a player has 'speed burts' where they go over 20mph for a few seconds. Not just top speed, but how many times they use their speed. VO Isn't good, he is 'below average' on the team, but not at the bottom. So in terms of pure skating speed, he is average on this team. In terms of how often he 'skates fast', below average but not at the bottom of the leage. Put those 2 things together and you get an "OK" or "slightly below average" guy in terms of speed, but no where near one of the slowest in the league. He has some problems and holes in his game. Lack of high end speed or 'fast play' is one of them, but its no where near being close to the bottom of the team, or the league.

Agree on your main point. I am not as down on Dahlin as many are right now. I think Jokiharju is actually "OK" . Power is having a rough/bad year, but he isn't a total trainwreck. R. Johnson looks encouraging if you DON'T rush him. Samuelsson is having a down year also, but hes overall good. I think the D-group is better than most think because they often look bad because of mistakes the forwards making putting the D in no win situations. HOWEVER, they are very, very young and inexperienced. The Sabres have no one in their 'top 4' in terms of minutes that is over 24, and they average 23 years of age. I put in another thread that most of the top teams in the league have their top 4 d-men average 27, 28, even 30 years old. This D may be good, great eventually, but they simply do not have enough experience to have all of the top minutes between all of them. I'm actually happy with R. Johson getting reduced minutes, I woud LOVE for power to get 5 less minutes per game...if you can bring in a legit, experienced vet that is good enough to plug into the top 4.

Hot off the presses today: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/taylor-swift-is-worth-331-million-and-counting-to-nfl-and-the-chiefs-05e4dbf9?mod=home-page

1.) pray for no injuries 2.) if someone is injured don't rush them back, or let themslelves rush back. No matter how bad the team needs them, don't let one of your stars back in the lineup when they get 'cleared to play 'but might only be 80% Give them another week, take the heat from the fans and the media for doing it, but don't put them back until they are at least 95% back to normal. 3.) Move cozens to wing. 4.) get a GOOD 4th liner who is 6'5 or more with a large reach....so he can play on the PK and take up as much space out there as possible AND GET TAGE OFF OF THE PK! Tuch too. ANYONE that you rely on for goals even strength or on the PP, do not let them spend any time on the PK where they could get hurt or aren't getting rest. Their minutes should be focused on scoring. 5.) Bring in an experienced group of dev coahces and assistant coaches who can teach forwards how to play in their own zone, or put in a system where they need to be more responsible to do that.

To answer your question why would anyone want to be here? They want to play "close to home" (I'm pretty sure I read a couple places more NHL players are from the Metro Toronto area than any other city by far). They want their family and extended family to be able to come to games, BUT they do not want to take less money in Toronto than in Buffalo (the big 4/5 in TO took all the money) or they just don't want the trouble/aggravaton of playing in that market (some players love it, others hate it). Now, this is not saying that people WANT to come to Buffalo, but there might be players who fit that description that would want to be here.

Agree on Tage, Cozens and Power..... But Skinner? He is giving you pretty much exactly what he did last year..and the year before. He is playing minimal defense, not helping out in his own end, but NOT giving the puck away in his own zone. He is scoring at a 34 goal pace. That is pretty much what I expect from him and at this point, if Everyone else listed was doing what is expected of them...what I need from Skinner given his skillset.

When I do the numbers he is averaging 75 points per 82 games since joining the Sabres. That is not "60'ish" at all.

I'm pretty confident he was playing hurt, but is getting better, and hopefully this week-and-a-half break does some good for him. -he had multiple days during training camp where he didn't participate, and he also had some days he missed practice right at the start of the year. -Through October, he had 5 points in his first 9 games where he as missing frequent practices (45 point pace). He has been getting better since then, 29 points in 33 games since (72 point pace). The first month of the season really 'hurt' his stats' -As I mentioned in the 'Sabres are playing slow thread', Tuch is one of the fastest skaters on the team, but the site tracks how many/how often a player has a 'speed burst' in a game of over 20mph. Tuch is WAY down from last year, probably has the biggest drop on the entire team. If he was playing hurt at the beginning of the year, that would be a sign that it is the case.

Right now, a 92 point pace would get you in the way things stand. Usually you need 94-96. Sabres have 33 games left. To get to 92 points they need to play at a 109 'point pace.' To get to 95, the need to play at a 117 'point pace.' To play at a 109 point pace, that means you are playing like a top 6 (6th best) team in the league. a 117 point pace? Only Boston and Vancouver have played at the pace for the season so far, so you'd have to play at a top 2 or 3 team in the league pace. Their current spot in the standings (how many teams to pass, how many points out), doesn't mean nothing, but the goal is the point total. Right now its 92, but usually ends up being about 95.

Ok, a huge break now between games. No one get injured on vacation. Tuch, Thompson, wrap yourself in bubble wrap over the next week. Any lingering injuries/issues, come back at full strength.

I really really dislike Cozens game in every way this year. BUT, he is valuable when he puts the puck in the net. Empty net goals to me are just as good/important as regular goals. If he can get going and start putting up some goals and points, I'll feel a lot better about him. I'm beginning to get some hope.

Seems to make sense. His 'top speed' is about the same as last year, but he is pushing himself to get to top speed MUCH less than last year.

Digging through the site a bit more, some interesting things: -Tuch seems to be the one who is peforming worse/slower this year compared to last year. His 'speed bursts' per game are WAY down. -Skinner seems to farther down the list of top speed on the team and also a very low number of 'speed burts' over 20 mph. Way less than I thought. One thing Skinner is good at, he is 7th in the entire league in shots attempted over the past 3 seasons combined from the front of the net (high danger) area. He is the ONE player on this team that is willing to go to the 'dirty' areas and take some punishment for prime scoring chances. -Zemgus has one of the highest top speeds on the team, AND one of the higher number of bursts over 20mph. When you figure in his ice time, I'd guess he leads the team (both last year and this year) in speed burts over 20mph with respect to his ice time. -Tage. Last year he had 210 shots then entire year from the high danger areas (right in front of the net, and between the faceoff dots). This year he only has 84. From those prime areas, he is taking 22% LESS shots per game this year than last year. -Cozens. Everything about his numbers are similar to last year. Skating speed, Speed bursts. Shots on goal location, almost every single metric you can measure is about the same EXCEPT shooting percentage. The worrying thing is his numbers even the year before are about the same. The ONLY thing that is different over the past few years is last years shooting percentage. His game offensively and skating is the same each year. Really hope last year's shooting percentage wasn't just an anomoly. For anyone interested, the highest top speeds recoreed this year of forwards: (League leaders: Owen Tippet 24.21, Braydon Point 24.15, Nate MacKinnon 24.05, McDavid 24.05,) Sabres Forwards: Tuch 22.99 MPH Zemgus 22.88 Thompson 22.64 Peterka 22.43 Cozens 22.36 Krebs 22.36 Mitts 22.16 Skinner 22.04 Robinson 21.92 Olofsson 21.76 Greenway 21.72 Quinn 21.71 Okposo 21.53 Tyson Jost 21.08 Rosen 21.05 Kulich 20.83 Benson 20.80 Highest skating speeds recorded all year by Defensemen: (league leaders: Mackenzie Weeger 23.61, Zach Werenski 23.50, Sam Girard 23.43, Miro Heiskanen 23.36) Samuelsson 22.43 Clifton 21.96 Jokiharju 21.70 Bryson 21.52 Dahlin 21.44 Ryan Johnson 21.35 Power 21.27 Eric Johnson 21.22

Actually, mostly been in retail my whole life, with a few times dabbling in economics (major in college). I just like numbers and statistics. Math was/is always my favorite subject..as long as it deals with numbers. When it comes to calculus and beyond, never interested.

They aren't skating as hard as the did last year....or Their 'faster' players are playing hurt...or They are playing a different style than last year....or. Some or all of the above

If you are going to make a change and go with an older/experienced guy, I'd have Ruff near the top of the list if he is available.

I don't know the names, but in concept: -a legit top tier defensemen who is a veteran. 26-30 years old. At least 400 games NHL experience. A guy who is great as a 2nd pair, but could even fill in on the first pair. -Pay whatever you need to in order to give Granato some top tier assistants. Lets cut down on the number of former players getting their first or 2nd job coaching/developing on the Sabres. I don't want/need a new head coach, but if I'm going to keep Granato he needs MUCH better staff to work with. -A goalie to compete with Levi for the backup role next year. -A 6'5" or taller forward who is will be a physical presense on the 4th line, but skilled/fast enough to be a good penalty killer....someone with that size and reach will take up a lot of space on the PK. -Re-sign Mitts and maybe, MAYBE get another legit NHL center so you can move Cozens to wing.

I looked at last year....below are the charts for last year. Main difference, while this year they are near the bottom for 'speed burts' over 18, 20, and 22 mph......LAST year they were above average compared to the rest of the league in speed bursts over 20, and near the TOP in terms of 'speed bursts' over 18. In terms of skating, last year they were an above average time, near the TOP of the league in how many speed bursts they had over 18, while they have turned into one of the, if not THE slowest playing team this year. Last year's data:

I didn't know about the NHL edge site, I stumbled upon it today. Lot of tracking data, I thought the Sabres were always one of the faster teams in the league, but not even close. They track individual players, teams, Top speed attained skating by forwards, by defensemen, and the total number of 'burts' each player/team has had over 18mph, over 20mph, and over 22mph. What does the data show? Sabres are, or at least they play VERY slow. Only 14 times all year have they had a player with over a 22mph speed (70% less than leage AVERAGE) . 716 times over 20 (23% less than average) . 3982 over 18mph (5.5% below league average) I didn't go through every team, but in the first chart below, the closer you are to the outer edge of the circle, the higher you rank compared to other teams, the closer you are to the center, the closer you are to worst in the league. Here is the link to the Sabres page on the site: https://edge.nhl.com/en/team/BUF

With Cozens, I am probably harder on him than I should be becasue I always watched him and wondered what people saw that was so great...until last year. Last year, he put in 30 goals, and I was like "finally, if that is what he is, he is going to be a very good player". But as I mentioned above, I think he needs to produce close to that level to be of much value. Power I was hesitant to list. I think he is OK for his age. I guess the only reason I put him up there is, at the end of last year and earlier this year...there were a lot of fans thinking he was a top D-man in the league. I think he is middle of the pack in terms of D-men in the league, over-rated by many Sabres fans even last year...but I'm not down on him. I just think he'll take time and 'patience' is the one thing very few around here want to hear.

I'm not sure if this thread will go anywhere, but Its someting we talk a lot amongst each other without specifically saying...so... Compared to everyone else you debate with on here, or the impression of the general fanbase, who do you like more on this roster or think is better? And who do you think gets too much credit and is worse than general perception? For me: Better: Girgeonsons. He's a 4th liner and not more than that, but I see a coupel posts a week from people saying they can't wait to get rid of him. But to me, he still is an above average skater/speed, 2nd best forchecker on the team, is good enough on the PK, rarely makes obvious mistakes in his own zone..and he scores at about the same rate as an average 4th liner around the league. Better: Jokiharju. Is he great? No, but I think his 'defensive zone mistakes' are often where he looks bad trying to cover for a forward who has no idea what he is doing. Again, not a top pair guy, but I think he has well-rounded talent and should still get better as he gains more experience (he still is only 24) Worse: Krebs. I don't see anything in his game I like. His offense to me looks accidental. He is VERY slow on the backcheck and many times I have seen him coasting back when one more step of effort could have prevented a goal against. Hes not big, he doesn't win many loose puck battles. Yes, he IS still young and some forwards come into their own in their mid 20's, but I don't see much from him at all that I like Worse: Cozens. As a Center, he is worse than a train wreck in his own zone. He NEEDs to produce 25-30 goals to make up for how bad he is in his own zone, and he doesn't sem to be getting better back there. He had a 30 goal breakout year he got paid for, but EVERY other year (including this year) seems to show that 'breakout year' was really a 'career year'. At least as a Center (where this team insists on playing him) he seems to have below average 'hockey sense' in the offensive zone, and ZERO hockey sense in the defensive zone. I wish every day they move him to wing because he is a bad center. BAD. Worse: Power. For now. I hope/think he will get better, so I don't feel as bad about him as Cozens and Krebs, but he is very tenative when he seems to have the talent not to be. He is confused in his own zone (I THINK that will get better with experience). Again, I think he will get better but, in terms of how good he is now, I think many fans were looking at him throgh rose colored glasses last year, he's going to need more time.

There is no doubt that was intentionally, late, not needed...etc. In a perfect world that should be 20+ games. Get THIS stuff out of the game, and you might be able to justfiy other physical play.