IKnowPhysics

Narrator: This was not true. Sabres defense by most measurables is 22nd-ish in the league. Better than the offense and goaltending (sans Anderson), which, unfortunately, are both worse. Surprisingly, though, Sabres are the 2nd best team in the league in Giveaways/60. Now, if you said the Sabres are easy to play against because they don't hit (32nd) or take the puck away from opponents (29th) or generate scoring chances (30th) or block shots (30th), you'd be right. But instead you somehow guessed the only stat we're actually good at.

I think they tried this under Murray and didn't like the results. I also think the Bills tried this and it didn't work. Then I think the Bills saw progress with organic "process" and development. And I think that's what is being sought after with Adams, Granato, young good players, and high draft picks. I'm not saying this will fix all woes and we won't need to make trades to finish the puzzle when it's almost done, but it's not nearly done yet and I don't think Adams will leverage the future to force it. The "12 years" bit is a sunk cost fallacy. The team needs to improve the best way possible, regardless of how many years they've been out.

And this isn't even necessarily the case. Needs might be a strong word, but by doing the math on the defensive pairings for this post, a few notes about Butcher came out from that. The partner he played the most minutes with was Dahlin as a lefty-lefty pair, which is abnormal for the Sabres, and that pair didn't perform well. But it wasn't as bad as Dahlin-Joker or Dahlin-Miller. Butcher's next-most minutes was with Hagg, also a lefty-lefty pair, and that was worse. However, for a brief time, Butcher was Joker's best partner (finally a lefty-righty pair for Butcher). While they allowed a lot of shots overall (high CA/60, against the Sabres' apparent doctrine of limiting CA/60 and xGA/60), they created a lot of high-danger shots for the Sabres (HDCF/60), resulting in one of the highest xGF% pairs we ever tried. Butcher was also Pysyk's best partner (also a lefty-righty pair). They were one of the best pairs at limiting CA/60 (well within Sabres' doctrine). When paired with Bryson, Joker, or Pysyk, Butcher allowed the fewest high danger shots against (HDCA/60) and allowed zero high danger goals (HDGA/60). He's solid in front of his own net. The downside of his game is two-fold. His pairings's performance aren't overall perfect, they all lack in one area or another. For example, he plays well defensively with Pysyk, but that pair doesn't generate the much in the way of shots for (CF/60) or the or goals for (GF/60). But as mentioned in the other thread, this hasn't mattered to the coaches. Butcher has been sheltered as fuuuuuck. His player usage puts at the most sheltered player on the team (maybe along with R2), and this is on a team that doesn't typically line-match competition. Butcher noticeably has a the highest OZ% and the lowest QoC. His usage is way weird and it's unclear why. I hope he heals up soon.

I did some digging. The author points out that the Dahlin-Joker pairing fails to generate high danger shots and allows a lot of high danger shots. This is true. But you can't fix the problem if you don't look at the big picture. Every pair should be examined and how the whole team performance is impacted. Other lineups of pairs could be worse- and some of them are. I'll spare you the math. The Sabres are in a tough spot defensively, but there are ways to improve. With Butcher out, the Sabres go-to defense pairings of Dahlin-Joker/Bryson-Miller/Hagg-Pysyk appear to be designed to minimize xGA/60 (under the constraints that lefties play with righties). Compared to other possible lineups, it's about the best set of pairs you can make with those six players for minimizing team-wide mean xGA/60. It's also not the worst lineup for minimizing CA/60. It's had the outcome of doing an ok job minimizing GA/60 and HDGA/60 compared to other lineups. If what the Sabres are doing is intentional and data-driven, then it's clear that the pairs are setup specifically to prevent goals. However, this focus on xGA/60, CA/60, and GA/60 comes at a cost: this lineup is worse than some other possible lineups in several other key areas, including CF/60, xGF/60, GF/60, HDCF/60, HDCF%, HDGF%. The current pairings are absolutely eating it on the offensive side of the puck. Optimizing for as many categories as possible, emphasizing CF%, GF%, xGF%, and HDCF%, the defense pairs should be, in no particular order: Bryson-Joker Hagg-Miller Dahlin-Pysyk This will have the following effect of improving almost every area (CF/60, CF%, GF/60, GF%, xGF/60, xGF%, HDCA/60, HDCF%, HDGF, and HDGF%), with the biggest increases to CF/60, CF%, while holding mostly steady on some others (CA/60, xGA/60, SCF/60, SCA/60, HDCA/60, and HDGA). Some of the biggest impact include: Increasing CF/60 from 48.9 to 57.4 Increasing GF/60 from 1.69 to 3.75 Increasing HDGF/60 from 0.98 to 2.12. The good news is that the data suggests that Sabres may be able to increase offense by changing up the pairs to what's above. The bad news is that data suggests our defensive side of the puck doesn't get much better no matter what defensive lineup we put out.

"You mean management wanted you to lose?" "Oh, no question. No question. It was all about losing so you could get the proper draft position." We tanked. It was intentional, at least right up to the door of the locker room. They didn't tell the coaches or players to lose, the roster was simply converted into futures, prospects, and draft picks.

*****-tier jokes in an injury thread. Top notch. He had posted only 53 seconds of ice time since returning from his other injury. When it happened, it looked like high-ankle or knee.

Fire up that loud, another round of shots... Tuch down for what. Guys remember that song?

Interesting to hear more details from his point of view. I'd love to hear more details from the organization side. It's unclear yet what the root cause of the sticking point was. The Buffalo doctor quietly being in agreement then not being in agreement and distancing from the situation is an interesting move. Also interesting that Buffalo's only medical recommendation was more and more slow rehab. Also interesting that Vegas was like, "yeah, you did the research, sure, whatever you want to do." Also interesting, but not unexpected, that Eichel didn't mention firing his agent. Something was up here, and it doesn't seem like it was in the Hockey Department. Maybe team insurance on Eichel's contract was saying ADR isn't covered? Maybe egos playing among the doctors about who gets to heal the star?

Tuch gushing about his Sabres fandom: Give him an 'A' right now.

Because Phoenix is the 11th largest television market in the US and doesn't have the lowest ratings. Doesn't matter if the team is hemorrhaging money if the carrot of more money is dangling in front of the ass.

http://www.sabrespace.com/community/ignore/

pp soft

That's now 6G-3A in 10GP against Buffalo.

Ennis now has 8P in 10GP against Buffalo.

Pretty good company for Tuch with that stat.

Injured Ottawa player. But it usually should have only been blown when Ottawa recovers the puck, which they didn't do before Skinner netted it. Instead, the refs blew the whistle on the initial save.

Whistle shouldn't have gone- Ottawa never had possession.

Heh. Dupa.

Briere played C in Phoenix. Pretty sure he started at C in Buffalo. It's also unfair of me to say Briere broke out on the Sabres, as he put down a 60 point season two years earlier. I think he developed and elevated his game several notches at a couple of different times in Buffalo, starting with the 03-04 campaign. I think Connolly likekely played C too, as the only rostered centers in 01-02 were Barnes/Connolly/Gratton/Brown (besides ten games of Bob Corkum). This shelter-the-young-centers-on-wing might be a development within the last 15 years.

It's going to be real interesting to see where this center group is in two years, especially with how they're currently tracking. Remember that leading into 05-06 from 03-04 was a roster with Drury, Briere, Roy, and an injured Connolly that would add only Gaustad. Only Drury was a known quantity at that point in 03-04 and Briere was merely breaking out. Now we have Thompson, Cozens, and Mitts breaking out, with Krebs potentially about to explode.

Blame Disney, Gary Bettman, and @woods-racer for not putting it in the thread title.