Incentivized tanking?

[nucci]

Maybe we have a crappy owner that hires crappy GMs who then hire crappy coaches that put together a crappy roster?

[PerreaultForever]

4 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

And while everyone is kvetching about the goalies, stop doing anything that approaches playing defense while also handing the puck back on a platter while playing offense. It's brilliant I tell you.

This is true. We are not a difficult team to play against, and the concept of team defense seems to be beyond us. I'm not sure what the long term strategy is, and while I don't want to play Bylsma hockey next year, I am hoping for more continuity and the introduction of a solid defensive system. Not sold on Granato just yet.

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, PerreaultForever said:

This is true. We are not a difficult team to play against, and the concept of team defense seems to be beyond us. I'm not sure what the long term strategy is, and while I don't want to play Bylsma hockey next year, I am hoping for more continuity and the introduction of a solid defensive system. Not sold on Granato just yet.

This team hasn't had a roster play more than a few games together. I think Dahlin has been awful but I'm told to be patient. There's a learning curve. I assume that curve applies to everyone.

2 hours ago, nucci said:

Maybe we have a crappy owner that hires crappy GMs who then hire crappy coaches that put together a crappy roster?

That's the funny thing. You won't know if they are crappy for a while. Right now, let them do their job.

[IKnowPhysics]

6 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

And while everyone is kvetching about the goalies, stop doing anything that approaches playing defense while also handing the puck back on a platter while playing offense. It's brilliant I tell you.

 

1 hour ago, PerreaultForever said:

This is true.

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.

[PromoTheRobot]

10 minutes ago, IKnowPhysics said:

 

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.

Where do we rank on turnovers?

[nucci]

57 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

That's the funny thing. You won't know if they are crappy for a while. Right now, let them do their job.

I meant the past...not right now

[IKnowPhysics]

1 minute ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Where do we rank on turnovers?

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.

[Thorny]

36 minutes ago, IKnowPhysics said:

 

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 mediocre-to-below average at.

FTFY 

[IKnowPhysics]

39 minutes ago, Thorny said:

FTFY 

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

[Thorny]

1 minute ago, IKnowPhysics said:

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

Ah, giveaways, that’s my mistake. I was still looking at the ~22 for “most defensive measurables” you mentioned 

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, IKnowPhysics said:

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.

So by your reckoning Bjork is one of our best players?

Stats - phht. So many ways to lie with them or distort what's actually happening. 

We play crap team D. Full stop. 

[IKnowPhysics]

30 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

So by your reckoning Bjork is one of our best players?

Stats - phht. So many ways to lie with them or distort what's actually happening. 

We play crap team D. Full stop. 

Swing and a miss.

[PromoTheRobot]

3 hours ago, IKnowPhysics said:

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.

That's amazing. It feels like we puke the puck up constantly. Maybe ours turn into goals more?

[IKnowPhysics]

18 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

That's amazing. It feels like we puke the puck up constantly. Maybe ours turn into goals more?

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.

Edited February 4, 2022 by IKnowPhysics

[PerreaultForever]

I'm sorry, but cherry picking stats can spin things in any direction you want. 

We also are the 2nd worst in terms of giving up shots on goal and deep in the lower third in terms of shots on goal. So if we don't cough up the puck at center ice who gives a crap?

Now having said that, even that doesn't mean a lot unless you consider where the shots come from, how many rebounds you give up, how many are actual scoring chances, how many get blocked and so on. If you want to play with stats, you need to look at ALL of them. 

We are NOT a hard team to play against.