JoeSchmoe

My parents would take me to a couple games a year. Our hockey league had a game we'd all go to with the whole league, plus they'd grab another game or two with just the family (or sometimes just my dad and I). We'd sit in the Oranges or sometimes the Upper Blues. Never lower. As an adult I've been to far more. I used to get the mini-packs plus buy one or two extra games. Then I'd do the StubHub route once that became more economical. Once the kids started rep hockey though, it got harder to get the time (and money) to get to that many games a season. The Wild game was my first since before COVID.

My dad hated the Leafs and we lived in st Catharines. For whatever reason, he followed Perreault in junior, so when the Sabres drafted him, they were his team. I hated the Leafs too... By proxy from my dad, and because they were terrible when I was young and impressionable. Sabres tickets are affordable for most fans. Leafs tickets are only for the elite who are mostly non-fans.

I feel like we could be losing playing like this against a halfway decent team.

Do people from the Niagara Region count in this thread? Leafs still rule here, but there are still a good deal of Sabres fans (especially as you get closer to the border). Over my almost half century I've probably been to 70 or 80 Sabres games... Almost all paid for by me (or my parents). How many Leaf fans can say the same?

I'd almost guarantee they aren't plugging southern Ontario into the market size or TV watching calculation.

I kind of thought of Barnaby too. But after Peters hit a 15 year old kid, I figured there'd be nothing he wouldn't do. https://youtu.be/hypJ5xd54g4

Did anyone else see this thread title and think Andrew Peters might have somehow been involved?

I've been saying this for a couple weeks now, and they said the same thing on the Locked on Sabres podcast. Seeing those two in their respective one-time spots could have the makings of an all-time best PP.

That's surprising, because it's not hard to pick up a song just by listening to it. I can do it, and as I said before, I suck.

I took 3 years of guitar as an arts elective in high school. We learned to read music and most of our grading was theory based (it's a good thing, because I sucked at playing... still do now). Traditional sheet music is so much more non-intuitive than tab for playing guitar. Especially since the same notes can be fretted differently, but they sound noticeably different in tone depending on position (unless there's a more advanced way to represent this that we didn't cover). You still need the note symbols over top though for the timing though.

Good to see everyone had a good time.l! I was at the game Saturday with my brother who's a casual hockey fan. I mentioned to him about the meetup, and he was cool with it, but then I forgot to chime in here to see where everyone was going to meet between periods. It must have been the 3 or 4 pregame pints at Pearl St. The game was awesome... Now he can't wait to get back! Told him he has to leave the bandwagon though if the Sabres don't win tonight.

"Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles." Quote falsely attributed to John Lennon. Still funny though!

Agree with all of this. And good on you for taking a risk and posting on a month old thread. ☠️

I haven't followed this whole thread but has anyone thought about the old Spachoman song after watching the Czechs play? Once it gets in your head, it stays there.

I agree. His draft position is biasing us into thinking he can be something more. As a 3rd line W, I think he can still help us win.

I haven't been following the thread, but has anyone else noticed Power not skating?

Didn't realize Zach "Highman's" name wouldn't make it past the censors. 😀

Zach ***** leads the league in expected goals with 23.6 (Ovi is in 2nd at 20.6). ***** is tied for 29th with 15 actual GF.

Back in the days before I could choose between home and away, I found the Leafs announcers to be pretty much the least educated of all the broadcast teams. They'd spout off years old tropes about the Sabres that were long incorrect. I chalked it up to them thinking they're the centre of the hockey universe and they didn't have to try. Some of the smaller southern markets on the other hand often had real insight and would actually do their homework going into the games... Maybe because they had to.

I think in theory, prior to widespread adoption, xgf could have been used as a Moneyball type analytic point where GMs could mine out diamonds in the rough through Excel table GMing. The reality is, the diamonds in the rough would mostly all be poor shooters, while the so-called overrated guys would be the good shooters. You'd probably need the eye test to tell otherwise but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a lot of diamonds. A big part of the problem is hockey is so much more dynamic than baseball, that the eye test is so much bigger of an indicator.

Check the thread title... Xgf%. Also, given the number of postgame twitter bar graphs of this stat, its more than just a minor stat you say it is For most, it seems to be the be all, end all.

But the reverse is not true. Tage Thompson is at 49% 5 on 5. He's also a +12. The 49% suggests he's a net negative player, when in fact he can just score from anywhere, and is playing like one of the league's top players. It's just not that great of a stat.

The best metrics for determining how good a player is, are the good old fashioned goals and assists. The downside is that these don't let people show off how smart they are when they make claims that guys like Rasmus Asplund are actually great players.

The main point I was trying to make is over a large sample size, expected goals is even more flawed than +/-, but is far more respected.