2023-24 Sabres Team Preview

[Taro T]

8 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

All of that's true but it's just not going to be easy. We could be a better team than last year and end up with less points. How we do in the close ones might be the difference. We cannot afford to lose too many of the OT/SOs and can't give too many divisional opponents those loser points. Closing games out and holding leads will be vital to our final standings. 

My concern I suppose is I can see things being so close this year that we will see tight playoff style serious hockey earlier than usual and that will be tough. Some of our opponents are built better for that than we are at this time. 

I think it will be an interesting season. 

It definitely will be hard.  Which is why the expectation is 103 and not 123.  

But, should they get to 103, and that is very doable provided at least 1 of Comrie or UPL isn't the same tire fire as last year and it's still doable if they are exactly what they were last year but there is no margin for error to get to that mark, they WILL be in the playoffs.

Convert 4 regulation losses from last year into W's and another 4 into OT/SO losses and they're at 103.  Very realistic levels of improvement.

[GASabresIUFAN]

Assuming decent health this coming season, I’d argue the Sabres are 9-10 pts better than last year.  

Even without Quinn (who gave us 14 goals), the Sabres return basically the same roster that finished 3rd in goals.  I expect continued growth from JJP, Krebs amd a rebound fro, Greenway.  This team should be in the top 5 of scoring in the NHL again this coming season.

The defense will also be better.  Maybe not lockdown great, but improved at clearing the crease, blocking shots and on the PK.  All these things will suppress the shots on goals and the high danger chances.  If that improvement leads to even a 1/3 of a goal against per game, that’s 27 fewer goals allowed. 

Now add Levi.  Yes 7 games is a small sample size, but even if he just gives us Anderson (26 games last season) level goaltending over 45 games (.908 save %), that saves another 13/14goals over what Comrie gave us in his 19 games.  (Anderson played 26 last year and Comrie 19 - thus 45 games Levi will play). 

Between the improved D and improved goaltending, that 40 goals shaved off our GA and drops us from 304 allowed to a playoff bound 264.

[French Collection]

46 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Convert 4 regulation losses from last year into W's and another 4 into OT/SO losses and they're at 103.  Very realistic levels of improvement.

The Sabres should be a beast in OT as they can have Dahlin or Power on for around 4 minutes plus the offensive firepower of the forward group.

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Assuming decent health this coming season,

I didn't disagree with the rest but this is a key assumption. It is possible to have an incredibly healthy year for a team, and then those teams usually have good years, but in this NH, pretty much everybody has a stretch or two of injury adversity and depth determines how well they weather that storm. We faltered badly last year with a few D injuries and then Thompson's injury slowed him a fair bit as well.  So are we deep enough this year that's the question for me. idk. maybe. Certainly not in goal. 

[Curt]

Here is what Vegas thinks about the Sabres 2023-24 season.

[Curt]

Here is what Vegas thinks about Tage Thompson’s upcoming season.

[Curt]

What Vegas thinks about some other Sabres players this upcoming season.

[LabattBlue]

Not sure what fancy stats they are referencing, but holy cow!  Excerpt from an Athletic team preview of the Sabres…

 

We’ll be quick about this: Thompson, for all his offensive gifts, could be one of the least effective defensive players in the league. Like, bottom five. Sixth from the basement, specifically. One team analyst compared his play to the legendary Alex Ovechkin/disconnected Xbox controllerGIF.

Thompson’s overall projected Defensive Rating is, in fact, below 38-year-old Ovechkin’s. It’s below Patrick Kane’s. It’s also too close to too many of his teammates’ — Skinner, JJ Peterka, Cozens and Henri Jokiharju are all in the bottom 30 as well, among waves of Anaheim Ducks and Montreal Canadiens and Columbus Blue Jackets. For a team with playoff aspirations, that’s a terrible sign. Granato is a good coach who seems to be facing a clear challenge: getting his team to tighten up in one end, at least a little, without sacrificing its identity. Given their other year-over-year improvements, it’s possible. It’s also necessary, especially in an Atlantic Division featuring a couple of other on-the-rise teams.

 

[Curt]

14 hours ago, LabattBlue said:

Not sure what fancy stats they are referencing, but holy cow!  Excerpt from an Athletic team preview of the Sabres…

 

We’ll be quick about this: Thompson, for all his offensive gifts, could be one of the least effective defensive players in the league. Like, bottom five. Sixth from the basement, specifically. One team analyst compared his play to the legendary Alex Ovechkin/disconnected Xbox controllerGIF.

Thompson’s overall projected Defensive Rating is, in fact, below 38-year-old Ovechkin’s. It’s below Patrick Kane’s. It’s also too close to too many of his teammates’ — Skinner, JJ Peterka, Cozens and Henri Jokiharju are all in the bottom 30 as well, among waves of Anaheim Ducks and Montreal Canadiens and Columbus Blue Jackets. For a team with playoff aspirations, that’s a terrible sign. Granato is a good coach who seems to be facing a clear challenge: getting his team to tighten up in one end, at least a little, without sacrificing its identity. Given their other year-over-year improvements, it’s possible. It’s also necessary, especially in an Atlantic Division featuring a couple of other on-the-rise teams.

 

This is interesting but like you, I wonder what metrics were actually being used.

I really think that a lot of this is coaching, and I don’t mean that in a negative way.  Granato has referenced before that he was at first purposely coaching the team in a way as to focus primarily on generating offense, and that he then was shifting to tighten up the defensive side of their game.

The implication was that, with such a young group, it was too much to try to coach them produce offense, play good defense, keep their confidence up, and learn to adjust to the NHL all at the same time.

By focusing on offense, they were able to keep confidence up, find their way in the league, and make strides in terms of results.

Towards the end of last season, over the last 25 games or so, I think you could see the team put more focus on their defensive play and make some improvements there.

This sort of step by step implementation of strategies is sometimes used by coaches when trying to make major changes within a team and build up towards success.  I don’t hear it spoken about that much in hockey, but in soccer it’s a pretty common concept and refereed to as “tactical periodization”.  Basically implementing layers of tactics one at a time, over a certain period of time.

I think that’s what Granato is doing.