Philosophy on the rebuild

[GASabresIUFAN]

18 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

You must be a wizard to see so well into the future.

No wizardry just numbers crunching.  UPL couldn’t stop the puck in the AHL and historically over 40 goalies don’t fair very well in the NHL.  Add that Comrie had never been an NHL starter and only had 28 games of NHL experience and you have a recipe for failure.  

[Thorny]

Also, is your contention @nfreemanthat, so far, his work at goalie overall should be judged in your option as “Incomplete”? Is that a correct reading on my part? If so, does that evaluation shift if Comrie comes back and continues to play poorly? Do you then judge the results at the position so far? And if so, does the grade change back to incomplete if he brings in a new guy this offseason? 
 

When is the “so far” sample size big enough to say that “SO FAR” he hasn’t adequately addressed goaltending, is I guess my question 

[nfreeman]

33 minutes ago, Thorny said:

The fact he did not establish as a starter as of now undoubtedly IS evidence, though. If you don’t think the fact he hasn’t established as a starter, yet, 9 years after being drafted, has any bearing at all as evidence on the likelihood of him becoming a starter going forward.... ie, that we’d be perceiving the same likelihood from, say, the perspective of a touted prospect, fresh off being drafted, BEFORE said prospect committed 9 years to record of documented inability to seize the position.. we just won’t be able to agree on this one. 
 

The fact *I* haven’t seized the starter position is also, an extreme example, of why the “lack of evidence” argument doesn’t hold up on its own. Lack of evidence certainly can be evidence in and of itself - of course it can. The absence of evidence is important if the burden of proof is on Comrie - and it is. He’s not a Starter-Until-Proven-Otherwise. He’s not a starter, until he proves otherwise. If not, you are just asking to prove a negative, “prove he won’t THIS time”.  I can’t. He might. But the fact he hasn’t, yet, in the past - over a reasonably large sample of years where he could theoretically have been GRANTED more games had he EARNED them, does in fact work against the likelihood he does in future. 

Jacob Markstrom -- drafted in 2008 -- 1st year as a starter:  2017-18

Darcy Kuemper -- drafted in 2009 -- 1st year as a starter:  2018-19.

Jack Campbell -- drafted in 2010 -- 1st year as a starter:  2021-22.

Linus Ullmark -- drafted in 2012 -- 1st year as a starter:  2021-22 (41 starts).

Ville Husso -- drafted in 2014 -- 1st year as a starter:  2021-22 (40 starts).

Ilya Sorokin -- drafted in 2014 -- 1st year as a starter:  2021-22

 

...and none of them was stuck behind Hellebuyck.

 

26 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Also, is your contention @nfreemanthat, so far, his work at goalie overall should be judged in your option as “Incomplete”? Is that a correct reading on my part? If so, does that evaluation shift if Comrie comes back and continues to play poorly? Do you then judge the results at the position so far? And if so, does the grade change back to incomplete if he brings in a new guy this offseason? 
 

When is the “so far” sample size big enough to say that “SO FAR” he hasn’t adequately addressed goaltending, is I guess my question 

I think the conversation has shifted a bit here.  I was responding to your assertion that KA hasn't shown that he can capably evaluate goalies -- not to your subsequent assertion that, at this point in time, he hasn't adequately addressed the goalie position. 

Of course if we take a snapshot right now, the goalie situation is, as a factual matter, inadequate, as the goalies are an unproven, shaky rookie and the oldest guy in the league.  The point is that taking a snapshot at this moment is a silly and purely academic exercise -- we can't evaluate whether the goalie situation has been adequately addressed by KA until we can evaluate Comrie, i.e. KA's primary means of addressing it. 

If you want to jump to the conclusion that Comrie's failure to seize a starting job prior to this year means that he won't be able to handle the top job with the Sabres, and therefore that KA has failed to adequately address the goaltending, you are of course free to do so.

I will also say, again, that at the end of the day, Comrie's injury, Samuelsson's injury, other injuries, the disinclination of most of the league's players toward coming here, etc. -- none of it in any way reduces KA's accountability for the team's results.  He is 100% accountable, including for failure to secure good goaltending if that's how this plays out.  My point is simply that we don't know yet how it will play out, since Comrie has only played 11 games here.

[Thorny]

1 hour ago, nfreeman said:

Except that no such evidence exists.  Before this season he started a total of 28 games, and the bulk of his career was spent behind a no-BS elite goalie in Hellebuyck.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Also, if we're going to start "haha"ing at each others' posts, the quality of the dialogue here will be greatly diminished.  There are very few opinions here that are laughably wrong or illogical, and I'm pretty confident that you've contributed your share, just like the rest of us.

edit - I don’t think your take is “laughably wrong” at all - like I said, we may have to just disagree. I think it’s possible Comrie improves. The haha was just for the tactic - regardless of who Comrie played behind, the fact he wasn’t able to amount to more in 9 years isn’t wholly discountable. I’m not saying it’s definitive, he wouldn’t be the first to find later success by any means, merely that it’s doesn’t have “zero” negative connotation 

[GASabresIUFAN]

One other note on Comrie is that the guy really hasn't played much hockey in the last 3 years.  In 2019-20 he only player 27 games across 2 levels.  In 2020-21 he played in only 5 games (he was the taxi squad goalie) and even last year he only played in 19 games.  That's on 51 games over 3 seasons.  His last season carrying a full load was 2018-19 where he played 48 games (47 as the AHL starter) and did well.  

[Thorny]

5 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Jacob Markstrom -- drafted in 2008 -- 1st year as a starter:  2017-18

Darcy Kuemper -- drafted in 2009 -- 1st year as a starter:  2018-19.

Jack Campbell -- drafted in 2010 -- 1st year as a starter:  2021-22.

Linus Ullmark -- drafted in 2012 -- 1st year as a starter:  2021-22 (41 starts).

Ville Husso -- drafted in 2014 -- 1st year as a starter:  2021-22 (40 starts).

Ilya Sorokin -- drafted in 2014 -- 1st year as a starter:  2021-22

 

...and none of them was stuck behind Hellebuyck.

 

I think the conversation has shifted a bit here.  I was responding to your assertion that KA hasn't shown that he can capably evaluate goalies -- not to your subsequent assertion that, at this point in time, he hasn't adequately addressed the goalie position. 

Of course if we take a snapshot right now, the goalie situation is, as a factual matter, inadequate, as the goalies are an unproven, shaky rookie and the oldest guy in the league.  The point is that taking a snapshot at this moment is a silly and purely academic exercise -- we can't evaluate whether the goalie situation has been adequately addressed by KA until we can evaluate Comrie, i.e. KA's primary means of addressing it. 

If you want to jump to the conclusion that Comrie's failure to seize a starting job prior to this year means that he won't be able to handle the top job with the Sabres, and therefore that KA has failed to adequately address the goaltending, you are of course free to do so.

I will also say, again, that at the end of the day, Comrie's injury, Samuelsson's injury, other injuries, the disinclination of most of the league's players toward coming here, etc. -- none of it in any way reduces KA's accountability for the team's results.  He is 100% accountable, including for failure to secure good goaltending if that's how this plays out.  My point is simply that we don't know yet how it will play out, since Comrie has only played 11 games here.

Ya I mean they are reasonable examples that kinda fit the “exceptions to the rule” thing I mentioned above, but even then, Comrie still represents a definitively different case ie riskier bet:

Comrie had *played in* 28 nhl games prior to this season, in 9 years 

Markstrom played in 107 games before the year you say he became a starter. Including a season of 32 games

Kuemper played in 131 games. A season with 30+. 

Campbell played 30+ in 2018 but I’ll definitely give you that one as that’s 8 years after draft anyways. He had 86 games before becoming a “starter” but like I said the bulk are after 8 years so that’s a good example 

Ullmark had played 127 games in a Sabre uniform sharing stater loads at times while putting up very good numbers  before he became a “starter” in the year you said, come on on now 

Husso took 7 years, pretty good example 

Sorokin couldn’t get out of the Khl until 2020

- - - 

Comrie COULD be that guy. And you are right, it wasn’t really about discussing Comrie specifically anyways. In the end the disagreement in this case may yet again come down to timeline ie i expected improvement documented in net by now and you are still in the “waiting” phase. I think in light of other aspects of the team excelling it makes the inadequacy to SO FAR garner results in net less agreeable - be it by ineptitude, or, maybe more importantly, by design.