mjd1001

In many ways their numbers are remarkably similar, in terms of how 'streaky' they are, and in terms of both with the Sabres having similar shot totals but their shooting percentages varying wildly from one year to another...I guess yeah. That might be a very good comparison, at least in terms of what we have been, and can, expect in terms of goal production.

Cozens also routinely goes through streaks like this. -Toward the end of last Season, Cozens had a streak where he had only 1 goal on 43 shots over 18 games. -He had another 22 game streak mid-season where he had just 2 goals on 60 shots in those 22 games. -In his 31 goal year, toward the beginning of the year, he went scoreless for 10 games in a row over with over 20 shots. -in the end of the 21-22 seaons, he went 11 games in a row without scoring with 29 shots -In the last 29 games of that season, he had ONE goal in 29 games through 59 shots. My point again, that IS who Cozens is. He goes through incredibly hot and incredibly cold streaks. If he DIDN'T do that, that would be a sign of something very different. They key to evaluating his offensive game is...."Is he getting the same number of shots as usual" and "is he getting the same number of quality shots" The answer to both of those questions is not only Yes...but he is getting MORE. So, his offensive game overall is as good as ever with one exception (accuracy). We just have to 'wait' for him to get out of a shooting slump...a shooting slump that happens no differently than any other season in his career.

Ok, I keep going back and forth on this, but I do NOT want Cozens 'play' to be shaken up right now. The only thing he is doing poorly the last few games is his shot accuracy. He is finding open areas of the ice in the offensive zone to get shots off better than anyone with the possible exception of Thompson. He actaully IS getting the most shot attempts. I honestly do not want to take a chance at changing that. Its just a matter of him shooting better. Now, Quinn needs something. But right now, at least in the offensive zone, Cozens is doing everything and anything you want other than shooting accurately.

Its a lot of what you just said. People want to see him hit the opposition. When he DOES make a bad play that can often be an excuse to jump on his play. Its kinda like "He doesn't hit anyone and then He makes THAT play!?!?" Right now when Power plays well in his own zone, you don't really notice it. If he is where he is supposed to be (he USUALLY is) and he is making the safe play getting the puck away from the zone, those things aren't always noticed.

They will probably be OK. This is what the Leafs do early in the season before they straighten things out. Last year Toronto was 6-5-2 (basically 6-7) after 13 games and the fans were booing. 2 years ago they were 4-4-2 after 10 (basically 4-6) and the fans were booing. 3 years ago they were 2-4-1 (2-5) after 7 games, riding a 4 game losing streak, and the fans were booing.

New Jersey, they have such a solid team but can't get good goaltending again. It looks like they dominated Detroit last night but ended up losing as Markstrom had another bad game. Great team, but so farm Markstrom and Jake Allen both have a GAA over 3 and a save percentage under .900

I wanted to take a look around the league and look at guys who are goal scorers (average 20+ or more goals per season over the long term) and see if any of them have wildly fluctuating shooting percentages year to year, and month to month, like Cozens does. Most of the top guys, not really. They have some up and down years, but for the most part, they are fairly consistent. A good year vs a bad year is just a couple points apart through most of their career. I did find a few that are wildly eratic year to year with shooting percentage..... McKinnon: yeah, hes good, but he's not a high percentage shooter, he is more of a volume shooter. Early in his career he routinely shot below 10%, his 4th year in the league he shot 6.4% for the year (16 goals on over 250 shots). Since then he has been a bit more consistent late in his career, but still he is usually between 9.5 and 13%. He scores on volume of shots. Max Pacioretty: 5 time 30+ goal scorer. He went from 9.2% one year, up to 14.4% the next. Then in another 4 year stretch, he shot 9.9%, then up to 13.1%, then the next year down to 8.0%, then back up to 11.5...all in the prime of his career. Joe Pavelski. former 40 goal scorer, 12 years of over 25 goals. But year to year, no consistency. In his prime, he has had FULL YEARS where he shot 7.1% and 9.8%, and then other years where he was at 20.2%, 17% and 18.2%. Claude Girioux: in his prime, he had a 3 year stretch of full seasons where he shot 9.1, 9.0, and 7.1%. He followed up that stretch with a full season where he shot 17.6% Patrice Bergeron: I never thought of him as a bit time scorer, but he had 14 20+ goals seasons, including 12 in a row, and 6 30+ goal seasons. Well in terms of his shooting accuracy...He had a 4 years stretch where he shot 13.4, 15.6, 15.3, and 12.6%. In his prime he also had seasons as low as 7.0, 9.8, 8.0, and even 5.2% So again, usually scorers are consistent, within a few points of shooting percentage, year to year and do not have wild fluctuations. But as the above numbers show you, some really good players often go into shooting slumps for seasons, even multiple seasons in a row before coming out of it. Cozens just may be THAT kind of player. A player we have to judge his offensive production not in terms of games, weeks, or months, but years instead. If Cozens is that type of player, we may see entire seasons where he struggles to get 15 goals, only to be followed up by the next season over 30. As fans, it will likely drive many of us crazy.

It really can go either way. To say a player should show you what he is early can be just as correct or wrong as to say one needs hundreds of games. -Tim Stutzle played about 130 games his first 2 years. His 3rd year he scored almsot 40 goals and 90 points at age 21. -Lucas Raymond as an 18 and 19 year old was already a 20 goal scorer on average. His 3rd year, coming into it with 156 games played, he scored 31 goals. -Matthew Boldy put up a 31 goal season, with only 47 games NHL experience coming in. -Brady Tkachuk had similar numbers to the guys above. Then on the other hand... -You have examples like Sam Bennett above, a high draft pick that didn't really break out until he was 25 with 400+ games -Mitts. Break out? He's not a star/superstar, but it took him a few years to really become a reliable player. -Lawson Crouse. He was drafted 11th overall, I remember many in that draft had him projected to go 7th or 8th overall. He didn't become a 20-25 goals scorer until he was 24-25 years old...in his 6th season after he played almost 300 career games. The thruth seems to be, some guys you know whether they are good or bad after just a year or two and maybe 100 games. Others, it takes hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of games and maybe 5-6 years after they were drafted to figure out what they are. It goes both ways.

I am almost 100% against fighting in the NHL at this point. However, I still wonder, if this Sabres team had a TRUE heavyweight, if it would not make players like power, not only more comfortable, but play more physical. If you are playing Washington with a Tom Wilson, or Philly with Nick Deslauriers...basically a team with a true heavyweight that you KNOW will go with anyone...and your team has no direct answer, then as a Sabre you may play a little more timid. You don't want to come close to, even by accident, crossing any kind of physical line because you know there is a chance YOU might have to answer for it. Now, if you have that heavyweight on your team, and something happens, its likely you aren't going to have to go in a fight with that guy, you have a designated guy who will do it for you. I'm not saying having a guy like that will turn Power into a physical monster, a hitting machine, but I think having a guy like that CAN make your team a little bit more physical. Lindy even mentioned that himself when he talked about coaching Rob Ray in the past. Now, I know Aube-Kubel is one who fights quite a bit. I think he has 5-10 in his career, and even some when he was in the minors (which is actually pretty good these days), but hes not a heavyweight. He will fight pretty often, and I can't wait to have that back on the team, but he's not someone that is going to bring that much more confidence, he's just not a 'heavyweight'.

Over the last 2 years, the 3 players I have been the most critical of on this message board were Power, Krebs and Cozens. For some reason, I have come around on all 3. Power is making some bad plays but I think is overall game is progressing. I think he is on his way, as the season goes on, to being really really valuable Krebs, for a short period of time, is looking like he found a 'lesser' role on this team but one he is actually good at. Cozens. He makes some awful decisions on the ice without the puck, but the last 2-3 games he has been good. And scoring? for months I said he's not a goal scorer, he's at best an 8% shooter. But the last few days, despite him not having a goal, I think he is actually going to break out soon. Of the above 3 that I feel better about recently, Power is the one I feel the BEST about. As the season progresses, and into next year, I think he will become the most valuable/best of the 3 by far.

Washington wins 5 in a row. 2nd in the conference in point percentage. Not even all easy wins. They beat the Stars. They beat Vegas. They beat Jersey. I can't think they will keep this up for long, but many of us said the same thing and they made the playoffs last year. In the first 2 weeks they are playing even better this year. Jacob Chychrun had a bad time in Ottawa and they wanted to get rid of him. From the little I have read in Washington, people say he is playing great. They are getting balances scoring (in only 6 games, 9 players already have multiple goals. Buffalo had played 8 games and only has 6 with multiple goals). And their goaltending has only been 'average' so far. They are playing a total 'team' game. lets see how long they can keep it up, but they look good so far.

As far as Krebs skill, to me he has average speed (not bad, but not great), average overall skating (again, not bad but not exceptional), a below average slap shot/one timer, average shot accuracy, average size, and above average vision/hockey sense. If he does take well to coaching and has a good work ethic/drive, that helps him become a more useful player. He does seem to be skating really hard out there, being phyical, pushing himself. I wonder how much of that is because he is only getting about 10-12 minutes of ice time and he is fresh? If for some reason he got 16-18 minutes of ice time, would he not be as effective, needing to 'pace' himself a bit more? Its Kinda the same with Clifton on defense. He is hitting everything, He has as many hits Power, Jokiharju, and Byram combined....and twice as many as Dahlin. But he has the least ice time. If Clifton had more ice time, would have have to back off the physical play out of self preservation? A few weeks ago we were talking a bit about Ruff, about having a new coach....and that there would likely be guys who simply play better under a new coach becasue they react well to his style...and other guys who seem to have no reason (other than a new coach) that don't react well and play worse. So, who would the guys be that just really play better under Ruff and who would take a step back. Its early, maybe too early to make a definitive judgement, but right now it looks like Krebs is reacting better than most thought, and Quinn is the one who is having a hard time with something.

Well, if his last name was "Smith" but he was a first overall pick a few years ago, being the same size he is, making the contact that he currently is and playing the exact same way, I think people would still be complaining. But if your point is, just looking at his play and not his height/pedigree/contract....then yeah, he would probably be complained about less. The physical part is something that can be hard to separate from his style simply because he is so tall. People expect him to be more physical. But if you look back over the last 20 years, there are plenty of really good D-men that weren't physical at all: -Duncan Keith, Cam Fowler, Chris Tanev, Roman Josi, Ryan Suter, Nick Leddy, Hampus Lindholm. You know what they all have in common? They really didn't hit anyone (under 2.5 hits per 60, just like Power) Many of them weren't beasts in front of the net clearing guys out. In their own end, they played well positionally, and vacuumed up loose pucks and got them out of the zone. Now Power, He needs to work a bit on his positioning in the D-zone (I STILL think he is better than many say, when he looks bad its often the D covering for the Forwards not picking up guys going to the net), and he goes get spun around in front of the net a bit....but he will get better at those things with positioning. I often say Tage is better without the puck than people give him credit for because of his size. With Tage, its like NLF zone defense. Him simply being there with his size and his reach prevent plays from happening. Power can/does have the same ability. Maybe he won't clear guys out of the front of the net, but he doesn't have to 'chase' as much, he can stay in position and with his reach get to a lot of loose pucks and deflect passes (maybe even prevent them from being made) simply with his size and reach. Some of that can't be taught though, some of it he is going to have to simply learn by 'doing'. He'll learn what he can and cannot do with is size and reach, and as time goes by, likely get better.

I am starting to lean toward him staring to score, and when he does it will come in bunches. Now, I don't mean he's going to put up back to back hat tricks, but I think we'll get a to a point where he has a multi-goal game, or at least score in 2 out of 4 games in a stretch. I mean, EVERYTHING else is there. He is taking the shots, good shots, getting the ice time. It has to turn into something positive eventually.

In golf there are swing coaches. Even the best golfers have their swings analyzed by coaches or computers and try to tweak things. We know when QB's break into the league, they have coaches giving them even the most subtle advice about small changes to their throwing motion. Does that happen in the NHL? If Cozens is so hot and cold with his shooting, do they have any way of analyzing his shots, in game or practice, and seeing something, ANYTHING that is so subtle but might make a change he can work on?

I'm normally one of the first to criticize Cozens and stand up for Power...But as well as Power played last game on the scoresheet...over the last 3 games he has been a bit questionable in the defensive zone. Cozens, on the other hand, who is normally a trainwreck away from the puck, has actually looked decent (at least there haven't been any super obvious, painful bad decisions made by him).

Bingo! Look at Cozens this year vs his 30+ goal season from 2 years ago..... Shots: 2.6 per game played 2 years ago. 3.4 shots per game played this year. More total attempts this year High Danger shots: 0.84 per game played 2 years ago. 1.13 per game played this year. Even his zone time, 41.3 vs 43.9 in the offensive zone in favor of this year vs his big year 2 seasons ago. He's getting more shots, he's getting better shots, hes in the offensive zone with puck possession more. No external factor like teammates, D-pairings, etc is likely to help him much as those numbers are all really good already. He needs to shoot better. Thats it. And per my post earlier with how 'streaky' he is, its likely to happen at SOME time....everyone just has to wait for it.

With Thompson, he's really been playing well since February or March of last year. There was an ESPN game they barely lost to Florida at the end of February, he played really well there, scored, had 7 shots and I remember Florida could not get the puck away from him. Since that game (and including this year), its been 30 games and he has 18 goals (nearly a 50 goal per 82 pace). So yeah, I'd pinpoint that one game as to when he turned around his season last year and he is just continuing where he left off.

Here is something else with Quinn.. In the previous 2 seasons, even when coming directly off his injury, Quinn took 54 shots considered 'high danger" (between the circles, 10 feet or less in front of the net) in 102 games. Not a ton, but more than 1 every other game. This year through 7 games, he has not had one shot on goal from that area. Not one. For his career he shoots over 23% from that spot. For his career before this year, he takes 1.81 total shots per game (from all areas). As a scorer/shooter, you'd like him to take more, but he averaged 1.81. This year, he is averaging 0.86. So yeah, Cozens isn't converting, but he is getting chances and taking Shots. The issue with Quinn, so far, is much deeper than it is with Cozens.

Another thought...maybe its simply the zone entries that need to be fixed and then "wait for the luck to happen". Why do I say that? I'm off from work so I decided to look at all the games last night and watch the replays of some of the PP goals scored. I just watched 6 goals (randomly) and 1 of them was a short pass on the stick to someone that made a great shot. The other 5? 2 deflections (the ugly random type), one funny bounce of the boards to a guy that happened to be where the puck came from, and loose puck off the faceoff that was just sitting there that only one guy saw and he picked up it and shot it, and one absolutely awful play by the Canadians that let the Rangers have a 3-on-2 entry with bad coverage. So, it seems to me, in that small sample size, that teams have gotten pretty good at defending when down by one man. You aren't going to really work any magic with the puck when you are on the PP to score more goals. The key is to GET control of the puck in the offensive zone, and the moment you have a chance to take a shot, just take it. You'll get a goal more often because of a funny bounce, a random tip-in, a deflection in front of a screen...those things seem to be a lot more common than just wizardry with the puck by your team. So what do the Sabres need to do? Just get the puck into the zone with possession, put a body in front of the net (not skating back and forth, have someone Stand there and take a beating) and get shots to the net and hope for a bounce. I might look at more replays of other goals, but it seems like 75% of the time, that is really it. Dahlin at full strength, being able to move back and forth at the blueline and dangle guys who try to pressure him....him getting that ability back will help a LOT.

I'd like to see where the issues are statistically. Its kinda hard for me to find stats about how many shots as a team they are taking on the PP, are those 'quality chances', how those compare to what they have done in the past and compare to league averages. The only thing I could find is their 'zone time'. When on the PP, they get the puck out of their zone quickly (low zone time compared to league average). But they don't control it in the opposing zone as much as most teams. They seem to spend a LOT of time in the Neutral zone with the puck on the PP. (league average is 14% of time on the PP in the neutral zone, Sabres are just over 16% in the neutral zone...it may not seem like much but that puts them near the top of the league with the puck being between the blue lines of all PPs.)

I think that is it actually. It'll work eventually, but it will be at a seemingly random moment.

I am rapidly coming around to this point....and I think I'm feeling slightly better about Cozens because of it. I see no flaws in his offensive game except putting the actual puck in the net...he is skating, going to the tough areas....doing everything positive he has done before. So..its not some crazy thing missing in his game. its shooting. For the last week or so....I have been just upset at how bad he is shooting. I think I, we, may just have to accept that he is going to go on runs when the team 'needs' him, where he will not score a goal for a couple weeks. Then there will be times he scores 3-5 a month (or more). Many of us are spending a lot of time trying to figure out what is wrong with his game? what is different? What is the shooting percentage we can expect from him. Here is what I am coming to think now: Nothing is wrong with his game (that can be fixed). Nothing is different..hes playing the same way he did last year and the year before. What shooting percentage can we expect from him? 10% is a good OVERALL number, but he might have another SEASON at 15%, and a season at 8%, a Month at 18%, and the next at 2% THAT is who Cozens is. I don't think who his wingers are change his production. I think his production is close to 100% him, and that is going to be wildly fluctuating month to month. I think HE might be able to help out certain wingers (if he stays at center) but no winger on this team will change how well or poorly he shoots. Personally, I think that is who he is. When I accept him as a 30 goal scorer some years, a 15 goal scorer others...I accept some month he will take 40 shots and score on none of them, others he will score 4 goals on 25 shots...I'll be much more accepting of his play and it won't bother me as much watching him game to game.

McLeod is fast. He might be in the top 5 fastest guys in the NHL. Last year he was measured at skating 23.82mph during a game. For comparison, in all the games, ice time, and Minutes McDavid played, he topped out at 22.72mph. Last year Eichel's best was 23.51. So yeah, with the pads on skating in the game....McLeod is fast. But, his hands I think are under-rated. Now, he doesn't have a hard shot. I don't think he is going to be putting one-timers in the net from the faceoff circle on the PP, and he's not beating many goalies with a slap shot from 30 feet out. But we have seen, he is very dangerous right in front of the net. More than many players we think are 'better'. So the question is, can he keep putting himself in positon to be coming in on the goalie at speed and get off shots there? If he can get 50+ shots off like that over the course of a season, he may very well end up being a 20-25 goal scorer.

I think likely best case scenario is he competes as a bottom 6 center, and/or is the 13th forward who ends up playing 60+ games a year for he because he fills in for injuries or is the 'first guy in' when someone needs rest or to be benched. I think there is a slight chance he could develop into something more (a #2/#3 center) but to be a quality player at that level, the chances are there but at this point very small.