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The Sabres Draft Like Garbage: Here are the Receipts


LGR4GM

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I strongly suspect the Sabres drafting is below average, but before anyone proclaims just how bad they are, remember we had aSabres draft success thread just a few months ago that went into some depth regarding success rate compared to their peers and that thread showed that the Sabres really weren't that far off in most rounds, and hit for average in many.  Like most things this season, the premise is overstated a fair amount.

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40 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:

But that is what I'm getting at. If you draft the consensus pick and they bomb then you are average. You can be much better or worse than average but average in terms of who you draft and when would be based on the player's consensus thoughts not that of the future. We may actually be arguing completely different topics. I'm trying to say that their picks were average or below average at the time they drafted said player. The scouts did a bad job finding the best players yet came to similar conclusions to the public consensus. So whatever the public consensus was is the basis of their picks in the immediate time.

Our scouts failed to do anything special but they did accomplish the bare minimum of their job description. 

We should have higher standards 

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3 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

 

 

3 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

The Sabres have drafted terrible for a decade.

I have a real good idea how the last 3 drafts are going to turn out. 2018 is a dumpster fire with Dahlin the only anything we got. 2019 actually was probably our best draft in a decade, Ryan Johnson will still be an NHL player even if the pick is a mistake. Cozens and Portillo really make that class look good. The rest are longshots. 2020 is a mixed bag with the Quinn pick being questionable at best, Peterka being good, and then no other pick until round 5 so meh. 

There is some signs our drafting is starting to improve but that Quinn pick is the real canary in the coal mine for drafting under Adams. 

So we are better but we will learn a lot this draft with a full slate of picks

To the 1st part of the bolded, is that actually true now that the scouting staff was gutted on Adams 1st day?

To the 2nd part, we will but especially if the front office gets revamped as rumored the past couple of weeks (w/ minimum an AGM & possibly an advisor or someone more involved "mentoring" Adams being brought in), will the scouts that set up this draft board be the same ones that will build the future ones?  So, will what we learn have any substantial bearing on what happens in the future?

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There's a book out there called the Genius of Crowds by Charles Bukowski. Though I've been drinking, I will try to make my argument coherent. Bukowski argued that if you poll the voters, you will get a better prediction of the results than any particular analyst. So for example, if you poll movie watchers as to who is going to win the award for best film, they will come up with a better prediction than you. The problem here is that they are talking about prediction of who is going to be voted best movie, which doesn't interest us. What we are looking for is what the actual best movie is, which, if you look at the history of the Academy awards, does an embarrassing job of valuing the actual best film. So what Genius of Crowds predicts is who will be selected, not the value of the selection.

Hiring a bunch of scouts to come up with a composite list, works very poorly.  They do tell you the order they will be selected (like in the Genius of Crowds), but they have no ability to tell you the quality of those picks (like the Academy Award results). You can go to thedraftanalyst.com and look at the last 20 years of Central Scouting and see how terrible Central Scouting is.  I would love to hear your argument that Central Scouting has value because... I like changing my mind.

I call my project of comparing Sabres drafting to other pundits Mom's Basement Stakes. My conclusion, so far, is that analyst that use group valuations, like McKenzie, are losing about 1/2 player per year to those not, like Pronman. For me, Pronman, Liger, Me, and Button are about a half player per year ahead of McKenzie and the Sabres.  I believe that if you understand what Charles Bukowski is telling you, that wouldn't be a surprise.

https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/2020-moms-basement-stakes.2769630/

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8 minutes ago, rakish said:

There's a book out there called the Genius of Crowds by Charles Bukowski. Though I've been drinking, I will try to make my argument coherent. Bukowski argued that if you poll the voters, you will get a better prediction of the results than any particular analyst. So for example, if you poll movie watchers as to who is going to win the award for best film, they will come up with a better prediction than you. The problem here is that they are talking about prediction of who is going to be voted best movie, which doesn't interest us. What we are looking for is what the actual best movie is, which, if you look at the history of the Academy awards, does an embarrassing job of valuing the actual best film. So what Genius of Crowds predicts is who will be selected, not the value of the selection.

Hiring a bunch of scouts to come up with a composite list, works very poorly.  They do tell you the order they will be selected (like in the Genius of Crowds), but they have no ability to tell you the quality of those picks (like the Academy Award results). You can go to thedraftanalyst.com and look at the last 20 years of Central Scouting and see how terrible Central Scouting is.  I would love to hear your argument that Central Scouting has value because... I like changing my mind.

I call my project of comparing Sabres drafting to other pundits Mom's Basement Stakes. My conclusion, so far, is that analyst that use group valuations, like McKenzie, are losing about 1/2 player per year to those not, like Pronman. For me, Pronman, Liger, Me, and Button are about a half player per year ahead of McKenzie and the Sabres.  I believe that if you understand what Charles Bukowski is telling you, that wouldn't be a surprise.

https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/2020-moms-basement-stakes.2769630/

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Everything Tim Murray did destroyed this team. Guy sought every useless attribute in draft picks time and time again.  Ignored human factors and attributes time and time again that made other scouts shy away from the ‘numbers’ and assembled a culture less cesspit in the process of guys he hand picked and no plan B.  No competition. He traded away multiple draft picks for guys who never did anything.  He is the main reason we’re still in so much trouble today.  Absolutely terrible GM.
 

Botterill and crew actually weren’t awful at drafting.  Not great but not bad. The coaching and pro scouts hurt his teams the most. His prospects all got rushed because the pro scouts were awful and injuries added up quick. His ultimate downfall was being unable to make a trade to save his team. So many almosts but couldn’t finish the lower value deals that were sorely needed.  I don’t miss him much but he did get us back on track. Mittelstadt and Thompson under decent coaching aren’t as bad as the last coaches made them out to be.  Cozens is great.  Jokiharju before Steve Smith ruined him for Nylander turned a total turd he inherited into an asset.  Of course his tenure will be defined by the ROR trade, but even RORa new team is souring on him.  We had a culture problem from Murray and he had to go the guy is no leader.

 

Adams just did what Krueger wanted so it’s hard to judge yet. I don’t like how Staal was blindsided about the trade- he came already given up on the game.  He along with Krueger and Pegula bucks got a top talent like Hall. Now the players historic collapse we can leave the blame on coaches and whatever, but it did change some narrative. If he gets a decent deadline deal for Hall then we just turned a high dollar rental into a sorely needed asset in the future.  Taking Quinn over his teammate was a ballsy move.  He didn’t get us a goalie which arguably ensured last place this season.  We shall see 

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2 hours ago, Taro T said:

 

To the 1st part of the bolded, is that actually true now that the scouting staff was gutted on Adams 1st day?

To the 2nd part, we will but especially if the front office gets revamped as rumored the past couple of weeks (w/ minimum an AGM & possibly an advisor or someone more involved "mentoring" Adams being brought in), will the scouts that set up this draft board be the same ones that will build the future ones?  So, will what we learn have any substantial bearing on what happens in the future?

Our 2020 draft is interesting. Hard to evaluate. 

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1 hour ago, RangerDave said:

How might recent drafts been different if the Sabres hadn't been historically bad at the lottery?  Seems like we get jobbed every year.  If we had the opportunity to draft one or two slots higher each year, would that have made any difference?

They have not been unlucky in the lottery.  In 2018 they got extremely lucky.

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Am I wrong to hope that part of what Adams is trying to put together in his super-secret front office rebuild is installing a director of scouting to basically function as the savant @rakish is pointing to? Someone to oversee both Formenton and Crowe?

I don't see them holding their horses on an announcement if all they are looking for is a few front-line scouts. There needs to be at least one more significant piece in addition to the senior advisor and the assistant GM.

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12 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

*Liger has entered the chat

You ***** kidding me? I have a big problem with a lot of the picks. It hasn't gotten better in 2017-2020 either. I can name 4 picks over 3 drafts that are complete WTF! 

Laaksonen instead of Farrance

Johnson instead of Robertson

Samuelsson instead of Berggren

Quinn over Rossi or Jarvis. 

And I am a random mofo on a computer figuring out in real time they ***** up. This team has its head up its ass. 

There's really only two picks that stand out to me that would've been game changers for this franchise.... 

Reinhart over Draisaital 

Mittlestadt over Sergachev 

...and the jury is still out on Mittlestadt.   Reinhart is a goos winger, but Draisaital woulda been a game changer.

Those two and over drafting of European players by JBOT... but guys like Asplund, Laaksonen, Weissbach, UPL.. are promising prospects.

 

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8 hours ago, Curt said:

They have not been unlucky in the lottery.  In 2018 they got extremely lucky.

It could just be my imagination, but it seems to me like our draft number was usually later than what our record compared to other teams would indicate.  Am I remembering incorrectly?  If we did not have the lottery, and went solely on record, would we have drafted earlier?

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16 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

The biggest problem with anything like this is there are far too many variables not being taken into account.

Was Tom Wilson seen as far better than Grigorenko or Girgensons at the time? 

Hindsight is 20/20 and judging their drafting based on what we know 4 years or more after the point is rather pointless. 

Nylander over Sergachev, McAvoy, or Chychrun is a solid criticism because even at the time it was deemed a risky/disliked pick.

Reinhart was ranked higher than Draisital in most scouting lists. 

Grigorenko was considered by central scouting to be better than all but about 5 players overall.

 

While this does mean their scouting failed; it isn't as if they drafted random players that a large number of other teams wouldn't of taken. We have an average to below average track record. But that's it.

 

 

One BIG variable not taken into account is the overall failure rate of the NHL Draft. The draft as a whole has a bust rate of over 80% when looked at in it’s entirety. The main issue is age, they are scouting 16 yr olds. In other pro sports players declare when they are ready. We are drafting/ scouting players who haven’t even hit puberty. Look no further that the Sean Day fiascos. At 14 he played for Compuware and was a beast. He was considered the second coming of Chris Pronger! He was given exceptional status and that usually is a straight arrow to number one draft pick! As he grew he lost interest, got slow and fat! He was under the microscope of every nhl scouting department for years! Who did that work out?

I NHL could’ve change things this year and made a huge ripple effect in hockey .....change the draft to 20-year-olds! But the OHL mucked that up. 

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2 hours ago, pi2000 said:

There's really only two picks that stand out to me that would've been game changers for this franchise.... 

Reinhart over Draisaital 

Mittlestadt over Sergachev 

...and the jury is still out on Mittlestadt.   Reinhart is a goos winger, but Draisaital woulda been a game changer.

Those two and over drafting of European players by JBOT... but guys like Asplund, Laaksonen, Weissbach, UPL.. are promising prospects.

 

I think you mean Nylander over Sergachev. 
 

And that final decision does not fall on the GM or scouting staff 

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3 hours ago, pi2000 said:

There's really only two picks that stand out to me that would've been game changers for this franchise.... 

Reinhart over Draisaital 

Mittlestadt over Sergachev 

...and the jury is still out on Mittlestadt.   Reinhart is a goos winger, but Draisaital woulda been a game changer.

Those two and over drafting of European players by JBOT... but guys like Asplund, Laaksonen, Weissbach, UPL.. are promising prospects.

 

It's about a cumulative total not a single game changer

Mitts and Ssrgachev weren't the same draft

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16 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

*Liger has entered the chat

You ***** kidding me? I have a big problem with a lot of the picks. It hasn't gotten better in 2017-2020 either. I can name 4 picks over 3 drafts that are complete WTF! 

Laaksonen instead of Farrance

Johnson instead of Robertson

Samuelsson instead of Berggren

Quinn over Rossi or Jarvis. 

And I am a random mofo on a computer figuring out in real time they ***** up. This team has its head up its ass. 

The Quinn selection was a ***** disgrace. At this point, I vote for Duane Steinel and Melody Martin as co-GM's. Those two couldn't do any worse than this parade of clowns and would probably do much better.

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3 minutes ago, TerryFolds said:

The Quinn selection was a ***** disgrace. At this point, I vote for Duane Steinel and Melody Martin as co-GM's. Those two couldn't do any worse than this parade of clowns and would probably do much better.

There's a chance Quinn turns out okay. Most likely though we see Rossi better, depending on his covid recovery. 

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48 minutes ago, TerryFolds said:

The Quinn selection was a ***** disgrace. At this point, I vote for Duane Steinel and Melody Martin as co-GM's. Those two couldn't do any worse than this parade of clowns and would probably do much better.

Should I know who these two people are?

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1 hour ago, Brawndo said:

I think you mean Nylander over Sergachev. 
 

And that final decision does not fall on the GM or scouting staff 

Seriously? It's that bad?

Hide your post before PA starts stuffing tennis balls into his dryer vent again.

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1 hour ago, TerryFolds said:

The Quinn selection was a ***** disgrace. At this point, I vote for Duane Steinel and Melody Martin as co-GM's. Those two couldn't do any worse than this parade of clowns and would probably do much better.

Why are you picking those rando fans and not some of super knowledgeable posters we have here? 

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