Goaltending should be the first fix, but won’t be.

[PromoTheRobot]

12 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Not at all what I saw in Vancouver on Saturday, when they were clearly better than their opponent on that portion of the game.

And it’s not what I’ve seen for most of this year.

I don't know. I see many poor decisions that don't necessarily become turnovers. It's subtle things like passing the puck to the wrong side of a player, forcing him to stop or backtrack just to maintain possession. Or just not knowing where a teammate is when making a pass.

Edited December 9, 2019 by PromoTheRobot

[dudacek]

1 minute ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I don't know. I see many poor decisions that don't necessarily become turnovers. It's subtle things like passing the puck to the wrong side of a player, forcing him to stop or backtrack just to maintain possession.

I’m not saying the Sabres aren’t guilty of this, I’m saying we are nowhere near the league’s worst offenders. We used to be, but that’s changed.

Pressure the D into mistakes through the use of pace is the way hockey is played now; it’s what coaches preach and GM assemble their rosters around. It’s why guys like Joki are growing in value when they used to be dismissed as being too small.

Every team makes those mistakes you’re seeing, and it happens all the time,; it’s why two-goal leads are no longer sure things and why nearly half the wins this season are come-from-behind.

[miles]

If the sabres release Hutton don't they still keep salary on cap?

[Zamboni]

12 minutes ago, miles said:

If the sabres release Hutton don't they still keep salary on cap?

If no team picks him up, yes.

Hutton is staying here. For at least 4 more months.

[Taro T]

8 minutes ago, miles said:

If the sabres release Hutton don't they still keep salary on cap?

If he was down in Ra-cha-cha, the 1st ~$1MM of his salary would come off the books.  He isn't going down to Ra-cha-cha (unless his play continues to deteriorate significantly further).

But if his woes do continue and Hammond continues to look good in Ra-cha-cha, with the Sabres only keeping 2 spare skaters, could possibly see them bringing up the Hamburgler and running w/ 3 goalies.  Would put that at less than a 10% probability though.

[dudacek]

Interesting piece in the Athletic on how the analytics that has nearly eliminated the practice of playing goalies consecutive nights might not be as conclusive as once thought:

https://theathletic.com/1450527/2019/12/12/why-nhl-coaches-need-to-revisit-the-idea-that-goalies-shouldnt-start-on-back-to-back-nights/?article_source=related

What Tulsky found is that there’s a fatigue effect, and while Thomas corroborated it, he found the total effect to be even smaller. Four years later the effect does indeed still exist, but it is even smaller than what Thomas had found. In 2,245 instances where a goalie had played on zero days rest, his save percentage was .910, just over two percentage points worse than the rested average of .912 for those goalies – nearly five times smaller than what Tulsky had originally found (with little discernible difference between starters and backups, good goalies and weak goalies). In the four years since Thomas published his work, the difference has actually been positive overall, with goalies performing at .913 compared to their rested average of .912, a 1.4 percentage point difference the other way.

[dudacek]

more:

It begs the question of how much a backup goalie’s save percentage has been inflated in the past by the amount of rest he gets (only further complicating the question of who to start in a given game), especially given how the difference in save percentage between starters and backups has grown while starter workload has decreased. Handling heavy workloads is a legitimate skill for a goalie and that could be what separates the goalies who thrive as a No. 1, those who can only survive in a platoon and those relegated to spot duty.