mjd1001

These guys are NHL prospects, but the undrafted free agent guys, I'm not as excited about as I used to be. Maybe some of them turned into star players that I do not remember, but in the past, the buildup of Jimmy Vesey, Will Butcher, and guys that fans were all over thinking they would be major difference makers....it just seems to me SOME of these guys might help around the fringe, but very few end up being difference makers as much as they are built up to be.

Plus I'm not so sure his teamates will like that if that is ALL he does. The league is different now. Years ago the non-fighters would want the fighter on your team...fights happened more often, and you would rather the 'heavyweight' take care of it so you didn't have to. But now, a Guy like Rempe...it can become an arms race. He does what he does..and not only does the team he does that too dress their 'enforcer' the next game, but him, and the 'marginal enforcers' are looking for something to happen. As a teammate on the Rangers, you just went from playing your game to now having one, or a FEW guys on the other team you face having that 'itchy fighting hand' or at least maybe those guys looking to make that 'borderline dirty hit' on SOMEONE on your team (maybe you) that would not have happened if Rempe didn't do the things you do. So yeah. it can still be part of the game, and it was a bigger part of the game in the past. But I think a lot of modern-day players, the ultra skilled guys....Rempe's act will wear thin with them as a teammate much quicker than it did in the past. Its not the fighting alone, its the fighting, the 'build up' to the fight, the dirty hits and the 'heel persona' he is taking on (waving at or chirping at the other teams bench)

Here is what I think the reality is with Diggs, he can be/might be a pain for coaches in the locker room, he might be all about himself, but his skills are declining and declining rapidly. He's supposed to be an "Elite" WR right? making almsot $20 million per year, he better be, but he's not anymore. He doesn't blow by guys anymore. The occasions he was open deep, well, he was occasionally, but not nearly as often as he was in the past. How many times a year did you see him catch a pass in open territory and make a couple guys miss and turn a slant or a curl into a big gain? I'm not saying he is awful, but he is no longer a game breaker or even a THREAT do do that other teams to have account for. THIS is what happens to most WR's when they get over 30 years old. It just does most of the time, and Diggs is not immune to it. And its NOT going to be better this year than it was last year. Sure, he might put up decent numbers with Houston (and I'm not sure that even will happen), but they may want to show off their 'shiny new toy' and feed him the ball, but he's no longer a game breaker. As many have said, his stats (and his overall play) declined a LOT over the last year. Zero 100 yard games in the last 13 games played with the Bills. Most of those games he didn't even get 50 yards. Basically invisible in the last 3 playoff games the team played. He simply is not a great, or even very good WR anymore. And if there is one thing that is worse than having a WR who isn't great anymore, its having one that THINKS he is still great when he isn't, and demands to be treated as if he is still great when he isn't anymore.

I think Dahlin is one of the best D-men in the league right now. There are a few things holding him back from getting the attention across the league and from Buffalo fans also. 1. The team isn't good and not in the playoffs. He won't get the coverage that players on top teams in the playoffs get. 2. As per the previous discussions, he isn't putting up the point totals. Not because he is not as good as the guys that do, but the forwards on this team are just schooting/scoring a lot less than the guys on the other top guys teams. As said, If Tuch, Thompson, Cozens, etc, converted chances at the same rate as other teams, or EVEN at the same rate as they did last year, Dahlin would be up near the top in points as he would have a lot more assists. 3. There are more times Dahlin LOOKS like he is making mistakes in his own zone...simply becaue for much of the year he was playing behind possibly the worst group of forwards in the league in their own end. The Sabres have gotten better the last few months in this way, and guess what? Dahlin looks better in his own zone. He might be BETTER than the other guys in Norris consideration with D-zone play, but he is going to look worse with how often he is in a bad position in his own end. Is Dahlin the perfect defensive player? No. Is he on track to be the best D-man ever? probably not. But I honestly think he is, when considering ALL parts of his game (offensive zone, defensive zone, physical play, shooting/scoring) right near the top of the league.

Agree. I'm just hoping Rochester holds onto their playoff spot (looks like they will) and he gets some playoff games with the guys down there, and hopefully they win at least one series again.

I too would LIKE someone on the Sabres to have the ability to 'answer the bell' in those situations, but I don't care that much. There are some who lement fighting leaving the league and some who don't need it at all. Give me end to end hockey with goals, and I don't need it at all. But it is what it is. I was watching the game last night and when the puck dropped, I didn't turn away form the TV. But for Rempe himself, something about him rubs me the wrong way. A couple of dirty hits, doesn't seem to be going out of his way to avoid them. Then he gets in fights...some are a draw, some he losses, and yet he seems to always want to skate by the opponents bench and say something or salute the crowd after a fight. Its like man, you got in a fight you didn't win...the reason you got in that fight is because you dirty hit someone, and after that fight you are going to go yapp at the opponents bench on the way off the ice? To me, not cool.

I don't mind McDermott as coach, I guess I kinda like him. I'm not married to the idea of him being here forever, but I never really was ever on the train of firing him, or even thinking about it. With that said, he is a little strange with the media. At times its like he is trying to be like Bellichick with giving nothing to the media, but he does it his own way trying at time to be SLIGHLTLY more friendly, but its just, I don't know, it comes across as really strange. Back onto Diggs, after listening, reading others opinions, and thinking of the trade, I'm really really good with it. I've posted many times that I want this team to get younger. Before LAST year I thought the Diggs extension was a mistake, and yes, I did post that I didn't want Vonn Miller at all even when he first arrived, and I think last year was the year to move on from Poyer and Hyde, not this year. I prefer a younger/more athletic time. I know, sometimes you need veterans, and if I had my way the football or hockey team I put together would always be a bit too young, but that is what I like. I never liked guys that much who "made their name" with other teams and then were aquired. Yes, your franchise gets attention for that, but for me its just more fun bringing in relative 'unknowns' and having them make their name WITH you....and then I prefer getting rid of players a year too early rather than a year too late. Plus Diggs, I was never a fan of his social media presense. Yeah, I know we can ignore it if we want, but just something about me, I prefer guys/players/stars who stay off of Social media (kinda like Josh Allen) rather than guys who 'build their brand' on it, and always need to have some interaction on it. Just me. To be totally honest, he was a Buffalo Bill but I really didn't like him. I'm going to look forward to watching a younger (if not as good for a year) team play football this year in the Bills. I"m going to look forward to seeing what moves they make in the offseason. Next to winning the Superbowl, the Bills are now in position that makes me the MOST interested I can possibly be in them....The team building/team construction aspect is the most fun thing for me as a fan, certainly a lot more fun than just 'running the vets' back out there year after year.

This may be something I posted in the past, but it came up today again so I'm posting it again. on Espn, Stephen A. Smith. He just yells and yells and yells, how does anyone like that, let a long tolerate it? I hardly watch ESPN anymore, but after the Diggs trade, I turned it on for a few minutes yesterday. Turned off the TV after a couple minutes. So just a few minutes ago, I turn the tv on and because ESPN was on last, it came on right away, and immediately, I have no idea what it was even about, he's just yelling, like on the verge of screaming. How does someone make a career about complaining about things in sports, being angry all the time, and just yelling on tv? I don't get it.

I agree for the most part. People wanting him to hit, to be a "Chris Pronger" type, thats just not his game. It doesn't matter that he is as big/tall as he is. Most of us know the stats. Hits per 60 minutes...Power is at 1.57 this year. Clifton is a 9.45, Samuelsson 7.7. Dahlin at 5.5 Byram at 5. The Sabres are a team notorious for not hitting and its almost like Power shys away from contact. The top D-men around the league are around 15 hits per 60. But..there are a lot of guys like Power below 2 hits per 60 that are very good D-men. Hampus Lindholm in Boston is 1.8. Pesce and Slavin in Carolina are below 2. Cale Makar is at 1.2. Josi at 1.39. Quinn Hughes at 0.79! So, you don't have to hit to be a very good/great D-man. Is Power any of those guys...No, not yet, but he is still developing his game. So, people see a big body and they want hits. Power just might have the skillset/gamestyle/mentality closer to those guys I listed above, its just that he happens to be that in a much larger/taller body. Hopefully he will turn into a D-man that gets you 10-20 goals, 50+ points, one who makes a great first pass out of the zone, is a very good penalty killer, and is skilled enough offensively to fill in on the Power play (and be effective handling the puck) when Dahlin or Byram are out or need a break. You get a guy like that (which I think is his projection and he is on his way there), then he can be a great D-man without hitting anyone. Would a few more hits be nice? Yeah, at times, but just becaue he is tall that doesn't mean that is who he is, he can be very good without playing that way.

High danger chances...basically right in front of the net. Half way or less from the circles to the goalposts, and between the dots. As of right now, leauge average for shots from there is 593 shots, the Sabres are at 545 shots. So yes, when people say its coaching because they are getting less chances from there, they are near the bottom, but not far away at all from league average. Last year they had 18 less shots than 'league average' from the high danger zone. This year they have 48 less. It would be reasonable to say the increased number of games missed by your top offensive players (Tuch, Skinner, Quinn, Thompson) and the level of their replacements along account for the change in those numbers. Their offensize zone time compared to defensive zone time is almost identical this year compared to last year. HOWEVER, the players part, converting those chances...the league average shooting percentage is 19.7% from the 'high danger' area. The Sabres are at only 14.7%. My point is..lets say the Sabres could change coaches and the same players who converate at 14.7% when they get those shots are not put on position to be there more often (lets say league average.) They would have 48 more shots, at 14.7%, which would (statisticall) equal about 7 more goals for the year. But lets flip it around. Lets say the same coaching staff gets them 'only ' 545 shots from those high danger areas, but they convert at just league average rate (19.7%). That gives them 27 more goals. So to me, this is more on the players than it is the coaces. Last year they converted in those high danger areas at 19.1%. Last year they were 3rd in the leauge in goals, and stil last year they were slightly below average in terms of total shots taken from the high danger areas. The main difference from this year to last year is the rate the players are converting those high danger shots. Whether it's Tage's wrist injury, Tuch being banged up since camp, Cozens regressing...etc. When you dig really deep into analytics, the 'fancy stats', you can come up with numbers to support any point of view you want. My main point is the one thing that doesn't change is simply this...compared to last year, the drop off in goals is due mostly/mainly to players simply not converting on chance this year that they were last year.

Quinn played many times better last game than before.

Nothing wrong with that. Trading a guy who in his mid 20's is coming into his own, leading your team in points, that seems to be liked well by management and his teammates. VS Trading a 30+ year old WR that didn't much much of a difference at all the last 10 games he played, who appears to be getting to the point in his career his skill is sliding and was/is due big contract dollars the next 3-4 years.

If you want to really stretch, Houston gets a guy on the decline, that they either overpay at what? $18m per year? Or the cut him themselves and lost the 2nd rounder they gave up for him. Maybe not this year, but you could have weakened (slightly) an opponent in the conference for the next few years.

It all depends on the money and your internal/analytical analysis. If you think Peterka projects to be a 30 goal scorer for most of his career (he's there now, what will he be in his mid to late 20's?), then you give him the long term deal. You pay more now when you have cap space to save a little bit later when you have a lot of other bigger deals giving you less space under the cap. You shouldn't bridge just because you are 'afraid' to make a mistake. If he is really good, giving him a bridge WOULD be the mistake. Again though, it depends on your internal analysis and what the asking price is. Without knowing those things, its hard to answer. If you don't trust the current managment to make that decision, that is a whole different issue.

The only thing I think of beyond his sliding production/age (and I do think that is the main issue) is, why take such a big cap hit this year (over $30 million it appears) if its just him getting older. They could just play him less, not dress him, etc rather than taking that cap hit. I still think there might be some behind the scenes stuff going on (or maybe if they played him less they might be AFRAID he would start doing that?) I guess you can just say this is the 'reset year'. Its not only about the cap hit, but if he's not part of your future, and the 'present' isn't as good as many thing, just move on, do the best you can in 2024, and reset and re-load for 2025.

His play seems to be sliding. Eye test: He was finding holes in zones where Allen hit him, but he wasn't making really any great plays, didn't seem to fool guys or blow by guys as much as he did a year or two ago. Stats: His last 13 games in a row he didn't exceed 100 yards receiving. In those 13 games, 7 of those 13 games, he didn't even get to 50 yards receiving. Age is catching up to him (and if it is, hes not likely to get better next year and likely might get worse) or Allen doesn't want to throw to him as much. You aren't getting rid of Allen so either of those 2 things are bad.

Early reports are the Bills having to take on $31million in cap space due to this. They must have REALLY thought he is on the downside, where his performance can be replaced by a top rookie, or there must REALLY be some problems he is causing with the team. I mean, if his skill is dropping off that fast, you could just bench him/not dress him and not take that cap hit. To take THAT much of a cap hit for a 2nd rounder in 2025, there had to be some serious isssues I would think.

I'm OK with this move. Some are huge fans of Diggs, I really never was. Mostly because I'm not big on the 'diva' WR thing. I get it, social media tweets are just 'playing with the fans', and they can/might mean nothing. To some people its entertaining, I get that, but its not really for me. But as far as play on the field, it looked like the end of the 2022 season, he might have been taking a very slight step back. Last year his performance for sure was starting to slide (to me). If they are projecting that is going to continue to happen, and they are thinking this year is a partial 'reset/retool' year, then I can see them making this move. Its almost like...they are going to take a step back this year, roll the dice with major changes, to prepare next year for the 2nd half of Allens's career here.

Not sure what it means? It just means a player that used to be in the Sabres organization is currently on a very hot run, and maybe has turned the corner into a legit NHL scorer. Many people on this board LIKE to keep track of former members of this team, so I"m not sure why you are questioning what it means be me posting it?

If you look at both the raw numbers and the percentages, they are only a small number (in terms of raw numbers) away form middle-of-the-pack in terms of high danger chances/shots....yet their percentages are WAY off. So, combine chances generated, shots taken, where they are taken from, with shooting percentages....and it is the players not converting that is the vast majoirty of the shortfall, not how often they are in position. If you run the numbers all the way though, and you will see if the players improved their performance (just revert to last year's mean OR be average in the league) and this team would be a lot better.

Alex Nylander scored 2 more last night.. Now with 10 goals in 17 games since traded to Columbus (48 goal pace over 82 games)

Why is Granato bad? Serious question. The results are bad, but when you dig into the metrics....what I see is a team that has improved its defensive zone coverage from last year. A team that GETS good scoring chances from high danger areas, just converts them at the lowest rate in the league (that has nothing to do with coaching, they are getting the chances, they are in position, they just aren't converting them). The thing I see keeping this team out of the playoffs more than anything else is simply the players not coverting shot into goals, getting shots in great areas, 2 on ones, breakaways, and just not converting those chances at anywhere near the rate of most other teams. The coaching staff is not perfect, but the guys are in position to score, how is another coaching staff going to make them better shooters?

Dahlin looks to be up on goals since last year but way down on assists. A simple reason he is down on assists? The guys in front of him (that he plays with most often) just aren't shooting as well. Tuch's Shooting percentage is down from over 16% to about 11%. Thompson from about 16% to only near 11% this year. Skinner down from 14.5% last year to about 12% this year. Cozens nearly cut in half from over 14% last year to about 8% this year. The thing is, those guys are getting about the same number of shots per game as last year, and a month or so ago the advanced fancy stats showed that at least with Cozens and Thompson, they were getting shots from the high danger areas (quality chance) about the same as last year. Meaning, Dahlin is getting the pucks up the ice and on to those guys sticks, they just aren't putting them in the net and he is getting less assists because of it. (which also impacts his plus-minus in a negative way). And as for those 'league leaders' and 'Norris candidates' ahead of Dahlin....Quinn Hughes in Vancouver. Makar. Josi. Hedman. What do they have that Dahlin doesn't have? Not any (or many) more goals, but they do have forward on their team that put the puck in the net a lot better than the Sabres forwards, giving them a lot more assists than Dahlin gets. Vancouvers top 4 goal scorers up front average almost 20% shooting percentage between them. Colorado's top 3 guys are at 13.1, 15.8, and 17.7. Tampa's top 4 guys have almost 140 goals between them and are average about 20% shooting. Buffalo? Every single player on the team with at least 10 goals is shooting under 13%. And when you break down the Sabres shooting..."high danger" chances (directly in front of the net), the league besides the Sabres shoots about 20%. The Sabres...14.1%. Colorado? 20.5% Vancouver? 23.4%. So, Dahlin not being near the top of the league in points and assists (along with goals) might just be more of a function of the players he plays with being SO MUCH worse than the rest of the league at putting the puck into the net, even from prime scoring areas. As you said, leading the league in ice time, improving corsi, improving hits, improving blocked shots....if he had the assists that would go with better play up front, he just might be in the Norris converstation this year (and when looking at those numbers, if the Sabres were even AVERAGE at how much they produce from the high danger areas, they would probably be in the playoffs right now.

I beleive that. I also think Granato is a pretty darn good development coach and might be a good coach overall. However, Its hard to know that with what might be going on from the top down. I'll give into the fact that if Granato is back next year and the team starts out terrible, then fine, fire him. But 2 things: Who that is better are you going to get to take the job? And whoever you get to take the job, are they going to be working under less than ideal conditions and will you get the best from them?

Does he have any Pride? He has MORE desire to have rose pedals thrown at his feet by his employees than he does have pride to make tough decisions or put people in place in his organization that will make decisions he doesn't personally like. To be honest, I (and probably most people) have really no idea what kind of owner he is, how involved he is in the 'on the ice' product..any of that. So anything I think/say is little more than a guess. With that said, I am 'guessing' he isn't a good owner and a lot of the issues here are his fault. I get the impression he meddles around the edges a LOT. Erhoff and Ville Leino, it seemed like a lot of smoke he insisted on those signings (I think Erhoff, one of his kids admitted Pegula wanted him, not so much management) and they were overpays. Skinner, I get the impression from a lot of 'chatter', Pegula wanted/was responsible for the trade (not a bad trade) and the extension (not a good extension). The Lafontaine/Ted Black/Tim Murray/ other personal fiascos....if he wasn't responsible for them he was involved. I remember an interview years ago during Bills training camp, he would insist on sitting in on the coaching meetings, he said himself he didn't give his opinion alot but he DID ask a lot of questions (I'm sure the coaches LOVED the owner sitting on on many of their meetings and interrupting with frequent questions about stuff he didn't know about). So yeah.... Does he have the right do do any/all of that? As the owner he sure does. But I'm also guessing it doesn't make a good work environment for many coaches/management guys. Also, with the Sabres it SEEMS he didn't just want decisions run by him, but rather he wanted input into hockey related decisions. And finally, the Kevin Adams hire...I like Adams (still, lets see how I feel in another year or two), but the hire seemed less like the 'best guy for the job' or even the 'best available guy for the job who would take it'...and more like someone Terry was comfortable around...someone who would talk to Terry and give him the attention he thought he wanted or deserved. The saying goes, it starts from the top down. With the Sabres, I really REALLY do feel like Pegula just not being a good owner in a ton of small ways has infected this franchise and that infection has spread over the last decade+. I'm pretty sure he wants to win. But, it seems to me he wants to be comforable with those around him more than winning (he doesn't want any conflict directed toward him and he wants his ego massaged and he wants to feel included). Its almost he would rather lose and have THAT than to win and even think its possible, if only in his own mind, to be told 'get the hell out of our meetings' by those who work for him. One thing I think is true....no owner ever took over a franchise and was owner for this long and had a WORSE impact on the franchise compared to anyone that came before him. Probably true for all of the major north American sports. The speach where he said the goal of the Sabres is nothing else but to win a Stanley cup...and then to follow that with EVERY SINGLE FULL SEASON he was owner of the team to the the worst stretch of not even making the playoffs in the HISTORY of the sport...it is laughable.