mjd1001

Another thing about Quinn. He does not, can not, or refuses to go to the front of the net anymore. Look at high danger chances in front of the net (Shots taken from between the dots and from the dots to the goal line). He has ONE this year. Last year he had 12 (in less games played). The year before that he had 42. This year, ONE in 31 games played. Why? He's still playing with Cozens as his center most of the time? Style of play under Lindy? I don't think so. To compare to other Sabres wingers on how much they are going to the front of the net and getting shots off from there this year: Benson has 23 high danger shots(46.9% of his shots). Peterka has 18 (24.7%). Tuch has 22 (26.8%), Zucker has 30 (44.8%). Quinn? Quinn has 1 (1.8%) That is a major, MAJOR difference. There is probably not a more 'perimeter' top 6/top9 forward in the league now than Quinn. Even Olofsson has 15% of his shots from those areas in front of the net for Vegas this year, and 18% last year for the Sabres.

I'll start out by saying overall, even for his career, Jack Quinn does not shoot enough. Coming into this year, he had 188 shots in 104 games (148 shot per 82 game pace) This year, he has 56 shots in 31 games (148 per 82 pace) Tage shoots at close to 300 shots per 82. Tuch is around 220. Peterka had 226 last year. Cozens is usually between 200-210 per season. League elite guys (not that Quinn is one) like Pastrnak and McKinnon approach (or exceed) 400 shots per year. Yet Quinn is under 150. If he is a goal scorer, and that is his role on the team, he needs to get in position to take more shots, or just simply take them when he has the puck. He is a goal scorer, he shoots at 12% for his career. Not elite, but pretty good (He was 12.8% coming into this year before his horrible start). Except for his start this year, he hasn't before gone into huge, multi-month shooting slumps like Cozens. Why is he not taking more shots? Is it confidence? Is it that he cannot (or will not) go into shooting positions? Maybe the issue is Cozens, try Quinn for a prolonged period with a different Center. Cozens DOES get a pretty good number of his shots from 'high danger' areas. But when you watch him play, that may be the issue. Cozens like to carry the puck right in front of the net and shoot. Cozens RARELY takes the puck into those high danger areas, drawing the opposing team toward him, and then seeing his wingers open and feeding them the puck for better looks. Cozens is the high danger areas is like a Black hole...once the puck goes in there with him, it never comes out. Of course, Other than Thompson (who I do NOT want taking less shots to feed Quinn if Quinn were moved there), The Sabres really don't have that play making, pass-first center to put him on a line with to try out.

Agree. Its not just not going after guys who are better like Zucker, it is they did bring in kinda-veteran guys, but they were 'cheaper' and often not that good: Tyson Jost 102, Vinny Hinostroza 88, Riley Sheahan 55, Anders Bjork 74, John Hayden 55, Robert Haag 48, Colin Miller 137, Cody Eakin 115, Tobias Reider 44, Curtis Lazar 71, Matt Irwin 24, Drake Caggulia 29, Marcus Johansson 60, Jimmy Vesey 64, Michael Frolik 19. Those are just some of the 'veterans' the team brought in since the Pandemic years, and how many games they played. Not exactly a who's-who of quality veterans that they paid up for. More like token vets, many at the end of their career, that were brought in because they were inexpensive.

I agree with that. That is why I'm not all in on advance stats. But in this case they support what we see. It was before the losing streak, there were a lot of close-ish games the Sabres lost where when watching the goals, I would look at the replay and not really find a blatant error by the team in front of him. It was just that some shots, they may have been good shots by the opposing teams, but they should have been saves. I know in the GDT's of many of those games, made posts after the goals were scored where I'm sure I said in the posts something like "I need my goalie to make that save".

Lets see if Montreal sustains this. I just think though, that many of us on this forum, and a LOT of the national NHL media looked at the least for the past 3-4 years and said something like "Buffalo, Ottawa, Detroit. They are coming. Which of those 3 will be first to make the playoffs? Oh, Montreal, their rebuild is 2, maybe 3 years behind the others". So far none of Buffalo, Ottawa, and Detroit have made it. Ottawa has a good shot this year, but Montreal is not far behind them in the standings.

I hope so. But at the end of last season, I thought the exact same thing. Then this year, UPL started out pretty badly. Before 'bashing' his play below, let me say I think he is one of the 3 most important players on this team. I think he can be a top 10 goalie in the league medium term. At the start of LAST year I think I was one of the very few on here who wanted Levi in the minors and UPL as the starter. I like him. I want him on this team and for him to continue to get the majority fo the starts. But He has been pretty bad for most of the season though. One could say that among many reasons, his sub-par play on many nights is one of the top 3 reasons the team is as far back in the standings as they are. Last year he had a .910 save percentage with a 2.57 GAA. That was with a shaky start. Once he became the full time goalie, he played better than his full year numbers. Many of us assumed now that he was the 'starter', he would continue the pace of last year right into this year. Some of the advanced numbers back up the 'eye test' (at least for me). Hes not facing a lot more overall shots this year per game than last year (27.2 vs 27.6 per game) or even if you want to break it down, 'high danger' chances (7.3 per game vs 7.2 per game). If anything the slight difference says he faced more high danger shots against last year. What is different is how he is playing overall. My personal "eye test" told me that in the couple weeks before the losing streak and even through the losing streak, there were a lot of goals he let in that my impression was, afte watching the replay..."The team in front of him really did NOT hang him out to dry, I just need my goalie to make that save". And the numbers last year compared to this year: Overall save percentage 12 points lower this year. High danger save percentage 52 points lower this year than last year. This year 10% less of his starts feature him having a save percentage above .900. As mentioned above, I don't think he is getting hung out to dry by his forwards and D-men as much as last year. If he would just be matching his overall numbers from last year, he would have allowed 8-10 less goals than last year. With him facing slightly less 'high danger' shots this year, maybe that number should be 10-12 less. Sprinkle those 10-12 less goals around all the games this year, and this team likely has a few more wins. So I understand the point you and others are making. He seems to be turning his game around. I think he is capable of that and I expect that. Its just frustrating. Even with all the issues this year (Tage and Dahlin injuries, Cozens taking a WHILE to come around, Quinn and Peterka pulling disappearing acts for large portions of the season), with all that, UPL having played as well this year as last year probably has them fighting for that last playoff spot right now.

This whole game, that seems like a really lively crowd. That fanbase, at least the ones in the building, do a good job.

I seem to memories of Linday saying "the guys have to shoot and not look for the perfect pass" I think we have heard him say that on the Hasek era teams. The Brierre/Drury teams. The post-brierre/Drury teams. And a few times with this current team.

This is a strange game. Dallas seems to be outplaying the Sabres positionally, but they don't seem like they are 'better'. I know that doesn't make sense. I guess I just can't get a feel for this game.

Faceoffs are 72% Dallas, 28% Buffalo. I know others have said as a stat they don't mean much long term as far as wins and losses, but in this game, the Sabres have lost some faceoffs in their own end that Dallas has controlled for a while after.

The past 2 weeks Cozens and Quinn have been playing a lot better. They are both invisible tonight (in terms of good plays). Would be nice to get something from one of them here.

Guys contribute at times. Zucker has had some good moments. Peterka was great for stretches earlier in the year. Lindy loves giving ice time to Bryam. Tuch has a few big goals too. But this team seems to be absolutely reliant on Thompson, Dahlin, and UPL. They could interchange most of the rest of the roster, but if those 3 are healthy and 'on', this is a good team. If any of them are hurt or 'off' they are in trouble.

Dahline still must not feel 100%. The last few days he was trailing the other top D-men in time on ice. First period, he is 4th in ice time again. Just seems different than past years. Even when he was banged up in the past, Granato would put him out there for 22-26 minutes per game.

Looking back at it, yeah, exactly. He didn't play that game against Boston, but since Laine came back, Montreal has been 9-4. So, it can't be ALL him, but without him playing, they played at a 65 point pace. Since he came back, they are playing at a 113 point pace.

Montreal seems to be turning things around. They lost to Boston Dec 1, that made them 8-13-3. But since then, They have gone 9W-4L. They are only 3 points back of the last playoff spot in the east. Its not just going 9-4 though, They beat Tampa handily, just beat Vegas, shut out the Panhters in Florida, Beat up on Detroit 5-1, blew out the Sabres 6-1, so some pretty big wins in there. If it wasn't for that 9-2 loss to Pittsburgh, I'd say they had a great month.

I think I heard Tage was playing through an injury again. He seems like someone that when he is hurt, his shooting percentage drops 50%. Hopefully he is getting better though. I think Quinn (not just goals but overall) and Cozens have been playing a bit better lately. I haven't seen as many 'boneheaded' mistakes/plays. Even with that, they still aren't good out there unless they are scoring. Are these numbers over a certain period of time, or for the whole season?

I could go either way with Jim Carrey. The Cable Guy, The Grinch, Mr Poppers Penguins, and The Mask not only did I not like them I found him really annoying in them. Really didn't like them. His more serious roles like The Truman show, the Majestic, Eternal Sunshine, or Number 23...whatever, I could take them or leave them. Other ones with him Iove. Liar Liar (although it hasn't aged that well), Dumb and Dumber, The pet Detective movies...yeah they are really dumb but if I'm in the mood for that silly type of comedy, I can love them. Its like watching 'an idiot family member' do dumb things that still make me laugh.

Looking at that 1996 draft, wow, was it bad. Buffalo picks Rasmussen (bust), 2nd round Darren Van Oene (Who?) and Corey Sarich, 3rd round Francois Methot...From the middle of the 2nd round to the 7th, the Sabres had 8 picks. 7 of them didn't even play a single NHL game. The one who did? Alexei Tezikov (he had 1 career goal and 2 career points in the NHL) The top 10 picks in that draft: Chris Philips, Andrei Zyuzin, J.P. Dumont, Alex Volchkov, Ric Jackman, Boyd Devereaux, Erik Rasmussen, Jonathan Aitken, Ruslan Salei, and Lance Ward. If there is a worse top of an NHL draft, I'd like to know what it is. The interesting thing is, 4 guys in the first round had 200+ career goals. 3 of them spent time on the Sabres: Dumont, Zubrus, and Briere.

Caps lost, but Ovechkin with another goal. 2 games back from injury, 2 goals already (although one was empty net). 7 goals in his last 4 games played. 15 goals in his last 13 games. He has scored in 12 of his 20 games played. He's a plus 16 in 20 games played. Shooting 23% This might be the most productive stretch in his entire career, and he's 39 years old (and looks like 50) -- But the 32 year old Jeff Skinner with more than 400 less games played than Ovi is "spent".

I think so. Sabres win. Bandits win. Bills win. Sabres win. In that order I think.

POSSIBLE. He obviously didn't play in all the games so he is behind in terms of games played....but...7 goals in 27 games so far...that is a 21 goal-per-82 game pace.

Last (8th) playoff spot in the east is at .543 point percentage. Just 9 more wins in a row and the Sabres match that!

Noticing something about Cozens for the 2nd time in the past couple of weeks. His average shifts are very short. I don't know if it was the Islanders game of the game before but in the GDT I noticed he was getting regular shifts, but his average ice time was lower than anyone else among forwards. Same thing today through 2 periods. Today he is averaging 36 seconds per shift. For the season he was at 47 seconds. The game a few games ago through 2 he was at 30-32 seconds per shift. The thing that is significant is, he usually has close to the longest shift times. He is 3rd right now among all forwards in average shift time, and I think I checked a couple weeks ago and he was first then. Maybe its just random. Its not like he is getting benched, he is close to getting the most shifts on the team game after game. Just wondering if there is something to a couple recent games his shifts being much shorter than usual.

Scrolling on the bottom of the screen?

The Sabres have scored first more than any other team in the league. 22 times in 37 games played. Ironically, you think scoring first is very important, they are actually tied with another team that has also scored first 22 times. Chicago. Last year Buffalo scored first in only 36 games the entire year.