GDT - Sabres @ Vegas - December 19, 2022 - 10:00 PM (EST) - MSG and WGR

[Zamboni]

36 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Similarly:  why post this?  Why take small-minded, mean-spirited, boring shots at other posters?  Why not just enjoy the win and talk hockey?  Why do you keep doing this?  What is the point?

And yet another example of you not understanding what a joke is. A light hearted joke. You take things way too seriously holy s*** bro. Hence the laughing emoji

This isn’t the first time and it definitely won’t be the last time. i’m glad the person that I quoted understood it was a joke.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Zamboni

[North Buffalo]

So glad to seek UPL play well both for him and the Sabres... Sabres desperately need a goalie to come thru,  if UPL and the kid from NE can tandem... make Anderson a coach and Emergency goalie... the shore up lower end D Sabres could really start rolling... get Mitts away from Ollie... Mitts has been decent but needs a guy with him with Moxie... If UPL can be consistent trade Ollie and rights to Portillo for a D... have Asplund play with Mitts and whoever til draft picks come up next year... then trade Mitts.

[nfreeman]

17 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

And yet another example of you not understanding what a joke is. A light hearted joke. You take things way too seriously holy s*** bro. Hence the laughing emoji

This isn’t the first time and it definitely won’t be the last time. i’m glad the person that I quoted understood it was a joke.

And what a clever, funny joke it was.

Do you ever make jokes like this at your own expense, instead of at others'?

[Zamboni]

7 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

And what a clever, funny joke it was.

Do you ever make jokes like this at your own expense, instead of at others'?

It wasn’t at anyones expense. You still don’t get it. Not the first time.  Wow …

 

[K-9]

5 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

 

Seeing talk of this a lot but it isn't just a Sabres problem.  The entire league basically sees this.

Good teams win games they shouldn't. 

Again it's pretty common around the league to see the losing team push hard in the 3rd and the winning team to sit back. Score effects

I understand it’s common for desperate teams to push hard and I can respect playing a more defensive game to protect a lead, but is it common to be outshot 40-6 like we were in the third periods vs. Colorado and Vegas? There is sitting back and then there is being utterly dominated. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s common to have three AHL defensemen in the mix trying to protect leads against good teams, either. 

[inkman]

12 hours ago, Crusader1969 said:

I wonder if people just watch the Sabres to complain about players they don’t like ? 🤷‍♂️

Speaking from experience with my dad, simply put, yes.  A healthy dose of bitching about the refs as well. 

[LGR4GM]

3 hours ago, Sidc3000 said:

I totally understand that it does seem to happen throughout the league and I just don’t understand why. I just think that this teams’ lack of defensive structure can’t handle an onslaught like they are taking. They were lucky UPL stood on his head, especially in the 3rd period. He took a total of 84 SOG in two games. 

No team can. They need to learn to be a bit better when defending a lead but again, score effects tell us that basically all teams almost all the time tend to see a shot shift when they are playing with a lead. 

Also there isn't many teams that consistently play all 3 periods. If you watch other hockey you will notice that even the "best" teams have periods they get out shot. Yes Buffalo can't have a 21-5 period very often but they won with 4 AHL defenders. 

Edited December 20, 2022 by LGR4GM

[JujuFish]

29 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

It wasn’t at anyones expense. You still don’t get it. Not the first time.  Wow …

If it was a joke, it was a bad one.  You said the person you quoted understood it was a joke, but I think they were just trying to defuse the situation by, you know, actually making a joke.

[Norcal]

10 hours ago, elijah said:

Yes UPL, the OP implies though that DG was hinting that the Sabres organization were the ones saying that 

In context of the interview I think what he was actually implying was that fans/media were saying that UPL couldn’t do it 

And Marty.

He's been critical. Not lately.

I wonder if he walked up and offered some advice and UPL just blew him off.....

Rendering Marty to say dis n dat about him. 

Good Win Boys!!!! 4 in a row!!!!

[PASabreFan]

Not sure how it was received here (I could guess), but I appreciated the ref's penalty shot approach. Do it by the book. It would be a better game. That said, you might never see that called again.

[LGR4GM]

21 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

No team can. They need to learn to be a bit better when defending a lead but again, score effects tell us that basically all teams almost all the time tend to see a shot shift when they are playing with a lead. 

Also there isn't many teams that consistently play all 3 periods. If you watch other hockey you will notice that even the "best" teams have periods they get out shot. Yes Buffalo can't have a 21-5 period very often but they won with 4 AHL defenders. 

More on score effects

https://hockey-graphs.com/tag/score-effects/

[SwampD]

27 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Not sure how it was received here (I could guess), but I appreciated the ref's penalty shot approach. Do it by the book. It would be a better game. That said, you might never see that called again.

Wasn't that the second one called on us this year?

Yep. Just checked. CBJs had one against us as well.

I think we'll see it again.

Edited December 20, 2022 by SwampD

[PASabreFan]

Just now, SwampD said:

Wasn't that the second one called on us this year?

Not sure. I meant you might never see that particular play called a PS. Though there was no one between the shooter and the goalie, there was a Sabre off to his left. And the pass to and control by the player originated in the o zone.

[SwampD]

Just now, PASabreFan said:

Not sure. I meant you might never see that particular play called a PS. Though there was no one between the shooter and the goalie, there was a Sabre off to his left. And the pass to and control by the player originated in the o zone.

It was definitely the right call.

[PASabreFan]

Just now, SwampD said:

It was definitely the right call.

PA checks his calendar.

[Doohickie]

36 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Not sure how it was received here (I could guess), but I appreciated the ref's penalty shot approach. Do it by the book. It would be a better game. That said, you might never see that called again.

Since they didn't score, Sabreland was happy with it.  Cassidy not so much; he said in the postgame he would have rather had the power play.  The commentators on the Vegas postgame put it this way:  Given the choice, who wouldn't want a breakaway?

Edited December 20, 2022 by Doohickie

[Sidc3000]

2 hours ago, Pimlach said:

You just had to throw in the playoffs?   There is a long hill to climb.  If they climb it and do make the playoffs, they will be better by just having been through that journey.  The playoffs are another level, and they have to get to it.  They will learn a lot about what they need on this team, and from themselves, just to advance.  

The expectation of a bottom seed winning one round is low for just about any team.  It happens on occasion (Montreal beat the Leaves a few years ago).  

Well some people here are thinking they could make the playoffs 🤷‍♂️. 

[MattPie]

12 hours ago, SDS said:

It’s just not intuitive when you’re four points behind to realize it actually takes you 10 points to get there.

If we're using something like a 0.600 pace as a benchmark, each win only nets 0.8 points above that pace. Each loss is 1.2 points below. You have to win significantly more than lose, so each loss is worse than a win.

5 hours ago, nfreeman said:

My rule of thumb on this — kinda the cousin to DeLuca .500 — is that you need 2 straight wins to make up 1 point in the standings.  So if you’re 4 points behind, if you win 2 straight, you’re likely then going to be 3 points behind.

Yep, math checks out. If you win two straight, you add 4 points, but the other team on average will add 2.4 points in their two games (if they're playing around 0.600 hockey), so you're only gaining 1-2 points. This Last 10 of 7-2-1 has been nice, but they need to do it again over the next 10 games to make up some more ground on the teams that are 4 points ahead.

[Sidc3000]

54 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

No team can. They need to learn to be a bit better when defending a lead but again, score effects tell us that basically all teams almost all the time tend to see a shot shift when they are playing with a lead. 

Also there isn't many teams that consistently play all 3 periods. If you watch other hockey you will notice that even the "best" teams have periods they get out shot. Yes Buffalo can't have a 21-5 period very often but they won with 4 AHL defenders. 

Can you post this info? It’s not that I don’t believe you, I’ve tried to research the overall SA per period (league-wide) and I can’t find anything that breaks it down that much. I’m curious

 

yes  the best teams get out shot but they don’t get out shot as much as say the Sabres on a regular basis. The Sabres are eight worse in SA. 

[French Collection]

31 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

Since they didn't score, Sabreland was happy with it.  Cassidy not so much; he said in the postgame he would have rather had the power play.  The commentators on the Vegas postgame put it this way:  Given the choice, who wouldn't want a breakaway?

And it’s not like Marchessault is a scrub.

[MattPie]

Some quick looking around shows a mediocre-bad team last year has a 75% PK (so 1 in 4, 25% allow a goal) and the top as 88% (1 in 8, 12.5%). On average, Penalty shots and Shootout attempts are around 33%, so the aggrieved team always should want the penalty shot. Maybe a team up one goal with two minutes left would rather put the other team down a person for the rest of the game, but that's an edge case.

[Zamboni]

18 minutes ago, French Collection said:

And it’s not like Marchessault is a scrub.

Very true! UPL was quite impressive. And that’s no joke

[JohnC]

4 hours ago, Zamboni said:

Well if we had Reeves that check on Loosh would have never ever happened. Reeves instills fear to even check an opponent hard. True story.

Your so called "true story" is false. Where do you and @PerreaultForevercome up with this hooligan mentality BS? Anyone who watches a lot of Sabre games knows very well that they hold up well and adequately respond to the physical play of other teams. The reality is that the Sabres give as much as they receive. You are responding to a myth of your own creation. It is utter nonsense! 

 

[Pimlach]

1 hour ago, Sidc3000 said:

Well some people here are thinking they could make the playoffs 🤷‍♂️. 

Yes, they can.  So why kill it?  

[grinreaper]

Starting with the premise that all teams are at least somewhat different in makeup and style, opposing teams utilize different game plans to give them the best chance to earn a victory. In addition, in-game adjustments are necessary and situational adjustments usually become more important as the game progresses. There's been much talk in this thread regarding third goal leads and "Alamo" type defenses. Teams with multiple goal deficits, especially in the 3rd period are going to put on a push to tie or take the lead. In order to do so they will take chances and leave themselves vulnerable to the other team increasing their lead. This approach isn't new nor should it be some kind of revelation to the knowledgeable fans frequenting this site. The team that holds the lead has to choose how they are going to handle the onslaught that they know is coming.

Obviously it's the head coach's job to determine the way in which his team is going to respond to the other team's push. I would imagine that his late game approach will take into account the makeup and style of the other team, their ability to score, both goaltender's game that day, a sense of his team's energy and a myriad of other conditions that only he and his staff use to make these kind of decisions. With the above in mind, there is no one correct way for a team to closeout a win. The Sabres have had several wins this year in which they took advantage of the other team's desperation or offensive ineptitude and just poured it on in the 3rd period. They've had a couple games in which they beat teams higher in the standings by relying on good goaltending and the "Alamo" approach.

On a different note, isn't it amazing that 2 weeks ago the biggest complaint or maybe just the people with the loudest microphone here were giving themselves wedgies over the Sabre's defense and goaltending while lamenting that they'd never make the playoffs this year because of it. Now, after a few wins in a row the complaint has turned to a belief that the Sabres and their style of play will never win in the playoffs. Patience guys, management is building this team in the right way. The quest for the Stanley Cup is like the pursuit of the Holy Grail, and we know what happened when Elsa decided to take a shortcut.