The New Devon Levi 2023 Thread

[Punch]

Evaluating players at different levels (as with a college player like Levi and a professional like UPL) is not a 1 to 1 comparison because they don’t both possess the same body of work. Levi’s development has been much more impressive than UPL was at this same stage. And although UPL has progressed nicely, perhaps even exceeding expectations, Levi’s ceiling still projects higher.
 

UPL may become more consistent and maybe blossom into a long term NHL starter but it’s unlikely his play ever exceeds Levi’s potential.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Punch

[K-9]

8 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

No. And I'm not anti-Levi. But I feel that there has been a pre-determination that UPL is not the answer and I think that's wrong. He has gone from a major question to the consensus #1 Sabres goalkeeper. And his play is a major factor in the Sabres playoff contention. Levi may indeed be better eventually. But he is not going to given a fast track to the NHL because of some perceived gaping hole in the Sabres roster.

You think UPL is the answer to our goalie situation and that’s great. I need to see more before I’m convinced. Reasonable minds can disagree. Simple as that.

[PromoTheRobot]

13 minutes ago, K-9 said:

You think UPL is the answer to our goalie situation and that’s great. I need to see more before I’m convinced. Reasonable minds can disagree. Simple as that.

I never said that. What I said was I don't get why people see him as inadequate.

Edited February 19, 2023 by PromoTheRobot

[Sabel79]

We don’t need to kvetch this hard over whether Levi will be the answer several years from now.  We need a dude to stop pucks at slightly better than league average from low until then.  That dude is not here.  

[K-9]

4 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I never said that. What I said was I don't get why people see him as inadequate.

Your previous post certainly implied that, so thanks for the clarification.
 

And I never said I see him as inadequate. I said I see him as inconsistent, which he certainly has been. 

[PromoTheRobot]

10 minutes ago, K-9 said:

Your previous post certainly implied that, so thanks for the clarification.
 

And I never said I see him as inadequate. I said I see him as inconsistent, which he certainly has been. 

Not any more inconsistent than many goalies. What's inconsistent is the play in front of him.

[dudacek]

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

I just want to understand the yardstick that measures consistency. Because it feels a bit skewed toward a favored result.

 

50 minutes ago, El Zahir said:

Was bored, checked it out. He has 6 of those games this season, none since Jan 1. He had 4 games under .900 last season.

Interesting. I would have guessed it was more.

To @PromoTheRobot's initial post on getting lit up, and on consistency.

Over the past 2 years, Levi

• Has allowed 2 goals or less 41 times
• Has allowed 3 goals 11 times
• Has allowed more than 3 goals 9 times

Over the past 2 years, UPL

• Has allowed 2 goals or less 28 times
• Has allowed 3 goals 23 times
• Has allowed more than 3 goals 25 times

So if you measure consistency by how often you have a "bad" game, (more than 3 goals), they happen to UPL 33% of the time, Levi 15% of the time.

If you want to measure it by how often you "steal" a game, (less than 3 goals), that happens with UPL 37% of the time, Levi 67% of the time.

Sure, it's more complicated than that, but generally speaking each goalie has been playing behind a bad defence and the spread in results is far too pronounced to dismiss.

[dudacek]

20 minutes ago, Sabel79 said:

We don’t need to kvetch this hard over whether Levi will be the answer several years from now.  We need a dude to stop pucks at slightly better than league average from low until then.  That dude is not here.  

People seem to be ignoring that since UPL got some early call-up yips out of the way, this is exactly what he has done.

The league average save % is .906 right now. Since mid-December, UPL's save % is .910.

I agree with @PromoTheRobot that UPL has been fine.

It would be nice to have better.

[MBD]

29 minutes ago, Sabel79 said:

We don’t need to kvetch this hard over whether Levi will be the answer several years from now.  We need a dude to stop pucks at slightly better than league average from low until then.  That dude is not here.  

I don't agree.  If the Sabres played tight defense, I would.

[Taro T]

45 minutes ago, dudacek said:

People seem to be ignoring that since UPL got some early call-up yips out of the way, this is exactly what he has done.

The league average save % is .906 right now. Since mid-December, UPL's save % is .910.

I agree with @PromoTheRobot that UPL has been fine.

It would be nice to have better.

And the interesting thing IMHO is that most of UPL's issues have been between the ears.  He has, as you said, really settled down since the D settled down.  Chalk another one up in both Granato's and Bales plus columns.  The biggest thing is he isn't making himself small in the crease nor is the 5 hole a major issue.  (Wasn't the case earlier.)  Expect his ceiling is a Biron level guy, and hopefully he gets there.  Not sure what the floor is, but expect it is lower than where he's at right now.  The coaches are clearly comfortable with him.  But need to see more from him to fully buy in personally.

[Eleven]

5 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Expect his ceiling is a Biron level guy, and hopefully he gets there.

If he does, that would be wonderful.

[shrader]

4 hours ago, French Collection said:

NU must be weak defensively if they gave up 40+ shots. They give up those kinds of shots a lot. Levi sees a lot of rubber and is the only reason they are ranked in the top 20.

But where are the shots coming from? I don’t know that you can find the shot charts anywhere.

Edited February 19, 2023 by shrader

[French Collection]

Levi has been top notch everywhere he has played, hence the expectations.

Most here are familiar with his resume but I’ll revisit some of his highlights.

2019-20 he played tier 2 Junior A to maintain his NCAA eligibility. He was a rookie goalie and won 34 of 37 games with a 1.47 GAA and a .941 SV%. He was league ROY and MVP as well as Canadian Junior Hockey League MVP. He played in the World Junior A Challenge tournament for Canada East, winning tournament MVP.

2020-21 He did not play much due to Covid-19 and an injury. He made Canada’s World Junior team, over a bunch of CHL goalies. He took the net and led Canada to a silver medal. He had a 0.75 GAA and a .964 SV% beating Carey Price’s Canadian record. He was named the tournament’s top goalie.

2021-22 As a freshman he won the Mike Richter award for best goalie in the NCAA. His GAA was 1.54 and SV% was .952. He had better numbers than the goalie who won the Hobey Baker. He also had 10 shutouts.

2022-23 His Northeastern team is not as successful as last year but his numbers have improved as the season has progressed. He has a GAA of 2.24 and a SV% of .933 with 5 shutouts. He was named MVP of the Beanpot tournament.

UPL has won awards as well. OHL MVP in his only CHL season. He has led Finland to Gold in the WJC and the World U18. His numbers in the AHL were not good, which probably lowered expectations.

[K-9]

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Not any more inconsistent than many goalies. What's inconsistent is the play in front of him.

Many goalies? Perhaps. But he’s a helluva lot more inconsistent than the better goalies. I hope he becomes one eventually because we all want to have one of the better goalies in the league. And who doesn’t? 

[PromoTheRobot]

24 minutes ago, K-9 said:

Many goalies? Perhaps. But he’s a helluva lot more inconsistent than the better goalies. I hope he becomes one eventually because we all want to have one of the better goalies in the league. And who doesn’t? 

We're just going to have to disagree and move on. I think UPL is on track to become our #1 and the playoffs will rely more on how we play in front of him.

[PromoTheRobot]

I had to go back into the SabreSpace archives to see what the feelings were about Linus Ullmark. In one thread there was a debate whether to sign or trade him. One comment said Linus would be a good #2 but the Sabres still need a #1. Another said Ullmark would be a good placeholder until UPL eventual ascension. @bob_sauve28 called his shot and declared Linus "the real deal." But generally SabreSpace was ambivalent towards Ullmark. I think it's human nature to devalue what you already have in favor of what's to come.

[K-9]

26 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

We're just going to have to disagree and move on. I think UPL is on track to become our #1 and the playoffs will rely more on how we play in front of him.

Like I said several posts ago, reasonable minds can disagree. I hope you’re right about UPL in the meantime. 

As for the playoffs, we need to play a helluva lot better than we have been and while I certainly hope for the best and will root like hell that they make it, I think we have too many shortcomings in our own end to overcome. I’m not sure these problems can be fixed in season either.

[shrader]

And I’m very comfortable in saying that Ullmark would not have anything like his current numbers if he was a sabre. None of those comments are necessarily right or wrong. 

[bob_sauve28]

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I had to go back into the SabreSpace archives to see what the feelings were about Linus Ullmark. In one thread there was a debate whether to sign or trade him. One comment said Linus would be a good #2 but the Sabres still need a #1. Another said Ullmark would be a good placeholder until UPL eventual ascension. @bob_sauve28 called his shot and declared Linus "the real deal." But generally SabreSpace was ambivalent towards Ullmark. I think it's human nature to devalue what you already have in favor of what's to come.

I wanted to keep him, but was angry he wanted more to stay with us. Glad UPL is doing

[Taro T]

32 minutes ago, shrader said:

And I’m very comfortable in saying that Ullmark would not have anything like his current numbers if he was a sabre. None of those comments are necessarily right or wrong. 

He would not have been as good as he has been, but he still would've been better than what we've seen.  And the Sabres would be closer to a playoff berth too.

[Thorny]

7 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I'm always curious about what makes one sold on one player and not another. Is it expectation? Devon Levi is seen as a savior so any good games he has is "proof" of his potential. UPL, on the other hand, was not thought of as highly. But when he has good games, some aren't convinced.

UPL is a big reason why the Sabres are in playoff contention. His stats aren't as impressive, but what didn't show up in the stats are his big saves in key moments. I would argue the Sabres lose to the Sharks without him.

The Sabres are a bad defensive team so any goalie who can win behind them has something going on.

If his save % wasn’t sub .900 there’d be fewer “key moments” b/c we’d be ahead by more. 

”saves at key moments” is the definition of a cherry picked stat. A save prevents 1 goal regardless of when the shot is taken: and we know it’s not a case of UPL giving up a few in Sabres’ laughers.

For the most part it’s more like we’ve been overcoming UPL and his 4 goal let-up, and he’s been “making the key save” to prevent #5. Yes, but he could have made that save earlier. 
 

Edit: it looks like lately his sv % numbers have improved to around league average. You’d want better as that’s basically ~ playoff cut-off  line level but it’s tolerable. Still, my argument stays the same - his sv% is reflective of better performance (to your point). But “saves at key times” is still not a good reflector

Edited February 20, 2023 by Thorny

[Taro T]

2 minutes ago, Thorny said:

If his save % wasn’t sub .900 there’d be fewer “key moments” b/c we’d be ahead by more. 

”saves at key moments” is the definition of a cherry picked stat. A save prevents 1 goal regardless of when it’s taken: and we know it’s not a case of UPL giving up a few in Sabres’ laughers.

For the most part it’s more like we’ve been overcoming UPL and his 4 goal let-up, and he’s been “makIng the key save” to prevent #5. Yes, but he could have made that save earlier. 

Yep, his play in the 3rd period of games gives reason for hope.  His play earlier in games leaves room for the Sabres to have better.

[MBD]

They need a goalie for the first 2 periods and then bring UPL in as a reliever.  Learn from MLB...

[Thorny]

57 minutes ago, shrader said:

And I’m very comfortable in saying that Ullmark would not have anything like his current numbers if he was a sabre. None of those comments are necessarily right or wrong. 

I’m pretty comfortable saying he’d be our best goalie 

[Thorny]

8 hours ago, dudacek said:

Luukkonen has 5 games with a sv % over .940 and 3 more over .923.

Since UPL “got good” (mid-December), he is at .910, good for 19th in the league among goalies with 10 or more starts.

I think he’s been inconsistent, and I’m not sure he’s the answer, but statistically he has mostly been doing his job.

 

 

Just wanted to bring this over. 

Acknowledged the fact he’s improved above, getting to around .910 is substantial. 

Still, I’ve mentioned this before - I disagree with the connotation that a goalie playing average or in his case at 19th, slightly below average starter I guess, is “doing his job”. It’s something people specifically do with goalies: would we be saying the offence was “doing its job” if it was 19th? If our entire team was ranked 19th, would it collectively be “doing its job”? 
 

we are about 19th now, actually. It’s been good, but that’s relative, right? In the hypothetical world where we stay 19th forever I wouldn’t say it’s “mission accomplished” (Dubya) “we’ve done our job”. So I’ll key on the “I’m not sure he’s the answer“ thing: as welcome as the improvement is, and it’s to his credit certainly, yes I think we need improvement, so if he doesn’t continue to, I’d look for it elsewhere 

Edited February 20, 2023 by Thorny