Broken Ankles

I see 1 & 2 both unlikely, unless other pieces are moved. Leaving #3 as most likely. My question is do the Sabres feel if push comes to shove, your 4th scenario plays out. It's unlikely he can collect a $3M salary in a European league, so is he content to play it out in the AHL? Or is the quality of life and a lower salary make #4 more enticing. In other words, an educated guess that Sobotka might walk could pay off for getting him off your roster, with zero long term cap implications.

@Taro T - Question: If we believe JBot has no intention to buyout Sobotka's contract, is this a game of chicken whereby a player could be waived, and we assume unlikely picked up by any other team, and instead of reporting to Rochester and playing out his contract for $3.0m ($3.5M cap), he decides to play elsewhere? Thereby saving the team the $3M and the full cap hit? With a downside of having him report, and saving about $900K on the cap but paying the full $3M.

He’s not on LTIR. Yes, oft injured, but has played parts of every year with the ducks. Which is why I think it qualifies as a bad contract. As opposed to say Nathan Horton who we know would never play but is not disadvantageous to his team because he doesn’t count against the cap.

How is Ryan Kesler not in this list? His last two years have been invisible to the Ducks. He is 34, has three more years at $6.875m (almost a mill more than Kyle). Okposo has averaged almost 40 points his last/only three years with the Sabres vs Keslers 25. And he is three years younger.

Named Captain of Western Michigan as a Sophomore. And his pedigree is superior, which is undervalued.

@Neo Thank you for this post. I’m in Washington DC with family and we just watched an amazing program put on by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at the National Mall. Video and audio of the take off, landing and then parachuting back to earth. The video was displayed on big screens throughout but the masterpiece was how it was shown on the Washington Monument. Wish you were you here to share the good feelings with 100k+ who came out to watch. They will have a second showing of the video that starts at 10:46pm so the moon landing scene is exactly 50 years to the second.

This is spot on. I would only add that his changes on Defense & forthcoming changes on Defense also reveal it too was a contributing factor in his mind, and can be improved upon. JB is tied to this duo for at least one more year, and probably two as a bridge to UPL. If either goalie fails next season, it’s a huge black eye for him.

Granted there is an Apples to oranges comparison based on salary discrepancy but consider this: with no real salary cap, it would make it more probable than not for an MLB team to offer a large contract (I.e. Tyler Myers $6m aav) to a player with a below average WAR as there are no implications other than luxury tax penalties, verses an NHL team based on a hard cap. But they don’t. Significant contracts are only awarded to players who demonstrate above average WAR. What other rationale would explain why an NHL team would spend 7-8% of their payroll on a player that by the implied nature of the calculation is unworthy of even $2m? We could say GM ignorance, and maybe this would apply in Vancouvers case. But using the scenario which sparked this entire debate (Jake), if the WAR calculation and all the charts created by EW are to be assumed definitive, then his contract should be within 15% of Karlsson. Trouts contract (Whom I agree with @FreeJame is a unicorn) was only 14% more than Machado, and Mannys was 15% more than Harper. And that is the sequence in Descending order of WAR for positional players. If I’m to accept the proposition that the EW perception of skill is 100% valid then Gardiner needs to see a $9.5m AAV offer for at least 6 years. If not then I thinks it’s fair to debate how they arrive at these numbers. I Want to re-iterate how appreciative I am for the introduction to the various sites and metrics referenced by the community.

I saw this today on the EW site for projections. It has J.G. at 7 years/$6.8M. They also predicted Karlsson would be $9.7M for 8. The chart above is EW 2016-2019 GAR/WAR of 9 Defensemen that signed an RFA/UFA contract in 2018 or 2019. There are two current Sabres as well as two former Sabres. Based on this calculation Jake should be deserving of a $9m+ AAV. One of the reasons I'm skeptical of their WAR/GAR calculations is how incongruous the ratio of contracts/term are with MLB and their calculation of WAR. There is no scenario where a player with roughly half the WAR of Manny Machado would sign for 1/10th of his contract (He makes $30M AAV). Nate' Beaulieu's three year WAR compared to EK is the equivalent of an MLB player with a three year WAR of 7.1 signing for $3M. Pat Corbin signed for $23M AAV over 7 years. The next closest is AJ Pollak of the Dodgers signing a $13.75m AAV for 4 years. If we believe the EW ranking for Tyler Myers and Edler earning close to $6M (or half of Karlsson) with a WAR equal to a quarter or less of Karlsson's value. You just would never see this in MLB. There are zero free agents signing of players making $15m + AAV that do not possess an incredible 3 year WAR. To me this provides probable cause for questioning the absolute nature of the WAR/GAR or Expected Goal calculations.

Of course Marner is prioritized. Just saying that if he was a game changing offensive threat AND a solid defender, I would have expected Nylander to be moved to make room. As far as the Dubas quote, you wouldn’t really expect a public statement about Jake from Dubas to be anything less than complimentary, would you? Based on his chart alone and compared to other UFAs the last two years where do you expect his AAV/term to come in?

Not what I said at all. The statistics are what they are. What I said was to stop the myopic view of someone's interpretation of the statics, and which stats are valued over others. You reject any argument if it doesn't fit into the narrative of this chart. Black/White, right/wrong. With respect to the Dubas passing on Gardiner argument. We just saw a SJ GM let go of his Captain and top 3 Forward so as to sign a D-man that got paid $11.5M, when he already had over $20M committed to the blue line. Toronto's blue line was in much worse condition going into this off-season, and yet he was not a priority. Is it not plausible that their exists alternative charts that suggest his play was not equal to what was displayed, and for that reason trading for Muzzin, Ceci and Barrie made more sense?

I agree that Gardiner is not as good as the #objectiveevidence (?) suggests. If he was, the nerd running the Leafs would have prioritized his resigning. But he didn’t. Dubas loves analytics and knows more about them than those at evolving, or us. Also note if their #secretsauce were anything of substance, they too would be working for Dubas. The fact is evolving and other statisticians update the coefficients on the categories used for expected goals and WAR year over year looking to refine their proofs. While I have learned so much this last year from those who post here as it relates to the underlying metrics (for which I’m grateful) I reject the singular argument which says look at this chart which weights shot type over shot distance or shot angle over rebounds as #objectiveevidence. It was so refreshing to see Flagg reference going to watch video to make a decision on a player. A GM like validation. Bravo.

about as high as Being John Malkovich

They have $9m to sign him. Nathan Hortons contract is $5.7m and can go to LTIR.

JB has started slowly but ramped it up lately with all of us expecting more. How many more trades are required before it qualifies as “roster surgery”? Paging Doctor Botterill !

enough of this Jive Talkin'....back to JoJo, or MaJo, or MoJo. Hockey damn it.

but not as good as "JoJo". JoJo is so fetch.

definitely old school as waxing today looks like this....... (empty spaces)

Awesome theory. If someone wants to pull Home/away for all games 2018/2019 you can see it, as Hockeyviz has each game with a better display (below). I pulled a random home game and Zemgus/Larsson/Pommers were shown as 4th line. Playing more against 1-9 than 10-12. And not quite low event, as they seemingly were outplayed until they faced the 4th line, where they appeared to dominate. Love to pull all the games but back to work.

I don't think the season averages suggest it was demonstrably false. I have provided a number of other examples besides that of Zemgus to illustrate what a First line (Skinner), Third line (Bozak) and Fourth line (Barbashev) forward look like. Compare and contrast as you will. To me this suggests exactly what Dudacek commented on, which is a higher than expected ice-time against 1&2 forwards, and #1 D man, due to the number of excessive Defensive zone starts. However, he had more ice-time than League average against 10-12 forwards and 5/6 Defense (aka 4th line players). Considering that the last third of the season or more he was playing primarily third line minutes (with Casey, Tage, KO, Wilson, et al playing 4th line) he should have had more ice-time against 4-9 Forwards, but did not. I'm sure that St. Louis overused ROR in their Defensive zone face-offs so a guy like Barbashev saw slightly less than the League average against 1-3 Forwards. Barbashev was almost exclusively a 4th line player (when looking at his teammates % of icetime). Gus on the other hand was more of a bottom six as far as his % icetime with teammates (exceeding League average with 7-12 forwards). A third line guy like Bozak (which again was what Gus played for part of the season) played almost all his time against 4-9. Below league average against 1-3, but also below against 10-12. I think there was certainly something to the line of Zemgus/Bergland/Larsson early in the season, but that play did not continue in 2019 nor during the losing streak. I don't think the comment about playing only 4th line players is accurate, nor is it completely false. The truth is somewhere between this. I think he was compensated fairly as a 9-11 Forward on an improving team. I also approve of the term.

Games played was 7 more for Casey. Average TOI was more for Vlad in his games played.

Jankowski is a 3rd line Center on a Pacific Division Champion caliber team. His advanced stats (5v5) are superior to Casey as are his PPG. He was developed properly and was a PPG player in the AHL. He has better size and strength than Casey. He also plays PK, which adds value. He is still an RFA next year (which was the original discussion point). You can call him a 3C but he is still relatively young and improving and has potential to be a 2C. Could Mittelstadt surpass him? Maybe. Remains to be seen. @TrueBlueGED Would you trade Mittelstadt straight up to Ottawa to take KO's contract?

Mark Jankowski on the RFA list looks interesting. Plays 3rd line Center in Calgary. Would be a 2C for the Sabres. If Calgary asks you to take on the James Neal contract as a starter and throw a few pieces back, what say you?

Two names look familiar.