GDT: 4/5/2022, Hurricanes @ Sabres, 7pm on ESPN+ 📺 WGR 📻

[PromoTheRobot]

56 minutes ago, Norcal said:

Hahaha Harrington has a weekly NHL power poll???? 🤣🤣

Yes. Silly me. I thought he was judging teams on how they are playing, you know, this week. But apparently he just copies the standings. He didn't appreciate me pointing that out to him.

[PromoTheRobot]

47 minutes ago, The Ghost of Yuri said:

The Hockey Guy has them at 21

 

I made this point before on SabreSpace. What is the point of having a WEEKLY power poll if you are basing your rankings on the entire season? There is already a power poll that does that. It's called THE STANDINGS.

[Doohickie]

12 minutes ago, Norcal said:

Does this guy have a job or is this it?

He's pretty thorough in his explanations. I like him. 

This is it.  He spends full time on it during the season, from what I can tell, putting out several videos every day:  Game previews, game recaps, and special interest videos covering topics like prominent suspensions, contract issues, recaps of famous players' careers, power ranks, jersey rankings, etc.

At one point he said what he used to do prior to this becoming full time but I can't remember what it was.  It was a mundane job like speech pathologist or accountant or some such.

Some background on him.

Personally I think it's kind of cool that he buys all this hockey memorabilia and because he uses them in the videos he no doubt writes all those expenditures off on his taxes. 

[Doohickie]

10 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

All while having Swiss cheese in net most nights. Impressive.

Most impressive.

Anderson isn't Swiss cheese.  .903 SV%, 3.02 GAA.  I think those numbers have improved as the team has improved.

[Huckleberry]

1 minute ago, The Ghost of Yuri said:

Anderson isn't Swiss cheese.  .903 SV%, 3.02 GAA.  I think those numbers have improved as the team has improved.

Also don't think you can compare with last year, scoring is up league wide for some reason.

[Doohickie]

Yeah, didn't someone list the number of point per game players?  Maybe that was on twitter.  But there are something like 44 this year, over twice what it's been in recent years.

[Norcal]

14 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I made this point before on SabreSpace. What is the point of having a WEEKLY power poll if you are basing your rankings on the entire season? There is already a power poll that does that. It's called THE STANDINGS.

The power poll in this video has nothing to do with standings and everything to do with how the team is playing recently. 

The Sabres are 21 yet the Sabres are lower in the standings. 

I agree most lists are lazy but I don't think this one is. 

[Zamboni]

7 minutes ago, The Ghost of Yuri said:

Anderson isn't Swiss cheese.  .903 SV%, 3.02 GAA.  I think those numbers have improved as the team has improved.

Ok. Difference of opinion that’s OK. I just view almost any goalie as “Swiss cheese” if they hover over a 2.8 GAA over the course of a season. Just how I see it. Others don’t. Cool.

[sabresparaavida]

5 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

Ok. Difference of opinion that’s OK. I just view almost any goalie as “Swiss cheese” if they hover over a 2.8 GAA over the course of a season. Just how I see it. Others don’t. Cool.

21/32 NHL teams are averaging over 2.8 goals a game, with the Panthers average over 4 goals a game to lead the league, and  the coyotes in last with a 2.51 goals average. Your line of 2.8 is a bit better than league average, I don’t think the majority of goalies can be considered “Swiss cheese”, your line for a credible goalie is too high.

[K-9]

3 hours ago, jsb said:

My observations on the game:

1. Carolina is probably the best defensive team in the league. Leads the league in GA. What stood out to me unlike the LA Kings game was after the 1st period they figured out how to play against the Hurricanes defensive structure. They improved as the game went on and they weren't stifled getting into the zone.
2. VO and Mitts have found their games again. Hopefully they keep it up. I'm optimistic they will but we'll see. 
3. Mitts now plays a completely different game than what I expected out of him 2 years ago. 
4. Please find replacements for Bryson, Fitzgerald and Butcher. Power will replace 1 but on the left side. The right side gets caved in to often.
5. It was interesting how a couple of the Carolina players commented on the Sabres speed during interviews. When was the last time we've heard that??
6. Okposo and Girgensons are just plain and simply warriors
7. To me for Cozens to take the next step he needs to cut back on his turnovers. Otherwise he's slowly but surely becoming a player.
8. Dahlin is just special. No more needs to be said. He seems like a good locker room guy and he leads while on the ice. What may be scary is there is still a lot of room to improve in his game. 
9. Vegas currently out of wild card, Detroit won, as much as I'd like to see us continue to win, I still want a top 8 and top 16 draft pick
10. On this current 17 game streak if this was a year long trend we'd be 13th in GF and 20th in GA. Both are trending up.

Good stuff. 

What strikes me about Carolina is that every one of them plays the game exactly like Brind’Amour played it. Every. One. 

[Norcal]

Took a 3rd viewing to catch Sweet Caroline at the 3 minute mark. 

I love it! First time beating them in 6 years and they throw their song in their face. 

Billsesque in Pittsburgh circa 2019 

[Scottysabres]

Nice game. Like how the team is playing to win, never giving up.

[Mustache of God]

5 hours ago, The Ghost of Yuri said:

I don't disagree with you at all.  I purposely said 3/4 "style" because I think he does belong in the top six but he is not as skilled as a typical top six player.  His statistics say he's fundamentally good, but to my eye I just don't see it; he appears to me far less skilled than his linemates.  He contributes more through effort than skill.  It may be recency bias on my part though; he was running at a PPG pace early on and has slowed down lately.

Mostly against teams in the playoff race too.  That's probably the biggest cause of optimism to me.  It shows the Sabres can hang with the Big Dogs even if they're not quite one of the Big Dogs themselves, at least not yet.

I remember back at the end of our slump when we kept getting beat by non-playoff teams I was thinking "I hope we get a few wins now because the schedule in March is brutal and it's not going to be fun hockey to watch. Get ready to sink to the bottom of the standings." 

I love how wrong I was. 

[Believer]

4 hours ago, The Ghost of Yuri said:

Yeah, didn't someone list the number of point per game players?  Maybe that was on twitter.  But there are something like 44 this year, over twice what it's been in recent years.

Juiced sticks… Stronger players… 

[DarthEbriate]

18 hours ago, SwampD said:

I watched it. It was up for a while. I even posted in that GDT that it was available.

Does ESPN+ even have a season archive.

Interesting.   I don't have proper cable though, so if you have TNT, maybe it displays? Not sure how the app would recognize that though.

It's not posted/available now.

[Doohickie]

8 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

Not sure how the app would recognize that though.

There are two logins for my ESPN+ a login for ESPN+ itself, and a login for my local cable provider (Spectrum).  I can't see regular ESPN with an ESPN+ account if I don't log in with my cable provider.  The ESPN+ app would know, I think, whether I have TNT access based on my Spectrum login.

Edited April 7, 2022 by The Ghost of Yuri

[matter2003]

On 4/6/2022 at 9:02 AM, JohnC said:

I'm not sure if it was in the postgame comments or in another interview but Granato said when discussing Olofsson and Mitts that their respective injuries even after returning to play were a factor in their play. He pointed out that each player had the type of injuries where after even they were considered healed, they still weren't able to fully workout. With Olofsson, that impairment was more evident, but with Mitts although he played hard upon returning the offensive rhythm was still off. She now can see it coming back.  

Is Mitts a #1 caliber of center? I'm more inclined to believe that he can be a very good #2. I have the same rating for Cozens. And I would add that in the near future Krebs could also elevate his game and be considered a #2C caliber of player. As you point that is a heck of a spine. And another positive aspect about these players is their flexibility. Krebs and Cozens have shown versatility in their ability to play the wing when called upon. So, having too many good players at center is not an issue I am worried about.  

The exciting part under Granato is these young players keep getting better and better at a rapid pace and even the vets like Okposo and Skinner are having big bounce back years...who would have thought Okposo had a potential 20 goal season left in him at this point??

Cannot wait for Quinn, Power and Peterka to be added to this lineup next year.

[LGR4GM]

I wonder if they keep jj in Rochester next year except for call ups