IKnowPhysics

I certainly could be wrong. I thought it was: First round playoff losers that did not win the division title, followed by first round playoff losers that did win the division title.

Based. I'm not on the *****-on-Jack train because we don't have all the details of what happened in Buffalo. BUT I am licking my chops for LV to put that first rounder squarely at #15 overall (maybe 16 because Canucks), which would give us like #9, #15, and a with hopeful early FLA playoff exit, #24. That, combined with our #41, gives us a lot of draft capital to move around to take specific players. So for the moment, I'm vested in Jack being a waste of both ice time and cap space.

Congratulations to former first overall pick Rasmus Dahlin on becoming the fastest player in league history to reach the level of Superstar Producer from Dumb (52 games).

lol

Welp, at least theirs suck more. I don't mind most of the specific details on ours, and I still love Hairy Buffalo, but the cream color jersey heralds an era of cotton jerseys that simply never existed during our frachise's history. It poses. I'd rather have seen strict Adidas adaptations of both teams' OG 1970 jerseys, proper crests and all, maybe slap a QEW highway sign patch on the upper chest, and call it good. They'd look better, sell better, and history better.

I'll add that I've had other players stick me in the nuts, and when it happens, there's nothing you want to do more than to pound the other guy's face.

Damn sure did. I'd be mad too. If I were in Cozens' position, I'd take that fine every time.

NHL rinks: Buffalo (Sabres), Los Angeles (Sabres, draft), Anaheim (Sabres), San Jose, Minnesota (Sabres), Philadelphia, Florida (draft), Dallas Non-NHL pro rinks: Green Bay, Rosemead, Cincinnati, Providence College rinks: Kohl, Camp Randall, Lynah, Ritter

This is precisely why "on pace" is used, so one can describe performance without it being convoluted by games absent. We all know the shortcomings of extrapolating future performance from past performance, but in conversation, it's still easier to understand and compare goals-per-82-games than spouting GF/60. And if he goes cold, his pace will change. But, alright, let's do the other thing. Among players with more than 200min of 5v5 (~15GP), Jeff's GF/60 is 1.46, which puts him at 14th best in the league. Ralph Krueger's P% last season was 0.285, which is worse than the Sabres worst P% (2014) of 0.317.

Pulling out this museum piece. Ralph Krueger was fired and top-line Jeff Skinner is currently on pace for a 36 goal season.

VGK appears to be pulling a Kucherov by putting Mark Stone on LTIR until playoffs to free up cap space to activate Eichel and Martinez: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/ice-breakers-could-stone-injury-open-space-for-vegas-to-activate-eichel/: They'd still need to clear another ~1.45M more.

Ah yes, the team that commemorates every Civil War battle fought in Ohio by paying more than their team salary in music rights to AC/DC.

My first thought would be to look at any differences in personnel usage in those situations. Granato typically doesn't linematch, so if he shifted 5v5 personnel based on game situation it would be notable. Not just defense, but forwards too. I'd also look for turn over and takeaway rates- are we giving up the puck or are we not taking away the puck compared to our average?

"Advanced stats are meaningless... there's no question why we have bad advanced stats." Let's reword that thought as "I think the roster's bad enough that roster improvement would make a bigger impact than analytics-driven game situation coaching decisions" and call it square.

Likely, although it's being hailed as a promotion to include more responsibilities at the NHL level. It's just more fallout from the Coyote's purchase and relocation of the Springfield Falcons in 2016, part of the ferris wheel of AHL/ECHL and NHL team affiliate regionalization. Springfield Falcons AHL -> Tuscon Roadrunners AHL (ARI) Portland Pirates AHL -> Springfield Thunderbirds AHL (STL) (Anchorage) Alaska Aces ECHL -> (Portland) Maine Mariners ECHL (now BOS) Lehigh Valley Phantoms are the Flyers' AHL affiliate and are GM'd by Flyers President/GM Chuck Fletcher, although the Phantoms are not owned by the Flyers or their parent company, Comcast Spectacor. Reading Royals are the Flyers' ECHL affiliate and are GM'd by David Farrar. Comast Spectacor also owns the Maine Mariners ECHL (BOS, formerly PHI). The Royal's owner, who bought them immediately before COVID, is the Berks County Convention Center Authority and they're reeling in losses from having two arenas closed for COVID. It would make sense for the Flyers' and Bruins' franchise values for Comcast to sell the Mariners to the Bruins' Jeremy Jacobs. Comcast could then buy the Reading Royals, and potentially install Briere as GM of the Phantoms and/or Royals. But it's hard to tell if Comcast would do it, because Comcast also has the arena management contract for the Maine arena, and they don't have that for the Reading arena. Dolla dolla bill y'all. Or they could just promote Briere to a Flyers' AGM role, whichever.

Sure. But the outcome doesn't always favor the package over the player, and the Sabres have been both perpetrators and victims of that. I didn't think there was no solution to move forward, but there was an entire universe of bad ideas possible. I'm glad KA held the line and didn't compromise the return on paper- because it initially appears to have worked.

Notes on some numbers. If it wasn't obvious, Tuch is absolutely balling out right now. His production rates lead the Sabres and he's among top-of-the-league in several categories (among players with more than 100mins 5v5 played): Total Assists/60 - 4th most with 2.4 First assists/60 - 5th most with 1.71 Total points/60 - 7th most with 3.43 For reference, peak Eichel was 1.6, 1.03, and 2.43, respectively (again 5v5, no PP). Tuch's 3.43 5v5 P/60 is the most we've seen from a Sabres since sometime before 2007 (database limit). He's killing it at even strength play in a franchise-historical way. If anyone was worried that we were trading away the now for the future by trading away Eichel, Tuch should be helping you sleep a little better. And then add Krebs whose 1.25G/60 over his 11 games, if sustained, would be 32nd most in the league and constitute first line scoring production. And then add the 1st and a 2nd, which would be 21st and 53rd overall based on today's standings. Now, I'm not saying Tuch or Krebs or the 1st or 2nd are as complete players as Eichel. But the aggregate production of the package return may be able to accomplish more than the individual.

I was surprised too. It's hard to connect events like that with only the numbers. It's easy to see whether we do or do not give up the puck and separately whether we do or do not give up a lot of goals. But there's no easy access to counts or rates of IF we giveaway the puck THEN we give up a goal. Mayyyyybe one could generalize that lots of giveaways miiiight correlate to lots of CA/60 or HDCA/60, but that wouldn't be a perfect method. And it wouldn't be true for the Sabres, because giveaways are low and CA/60 and HDCA/60 are medium-bad.

Swing and a miss.

I think quality of defenseman is too much in the eye of the beholder: if you asked people for their quantitative reasons why they think a defenseman is or isn't good, you might get 50 different answers, or worse, qualitative answers. None of Butcher's stats are the lowest or worst on the team, with the exception of: PIM/60, Hits/60, team GF/60, team HDCF/60, and team xGF/60 (but not HDCF%, xGF%, or xGF/60). Maybe that's why he's gets looked at funny: his stats say he's a stay-at-home type with good HDCA/60, but he doesn't hit or get penalized.

The better pairings were all pairs they've already tried briefly at one time or another, so their performance data is already there. I laid out the pairs with the best overall numbers as a whole. If it fits some architype about mixing eyeball strengths and weaknesses, it's an unintentional outcome.

Plainly incorrect. Sabres have the 2nd lowest giveaways rate in the leage. Nowhere near mediocre to below average.

Giveaways/60: 2nd fewest Takeaways/60: 4th fewest Differential; (Takeaways - Giveaways)/60: 13th best We don't take away the puck very often, but we also don't give away the puck very often, and the differential is middle of the road. Montreal, for example, has a league worst differential of -4.62/60, because they giveaway the puck 9.96 times per 60 minutes and only takeaway the puck 5.34 times per 60 minutes. Tampa leads the league in differential at +1.92. Panthers take the puck away the most, Kings the least. Verhaeegesfes, Lundell, and Barkov are takeaway machines, as is Mark Stone and Pietrangelo in Vegas. Panthers also give the puck away the most, Lightning the least. Barzal and Getzlaf are league leaders in Giveaways/60. Wideman, Petry, and Zadorov give away the pucks most among defenders. Our team rate of giveaways is nestled among TBL, COL, LAK, MIN. FWIW, Bjork and Z lead the Sabres forwards in differential; Hinostroza is last. Pysyk leads defensemen, Hagg is last.