Detroit at Sabres, 11 February 2020, 7 PM MSG

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, Doohickie said:

I actually liked Mojo, Lazar and Sheary as a unit.

I kind of feel like we've wasted dozens of games standing pat with line combos.  There are a lot of dynamics and chemistries we've missed out on, methinks.

I think we've been juggling lines all year. The only combo that seems riveted in place is Eichel/Reinhart. I'd like to see some experimentation there too.

Lazar's worked his ass off since his call up. I think he knows this is his last chance to be an NHL player and he's given it his all. The work ethic, if nothing else, is good for this team.

 Yay we won. We're not the worst. 

[Doohickie]

Yes, he's been shuffling lines, but it never occurred to him to put Mojo somewhere other than center.  Complete waste of Mojo's talent and ability.

[Neo]

I will chuckle, today, thinking of Albert Einstein growing frustrated while trying to decipher the work of Bart Simpson ...

[nucci]

Skinner needs to play more than 13 minutes....only way to break a slump is to play

[PASabreFan]

33 minutes ago, nucci said:

Skinner needs to play more than 13 minutes....only way to break a slump is to play

And he has done so plenty of times during his drought with no production whatsoever. For the season, he's only slightly below his career average TOI per game.

[dudacek]

29 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

And he has done so plenty of times during his drought with no production whatsoever. For the season, he's only slightly below his career average TOI per game.

This seems to be missed. People are blaming his ice time for Skinner's poor play, when actually what has happened is Skinner's poor play has led to his ice time being dropped.

I hope the people clamouring for Skinner to get more ice time with better linemates aren't the same people who are want the Sabres to build a culture of accountability.

I think he's actually played better the past few games, or at least he's playing a style more in line with where his game works, and he's been less of a sideshow.

Multiple reports that Botterill lost it in the press box last night over a Skinner giveaway.

Edited February 12, 2020 by dudacek

[LTS]

18 hours ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

I'm up in 306 in case anyone is around and has some time to meet up in between periods 

That's where I sat on Sunday.  Row 9.. seat 5.

[Torpedo Forecheck]

Get this out of the way, Jeff hasn't played up to snuff recently. But, the notion of his linemates and opportunities not impacting him this year is absurd. He has 0 PPG this year, he had 10 at this point last year. For some reason, whether it be Olofsson getting off to a hot start on the PP or something else. His PP deployment especially after the first 10 games or so has been different.

Last year he had 30 G after 47 games this year 11, but without the 10 PPG.  People should realize that his stats after 10 games this year were pretty similar to last year, but with more ice time and playing with Sobotka and Johansson a lot of it. That doesn't to me reflect a guy who was sulking at being taken off the top line.

Somewhere between the initial 10 games this year and the next ten, he played almost strictly on the 2 PP unit, his ice time dropped, and the next 10 it dropped again and of course again. Whether RK thought things were going well, liked where his PP was at, forgot about JS, or has been punishing him. I think the culture thing and punishing him is unlikely. He would like him to be scoring.

I think he likely made an error in judgement. He moved him off the top line and things weren't going badly (6G this year vs 5 G last year). But, anyone who's played hockey knows the goals and points come from the PP. Like it or not, these guys have egos, and JS started to get frustrated and then team began it's swoon after a good start. There was a point where RK was leaving the entire PP1 out the almost entire 2 minutes. He may have needed to throw his 40 goal scorer more of a bone, rather than playing him with the guys he did and without PP time.

Looking at the mess now, with the long term contract, and people frustrated, he likely  made a mistake. I know some won't like that opinion, but tough. Skinner has 5 G since game 10 and none in forever, last year he had 25 during the same time frame, including a bunch of PPG. Jeff Skinner has 1 PP assist this year, that's it, think about that. He should have been placed with Jack and Sam when VO got hurt and he came back. And, not sit on the bench during PPs while Mojo took VOs place (where teams were daring him to shoot and he wouldn't).

No Jeff hasn't played well lately, but his deployment by the coach bears some responsibility too. And, its hurt.

Now get another good ***** center to play with him.

JMO

Edited February 12, 2020 by Torpedo Forecheck

[dudacek]

Jeff played very well the first month of the season, to the point where some thought he was our best forward outside of Eichel.

He produced despite playing almost exclusively with Sobotka and Johansson at even strength and not contributing at all on a PP that was producing. He can play well without being with Jack Eichel or a similar calibre player and has for most of his career.

He wasn’t taken off the PP until it stopped producing. In November when his ES production started drying up, he still got more than 16 minutes a game. Krueger was more than patient with him. He’s never been a good PP scorer. The 8 he had last year was the 2nd highest of his career. He’s scored just 4 in 4 separate seasons.

I agree that Jeff’s numbers would be better if he were in a different role, and that he should have got a shot in the first line when Vic went down. But that doesn’t change the fact that Olofsson had been more deserving of that role, or that Jeff has not performed in the role(s) he has been assigned.

Asking Jeff to score 20-25 ES goals with middle six linemates is not something he hasn’t done before, multiple times. 

I think Jeff Skinner is a good hockey player. He just hasn’t shown it enough, and that has led to his coach using him the way he has, not the other way around.

Edited February 12, 2020 by dudacek

[Doohickie]

1 hour ago, Torpedo Forecheck said:

He should have been placed with Jack and Sam when VO got hurt and he came back.

That is such an obvious call, I thought there was no other viable option.  But Krueger proved me wrong, much to my consternation.  I thought it was a no-brainer.

[Torpedo Forecheck]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

Jeff played very well the first month of the season, to the point where some thought he was our best forward outside of Eichel.

He produced despite playing almost exclusively with Sobotka and Johansson at even strength and not contributing at all on a PP that was producing. He can play well without being with Jack Eichel or a similar calibre player and has for most of his career.

He wasn’t taken off the PP until it stopped producing. In November when his ES production started drying up, he still got more than 16 minutes a game. Krueger was more than patient with him. He’s never been a good PP scorer. The 8 he had last year was the 2nd highest of his career. He’s scored just 4 in 4 separate seasons.

I agree that Jeff’s numbers would be better if he were in a different role, and that he should have got a shot in the first line when Vic went down. But that doesn’t change the fact that Olofsson had been more deserving of that role, or that Jeff has not performed in the role(s) he has been assigned.

Asking Jeff to score 20-25 ES goals with middle six linemates is not something he hasn’t done before, multiple times. 

I think Jeff Skinner is a good hockey player. He just hasn’t shown it enough, and that has led to his coach using him the way he has, not the other way around.

Is this true? Small point but 20% of his goals have come on the PP during his career.

Why is VO more deserving?

We will have to agree to disagree on the last statement. His role was determined very early, and that didn't include his linemates from last year nor first PP unit usage, and not putting him with Jack and Sam after the injury is mind boggling. Who's fault is that? certainly not all on the player.

[Randall Flagg]

I genuinely don't know why I don't feel more strongly about Skinner's slump. I think the fact that it's sandwiching him missing about 4 weeks kind of spread out the angst/worry it causes. And I also think it's partly because I have no reason to believe he'll still be a problem the next time this team's hockey games are meaningful again, in October. This isn't an excuse, but I would put money on it not being an issue by the time the hockey matters again, and I just reserve my anger for the reasons it doesn't matter right now, about 2% of which I'd attribute to Jeff Skinner's scoring slump

Edited February 12, 2020 by Randall Flagg

[dudacek]

2 hours ago, Torpedo Forecheck said:

Is this true? Small point but 20% of his goals have come on the PP during his career.

Why is VO more deserving?

We will have to agree to disagree on the last statement. His role was determined very early, and that didn't include his linemates from last year nor first PP unit usage, and not putting him with Jack and Sam after the injury is mind boggling. Who's fault is that? certainly not all on the player.

I get your point about the PP helping players find their groove, but if you extrapolate your 20 per cent he’d have 3 more goals. Jeff scored 32 ES goals last year, 20 the year before, 30 the year before that. He has 11.

I go back to Ralph’s comment from the summer about how it is difficult to judge a player fairly without knowing what they’ve been asked to do. We know Ralph likes to use his top line against the other team’s best lines. We know that Ralph does not use Jeff in those situations, probably because he hasn’t seen him succeed in those situations. I don’t think it is illogical to jump to the conclusion that Victor has shown him that he is more dependable defensively. Offensively the numbers speak for themselves.

I think we are talking past each other to a certain degree. I am 100 per cent on board with you that it would be better for Jeff Skinner if he were used in a different way. Where I differ is that Jeff Skinner should not get a pass for not performing well enough in the role he is being asked to play. Ralph is asking him to score goals at even strength against the other teams’ lesser players, playing with guys like Sheary and Johansson and Rodrigues. He can do this. He did it for years in Carolina. But he’s not doing it now.

Im not down on him because he is not scoring 40 goals, Im down on him because he is not scoring at all.

Edited February 12, 2020 by dudacek

[Curt]

3 hours ago, dudacek said:

Asking Jeff to score 20-25 ES goals with middle six linemates is not something he hasn’t done before, multiple times. 

I don’t think he has really had that opportunity this season.  Johansson is middle-6, and Skinner has played with him a lot, but that’s it.  Skinner has been playing mostly with one middle 6 guy and one bottom 6 guy.  When Johansson was out injured, it was Skinner and two bottom 6 guys.

[Randall Flagg]

I thought this post by Bendium on hfboards was an interesting mix of the culture and Skinner discussions happening here. Presented without comment, except to point out that hfboards is generally more down on Krueger than Sabrespace:

I have been thinking about this for a couple hours now and have come to one conclusion. I don't have enough information to answer the questions I now have. One thing is for sure, Howard Simon got Krueger to open up the curtain a little. I am just not completely sure what we saw in this glimpse. Some thoughts though.

I have been in leadership/management positions for the last 30 years, from 8 years in the military through running a 200 million dollar operation. I have seen many different leadership and management styles from top 10% functionality to leaders being fired for criminal negligence and failure. There are plenty of different leadership/management styles that can be successful, but the key to me is two fold. First, as a leader you must have a style and philosophy you are confident with, truly believe in, and are committed to sticking with. You must be able to communicate it and teach it to the organization below you what that philosophy is so they can understand why you do what you do. Second, you must be willing to continue to learn and have the flexibility to adjust to the conditions in front of you to ensure your approach is the best approach to achieve organizational success. Ralph clearly has the first one going for him. I am presently questioning the second one.

My concern with the handling of Skinner. I once had to replace a group supervisor that was retiring. We looked at both internal and external candidates to replace. One of the internal candidates was a senior hourly employee that had always been a hourly leader/influencer. However, he often used that influence against the management staff, pushing back against every move and being a royal paine in my arse. While the hire was my decision, the rest of the management staff was against his candidacy, and more importantly my boss was against him and had a strong preference for another candidate. I was nearly fired when I gave the disgruntled candidate the job. Why did I? My response to my boss and the rest of the staff, was that it was my job and responsibility to select the most talented, capable candidate available and then commit myself to developing them. If I was afraid to do that then I don't belong in my job. I have found over time that everyone wants to be happy and successful. When they are not it is because there is some object in their path that they are unable to get past. In the case of intelligent, highly talented people, it often comes down to being in a place and role in life that doesn't match with how they see themselves in their minds eye. In this case, the employee saw himself at a higher level, but was not being given the opportunity. I gave him that, and flipped his influence he was using against management, to one being used in its favor. He blossomed and in just a few years moved up several levels. Skinner has spent 8 years developing his game and thought he was signing up for 8 years more to play on Eichels wing in the style he has developed and sold. Now Ralph is trying to make him into something other than what he sees in his minds eye, and seems to be giving him an old school "my way or the highway." This often works on the bottom 80% who are open to doing whatever they have to keep their job. This doesn't work on the top 20% who require a little more flexibility for their talents to shine.

Jeff has never been a defensive force. Jeff is a talented sniper who uses his unusual skating skills and creativity to improvise and generate scoring chances. Those kinds of talented, creative minds always struggle when they are overly bound by an inflexible system around them. Ralph needs to look at this from Jeff's viewpoint and find a way to adjust his approach to make room for Jeff to succeed.

[dudacek]

1 minute ago, Curt said:

I don’t think he has really had that opportunity this season.  Johansson is middle-6, and Skinner has played with him a lot, but that’s it.  Skinner has been playing mostly with one middle 6 guy and one bottom 6 guy.  When Johansson was out injured, it was Skinner and two bottom 6 guys.

You guys are gonna make me pull out all the Carolina linemates? I'm sure it wasn't Derek Ryan and Viktor Rask all the time.

Torpedo nailed it further up. If we had a 2nd-line centre this would all be irrelevant.

[Doohickie]

23 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Ralph needs to look at this from Jeff's viewpoint and find a way to adjust his approach to make room for Jeff to succeed.

This is something that RFK said early in the year:  That he seeks to put players in a position to succeed.  I can see where sacrifices in a particular player's success might be required in the interest of team success, but particularly in the case of Skinner Krueger seems to have not lived up to his promise, to the detriment of the team.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Doohickie

[Doohickie]

15 minutes ago, dudacek said:

If we had a 2nd-line centre this would all be irrelevant.

I hope the Lazar "experiment" succeeds and, at least for the rest of this season, Lazar can blossom in a 2C role.  I'm not sure he's the answer long term, but I'm rooting for his success right now.  If I had to point to something in Lazar's game that meshes with Skinner, I would say it's "urgency."  Lazar seems like he's always trying to make a play, to advance the puck, and without the puck he still pushes the play up ice.  Mojo is okay at that, but he doesn't have the same level of urgency that Skins and Lazar have.  That's not necessarily a bad thing; his steadiness can provide the defensive grounding that can free Lazar and Skinner to create.  I hope this is the case.

If we get a bonafide 2C, there are plenty of other assignments that can take advantage of his talent and drive, but right now I hope he can be the 2C we've been looking for.

[freester]

10 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

This is something that RFK said early in the year:  That he seeks to put players in a position to succeed.  I can see where sacrifices in a particular player's success might be required in the interest of team success, but particularly in the case of Skinner Krueger seems to have not lived up to his promise, to the detriment of the team.

In an interview today he implied that Skinner is a defensive liability and Vesey, Girgensons and everyone else who has played with Jack and Sam was responsible defensively.  This is his rationale for not playing Skinner on the top line and to get balanced scoring. . I didn’t realize that VO was so good defensively. 

[Torpedo Forecheck]

13 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

I hope the Lazar "experiment" succeeds and, at least for the rest of this season, Lazar can blossom in a 2C role.  I'm not sure he's the answer long term, but I'm rooting for his success right now.  If I had to point to something in Lazar's game that meshes with Skinner, I would say it's "urgency."  Lazar seems like he's always trying to make a play, to advance the puck, and without the puck he still pushes the play up ice.  Mojo is okay at that, but he doesn't have the same level of urgency that Skins and Lazar have.  That's not necessarily a bad thing; his steadiness can provide the defensive grounding that can free Lazar and Skinner to create.  I hope this is the case.

If we get a bonafide 2C, there are plenty of other assignments that can take advantage of his talent and drive, but right now I hope he can be the 2C we've been looking for.

You know what makes a ton of sense IMO is to put Johannson (playmaker) with Lazar (checker) and Skinner (finisher).

[Randall Flagg]

12 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

I hope the Lazar "experiment" succeeds and, at least for the rest of this season, Lazar can blossom in a 2C role.  I'm not sure he's the answer long term, but I'm rooting for his success right now.  If I had to point to something in Lazar's game that meshes with Skinner, I would say it's "urgency."  Lazar seems like he's always trying to make a play, to advance the puck, and without the puck he still pushes the play up ice.  Mojo is okay at that, but he doesn't have the same level of urgency that Skins and Lazar have.  That's not necessarily a bad thing; his steadiness can provide the defensive grounding that can free Lazar and Skinner to create.  I hope this is the case.

If we get a bonafide 2C, there are plenty of other assignments that can take advantage of his talent and drive, but right now I hope he can be the 2C we've been looking for.

There is simply zero chance that Lazar can sustain being a 2C for any meaningful amount of time. The 2Cs in our conference are incredibly talented and we need one to match if we want to beat them consistently

[dudacek]

1 hour ago, Randall Flagg said:

I thought this post by Bendium on hfboards was an interesting mix of the culture and Skinner discussions happening here. Presented without comment, except to point out that hfboards is generally more down on Krueger than Sabrespace:

I have been thinking about this for a couple hours now and have come to one conclusion. I don't have enough information to answer the questions I now have. One thing is for sure, Howard Simon got Krueger to open up the curtain a little. I am just not completely sure what we saw in this glimpse. Some thoughts though.

I have been in leadership/management positions for the last 30 years, from 8 years in the military through running a 200 million dollar operation. I have seen many different leadership and management styles from top 10% functionality to leaders being fired for criminal negligence and failure. There are plenty of different leadership/management styles that can be successful, but the key to me is two fold. First, as a leader you must have a style and philosophy you are confident with, truly believe in, and are committed to sticking with. You must be able to communicate it and teach it to the organization below you what that philosophy is so they can understand why you do what you do. Second, you must be willing to continue to learn and have the flexibility to adjust to the conditions in front of you to ensure your approach is the best approach to achieve organizational success. Ralph clearly has the first one going for him. I am presently questioning the second one.

My concern with the handling of Skinner. I once had to replace a group supervisor that was retiring. We looked at both internal and external candidates to replace. One of the internal candidates was a senior hourly employee that had always been a hourly leader/influencer. However, he often used that influence against the management staff, pushing back against every move and being a royal paine in my arse. While the hire was my decision, the rest of the management staff was against his candidacy, and more importantly my boss was against him and had a strong preference for another candidate. I was nearly fired when I gave the disgruntled candidate the job. Why did I? My response to my boss and the rest of the staff, was that it was my job and responsibility to select the most talented, capable candidate available and then commit myself to developing them. If I was afraid to do that then I don't belong in my job. I have found over time that everyone wants to be happy and successful. When they are not it is because there is some object in their path that they are unable to get past. In the case of intelligent, highly talented people, it often comes down to being in a place and role in life that doesn't match with how they see themselves in their minds eye. In this case, the employee saw himself at a higher level, but was not being given the opportunity. I gave him that, and flipped his influence he was using against management, to one being used in its favor. He blossomed and in just a few years moved up several levels. Skinner has spent 8 years developing his game and thought he was signing up for 8 years more to play on Eichels wing in the style he has developed and sold. Now Ralph is trying to make him into something other than what he sees in his minds eye, and seems to be giving him an old school "my way or the highway." This often works on the bottom 80% who are open to doing whatever they have to keep their job. This doesn't work on the top 20% who require a little more flexibility for their talents to shine.

Jeff has never been a defensive force. Jeff is a talented sniper who uses his unusual skating skills and creativity to improvise and generate scoring chances. Those kinds of talented, creative minds always struggle when they are overly bound by an inflexible system around them. Ralph needs to look at this from Jeff's viewpoint and find a way to adjust his approach to make room for Jeff to succeed.

I think this is excellent food for thought. 
I would also say that I don’t think Ralph’s system is handcuffing Jeff at all; as I pointed out, he succeeded just fine to start the season on a “2nd line” with Mojo and Vlad.

The inflexibility that Ralph might need to re-examine is his pre-determination that the first line can’t succeed with Jeff. We know for a fact it can, even though the team’s success with the “loaded” first line was questionable at best.

[Marvin]

Game Report

1. I finally settled on "DVAENGNH" for "Duane" - V for U as in Latin, AE ligature from Gaelic, and NGNH from Sanskrit.  People who noticed it looked at me funnily until I explained it.

Interestingly, the PSE employees were cool with it.  A couple even had a laugh.  My impression is that they know some tipping point has been reached - fans apparently can vent freely.  The arena was about 2/3 full and was mostly lifeless.  A few season ticket holders I know said that attendance is steadily declining and the arena sometimes verges on the toxic.

2. I have been to 4 games this year -- and all 4 have been an indictment of JNot's roster construction.

In all 4 games, either Montour or Miller has played LD while the other played RD in their games.  They are noticeably worse on the left: their angles were off; they regularly hesitated; their anticipation was non-existent; they routinely misread plays.

Conversely, wow, Mojo looks way more comfortable on the wing with a natural centre.  Whodathunkit?

Skinner did lots of things right.  However, he does not trust his linemates to do anything coherent, was hesitant making plays, and sometimes made inferior plays because he is trying too hard.  Maybe a natural centre and someone other than Frolik on the other wing would be good for him.  Nah, can't be.

Speaking of Frolik, he definitely can slow down the game when the team needs it and can kill penalties.  Nothing that helps Skinner, though.  Of course, if helping Skinner mattered to Botterill, there would be another centre at least as good as Lazar available for Krueger.  And that's aside from wondering why Krueger didn't play Skinner much with Eichel while Olofsson was out.

3. Aside from the obvious candidates, this team can't string together three consecutive clean, crisp passes.  IMHO, Kruegers version of the possession game is great for Eichel, Reinhart, Olofsson, Skinner, Johansson, Dahlin, Jokiharu, and eventually Pilut.  It occasionally works for other players, but IMHO, those lesser players need a simpler possession structure to function.  Because executing some of the passes designed for within the system is beyond have the skaters' ken, this team has sloppier passing than the "Failed Rochester Core."`

On the other hand, at least the system isn't as dumb as Bylsma's; I and others around me at the game laughed at the system far too often because the players routinely passed up superior plays for ones that were "safe verging on paranoid."

4. Hutton played well.  A couple of his saves really lifted the team in the first period.  If he could have played this way for the last 3 months, the Sabres would be within reach of the playoffs.

5. I saw more spirit and grit in the team the last few games.  The scrum after the boarding call was a welcome surprise to the entire arena.  I don't know how much it matters.

[Randall Flagg]

10 minutes ago, E4 ... Ke2 said:

A few season ticket holders I know said that attendance is steadily declining and the arena sometimes verges on the toxic.

.

Toxic is a good word to describe the fan atmosphere right from the get-go of the last Detroit game. 

[Randall Flagg]

3 hours ago, dudacek said:

I think this is excellent food for thought. 
I would also say that I don’t think Ralph’s system is handcuffing Jeff at all; as I pointed out, he succeeded just fine to start the season on a “2nd line” with Mojo and Vlad.

The inflexibility that Ralph might need to re-examine is his pre-determination that the first line can’t succeed with Jeff. We know for a fact it can, even though the team’s success with the “loaded” first line was questionable at best.

Yeah I can't say I go as far as this poster in believing that Ralph hurts Jeff but I figured it was worth bringing over from that forum.