Thorny

Also, let me get ahead of it here - if this is going to go down the path of: “Sam and everyone else knew the year was just a one year stop gap”, along the lines of the “Adams knew it would fail all along that’s why he made no-commitment moves like Staal and Hall” we’ve heard, then the whole exercise is freaking absurd. No one was going into it in good faith (just Ralph?) and therefore the season doesn’t provide a fair body of work for determining if a more “go for it” strategy could have worked. It would be a frustrating self fulfilling prophecy: if Reinhart *couldn’t* have been signed because he absolutely wouldn’t believe this team was headed for anything other than a rebuild/parting from Jack perhaps Adams shouldn’t have allowed Reinhart to develop that perception by being so focused on instituting the rebuild. Again, Adams may be completely right in seeking that rebuild - but saying he couldn’t have had a different viewpoint and approached things differently would be ridiculous.

Sam was still 2 years from UFA at that point and has said he was open to signing - as far as I’ve heard it was only this most recent offseason where signing wasn’t an option for Reinhart, because the Eichel matter was settled. Taylor Hall signed on Oct 11, 2020. Sam Reinhart notched his extension on Oct 25, 2020. By the time Reinhart had signed his deal the plan had been changed for a long time and Eichel was staying. Reinhart could have been signed LT.

I don’t care how many games you use - respectfully I think you are missing my point here: that using “bulk of the games scoreless” as a frame of reference for why a season is “terrible” isn’t a good argument. It’s just how the math works: players that score 40 points in a season are scoreless in the majority/bulk. Without fail. Showing large gaps in production doesn’t prove anything, in and of itself, if the barometer is “terrible”: large gaps in production are basically universal if you are scoring 40 points or less. Maybe in an ideal world a player scores every second day and is the model of consistency but much more often the way Hall’s broke down is representative. It’s in a way similar to saying a .230 average nowadays in baseball is “bad” because they fail the majority of their at-bats. It’s just expected. Obviously that’s not an exact comparison because a player in the nhl can approach a rate much closer to one point in every game than a hitter can to a hit in every at bat. But the point is: it wouldn’t be expected that a 40 point scorer produces in the bulk of games. Indeed, it’s impossible. The amount of games Hall “didn’t score in” is similar to other players that score/pace for 40. That he “went 9 games without” and “didn’t score in most” isn’t revelatory: it’s common. The goals were low relatively but the primary point rate was high relatively - to me I don’t see Hall’s 40 pace as noticeably inferior to the average player’s 40 point pace. If he was tallying mostly secondary assists, it would start to shift my view, but even then not into the range of “terrible”. Perhaps we can just agree that, regardless of if he played decently or terribly, that his performance was certainly “not good enough”. And Adams could have signed Reinhart 2 summers ago

Should also be noted Hall had a *2.3%* shooting percentage last season, and a career 10.2 That is an *insane* stat

Cozens has been held scoreless in 23 of his 36 games this year, on a 40+ pace. Terrible for the bulk! “He’s got only 13 good games people!” - - - Let me just check to see how many of those 13 games were against bad teams so I can throw those out too Come on now... - - - Hall’s 40+ point pace doesn’t represent an anomaly when it comes to 40 point paces - he didn’t score an abnormal percentage in a small amount of games or tally a bunch of secondary assists. His assists were almost all primary. His season was simply an “average” 40+ point pacing season relative to the average 40+ point seasons we see league wide. If you don’t view that kind of pace as “terrible” in general, you have to show why Hall’s production was inferior to the others putting up similar totals (it’s not) or else claim he was bad relative to expectation which is certainly arguable as it’s subjective

I guess I don’t understand the way you want to twist the numbers. The barometer you guys are going with is “terrible”. If a 40 point pace is terrible, then I guess I agree? You realize any player with 40-50 points is going to produce nothing in the majority of the season’s games, right? By that definition any 40 point scorer could be deemed “terrible for the bulk”

Can’t really comment on whether he should or shouldn’t be in there without knowing all the health details, chances of getting worse, etc. Unfortunately can only judge based on performance and assume the team ices players with the idea they won’t be a damage to themselves. Based on performance, and even with a totally healthy roster, VO isn’t being removed from the lineup

That, and because he’s producing more than the other players Since coming back from injury, VO ranks 4th among Sabres forwards for scoring. I’d keep an eye on the trend of the last 5 games but unless he’s getting worse health wise, I’d imagine he stays right around where he is, team relative

Should also be noted that 79% of Hall’s points in that stretch were primary. Only 3 of his assists were secondary

Your eye test, you mean? Hall had a terrible shooting % didn’t he? He was getting a ton of chances in my eyes prior to Jack going down. Indeed, my initial eye test is what triggered my argument and then I looked into the stats any found out they supported it. The bulk of his time as a Sabre was with Jack and in that stretch he was objectively not “freaking terrible” statistically. I’m not arguing he wasn’t bad after JE went down or that he shouldn’t be lambasted for such. By all means. My argument is that, along with his 50 point pace during said time frame, Hall was not terrible on the ice during that stretch while (an injured) Jack was still playing. I reject outright your implication that he should be in some way docked because his production was in assists. Hall has always primarily been a playmaker. I view set-up in a regard quite as high as finishing and always have

My point was never to claim Hall was good after Eichel went down - indeed I baked that into my original point, that he wasn’t. The 23 games Hall played with Jack in the lineup: 50 point pace The 14 games Hall played without Jack in the lineup: 29 point pace

You can’t remove 3 games from a 23 game sample size to fit your argument and call it a day lol

Maybe you should have said terrible “relative to his contract” then in your initial post rather than moving the goal posts. You’d still be wrong, but at least it’d be closer to the mark!

Bah. You said he was “terrible” - that’s the barometer I needed to defend against. 17 assists is certainly closer to a good total than terrible. Like I said, Hall’s performance took a dive once he saw the writing on the wall: before Jack left the lineup, Hall was on a 50 point pace. That’s a top 6 pace, it’s certainly not “terrible”

Nothing other than a LT Reinhart extension.. Agree

Honestly, that poor official. Feel bad for him and can only imagine he’s taking a lot of flak from fans. Did everyone catch what he did when he got up to the ball? Dak hadn’t even spotted it in the right spot and the official tried to move it back a few inches - obviously he couldn’t with the line already being almost set, and he even then attempted to give Dak and the Cowboys the extra few inches with their chosen spot, so they could get the play off. The effort was commendable IMO

Johan Franzen

Is that Mandy Rose? #nxt

Why wasn’t Girgs moved the first time then? Ennis? Moulson?

I thought Bobby retired a couple years ago

The league as a whole is dealing with more injuries this year. And it’s normal for the Sabres to be near the top of the man games lost list - they almost always are Imo it stops being “unlucky” when it’s predictable. Taro is probably right that much of it comes down to talent

Giving Hall the NMC is immaterial to determining whether Adams is doing a good job. Giving him the clause is what allowed the deal to be facilitated - it was always going to be included. The clause being a negative was only the case if the talent evaluation/decision to bring him in at all was a poor one. Only the initial decision is at play here, imo. Hall was also better here than us fans will give him credit for. People won’t want to hear it, but, it’s true. Leaving out his good assist total doesn’t serve your argument - why do people always leave out assists? It’s transparent. Hall’s metrics were also among the best on the team. Hall’s effort dropped off the table once he knew he was being dealt and for that get out the tar, followed by the feathers. Ultimately, the team he assembled last season wasn’t good enough and I put that on Adams. But in terms of Hall specifically my biggest gripe comes back to the plan: Hall signing likely prevented a Reinhart extension.

Excellent read. And sorry, obligatory, you called on him: ”We got him?! We got Matt Irwin??”

I’d like to see the team hire a well-respected health science and training guru along the lines of the celebrated analytics gurus we’ve seen them hire. I’d wager they’d have a chance to provide as much or more value for this team going forward

Good Morning Football with a great segment on Josh Allen today. Real nice job highlighting what sets him apart on the field.