The offseason so far - Are the Sabres better?

[LGR4GM]

1 minute ago, Thorny said:

Team is maybe break even, never mind 4 extra wins 

Don't forget Dahlin getting injured really broke the defense. If we assume he plays 80 games, that might get you those 4 wins.

[Taro T]

15 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Don't forget Dahlin getting injured really broke the defense. If we assume he plays 80 games, that might get you those 4 wins.

Even on last year's team, at absolute minimum they have 2 more wins should Dahlin not go out for nearly 10 games.

Would say with no other moves, this is looking like 85 points.  

[dudacek]

There's injuries on every team every year.

And as unexpectly bad a some players were, there were also breakouts from McLeod, Peterka, and to a lesser extent Byram.

[Cityo'Rasmii]

We can always hope

go Sabres

[Thorny]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

Don't forget Dahlin getting injured really broke the defense. If we assume he plays 80 games, that might get you those 4 wins.

Right but while Adams may bank on better luck on the injury front as a means to improvement i don’t personally find that to be a smart tact (and one should balance the injury playing field when comparing year over year, anyways)

1 hour ago, Taro T said:

Even on last year's team, at absolute minimum they have 2 more wins should Dahlin not go out for nearly 10 games.

Would say with no other moves, this is looking like 85 points.  

I get that’s not the mindset you’d have should you actually be responsible for building the club thankfully but tbh I don’t even feel comfortable projecting better overall health even as a thought exercise considering, as mentioned, injuries are a guaranteed part of every year. It’s been 3 seasons since neither of Dahlin or Tage missed at least 10 games, and Tuch nearly missed double digits that year 

team is break even at best on paper

Edited yesterday at 02:32 AM by Thorny

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

Right but while Adams may bank on better luck on the injury front as a means to improvement i don’t personally find that to be a smart tact (and one should balance the injury playing field when comparing year over year, anyways)

I get that’s not the mindset you’d have should you actually be responsible for building the club thankfully but tbh I don’t even feel comfortable projecting better overall health even as a thought exercise considering, as mentioned, injuries are a guaranteed part of every year. It’s been 3 seasons since neither of Dahlin or Tage missed at least 10 games, and Tuch nearly missed double digits that year 

team is break even at best on paper

Well, that's kind of the scary thing.  Was Dahlin's back injury just a fluke "muscle spasm" or the like?  Or is it something structural and are the days of him playing 80 games in the past?

When he tried to play through the 1st injury from the absolute beginning of TC he was at best 80% of his usual self.  But when he came back after the 9+ games he missed, he was looking like his normal self almost from the 1st shift back on the ice.  So, will hesitantly expect that the injury is more of a muscle spasm type thing that through proper stretching, exercise, prep, nutrition, and maintenance can not only be overcome but can leave him in even better shape than we've become accustomed to.  (To not expect it, as a fan, is just too depressing a path to go down.)

As long as the Sabres don't lose Dahlin for any extended period and they don't lose whichever goalie ends up the #1, they'll be able to ride out injuries like any other team will.  But, with as little margin as they have, THOSE would be catastrophic injuries.  And will necessarily presume that they won't suffer those particular injuries because if they do, they're in the McKenna derby.  If they avoid those, then yes, 85 should be the floor.  (And hopefully, Adams WE finally gets the luck he's Adams planned for 4 years in a row to date and they actually end up as good as he expects them to be.)

IF Dahlin is healthy and they get legit GTing that stays healthy, they can overcome the 5 games that both Thompson and Tuch are out together and the other 10 that one of them is out.  Same goes with the rest of the crew.

Edited yesterday at 03:16 AM by Taro T
We might deserve that luck. Can't say he necessarily does.

[Berg]

On 6/29/2025 at 5:14 AM, Pimlach said:

There is more moves to be made for sure, this is not close to enough.  Add a high skill forward (Robertson) and add a wrecking ball forward that is middle 6 skilled.  
 

And as usual, get an NHL goalie. Stop praying for UPL and Levi to bloom.  

All the Sabres management does is sell good players for nothing

[dudacek]

According to this data-driven ESPN article, yes the Sabres are better.

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/45700988/which-32-nhl-teams-added-lost-most-value-offseason-three-year-gar-draft-free-agency

Article concludes they are the league's 12th most-improved, but the amount of improvement is negligible.

Our adds were the 8th best, but our subtractions were the 9th worst.

Of the teams around us, only the Rangers declined significantly (unless you count the Leafs). and only the Canadiens made significantly improvements, followed by Boston.

Edited 17 hours ago by dudacek

[Thorny]

Bump 

[Weave]

33 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Bump 

Were you concerned that the team not improving wasn’t getting enough scrutiny?  🤣

[Thorny]

47 minutes ago, Weave said:

Were you concerned that the team not improving wasn’t getting enough scrutiny?  🤣

Unironically yes 

The temptation to become desensitized to it is a prevalent, strong and natural process 

We shouldn’t turn our minds off to the true absurdity of it, nor remove it from it’s proper historical context 

that’s how they win: indifference 

Edited 16 hours ago by Thorny

[LGR4GM]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

According to this data-driven ESPN article, yes the Sabres are better.

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/45700988/which-32-nhl-teams-added-lost-most-value-offseason-three-year-gar-draft-free-agency

Article concludes they are the league's 12th most-improved, but the amount of improvement is negligible.

Our adds were the 8th best, but our subtractions were the 9th worst.

Of the teams around us, only the Rangers declined significantly (unless you count the Leafs). and only the Canadiens made significantly improvements, followed by Boston.

What Improvements did Boston make that I am forgetting?

[PerreaultForever]

Hockey Guy does his take on the Sabres.

 

[dudacek]

57 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

What Improvements did Boston make that I am forgetting?

Brought in some grinders: Jeannot, Eysimont, Kuraly, plus Arvidsson, didn’t really lose anything.

Pretty marginal, but still 2nd best of our competitors, according to the model.

[DarthEbriate]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

Unironically yes 

The temptation to become desensitized to it is a prevalent, strong and natural process 

We shouldn’t turn our minds off to the true absurdity of it, nor remove it from it’s proper historical context 

that’s how they win: indifference 

I thought the new scoreboard that doesn't show shot totals was how they win.

 

[Taro T]

3 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

I thought the new scoreboard that doesn't show shot totals was how they win.

 

Except that new huge scoreboard DOES show shot on goal totals.  And they can go up or down at ANY time apparently for ANY reason.

There were times this past season that watching them was more entertaining than what was on the ice.

One more reason to buy a ticket to the game.  This is some of the in rink entertainment that doesn't get broadcast to those sitting at home watching.  😉 

[JohnC]

1 hour ago, PerreaultForever said:

Hockey Guy does his take on the Sabres.

 

I thought the Hockey Guy gave a fair assessment of the roster. He made the same point that is often made that improvement is dependent on young players such as Kulich, Benson and Power to take a noticeable step up. As is often stated in this forum, success is predicated on a lot of "ifs" falling into the yes column. 

It seemed to me that he appears to be confident that a Byram deal will be made this offseason. And as I believe/hope that he believes that Samuelsson is salvageable and can be a contributing defender probably starting off as a third pairing player and working to regain his confidence. TBD.

I thought his comment about how negatively players outside the organization view the Sabres makes it difficult to attract players. The only way to change that is to win and become a more respectable franchise. 

Just my reading into his comments, maybe overinterpreting???, it seems that he doesn't have much regard for KA. 

[Thorny]

43 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

I thought the new scoreboard that doesn't show shot totals was how they win.

 

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, JohnC said:

I thought the Hockey Guy gave a fair assessment of the roster. He made the same point that is often made that improvement is dependent on young players such as Kulich, Benson and Power to take a noticeable step up. As is often stated in this forum, success is predicated on a lot of "ifs" falling into the yes column. 

It seemed to me that he appears to be confident that a Byram deal will be made this offseason. And as I believe/hope that he believes that Samuelsson is salvageable and can be a contributing defender probably starting off as a third pairing player and working to regain his confidence. TBD.

I thought his comment about how negatively players outside the organization view the Sabres makes it difficult to attract players. The only way to change that is to win and become a more respectable franchise. 

Just my reading into his comments, maybe overinterpreting???, it seems that he doesn't have much regard for KA. 

I'd agree. There's nothing profound there but "The Hockey Guy" rarely is. He's usually pretty objective and just summarizes the facts. Only time I've seen him get passionate was his recent one about Sportsnet's huge price increase. I think all of Canada is pissed off about that. 

[LGR4GM]

6 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Hockey Guy does his take on the Sabres.

 

And as Zucker said, "hope isn't a strategy"

[dudacek]

I ran a bit of inexact model that tries to project what kind of offence we could reasonably expect from the current lineup.

I took the three-year average of each player, added a % to the U25 kids who have yet to break the 250 game mark (Power, Byram, Kulich, Doan, Benson and Quinn) and subtracted a % for the vets who have passed their peak and the age 30 threshold (Danforth and Zucker). The percentage was based on this model.

https://medium.com/@mattdesfosses/the-hockey-aging-curve-b0f33b91d1e4

And I got something that looks like this:

• Thompson 44/37/81
• Tuch 33/39/72
• Dahlin 18/53/71
• Norris 34/28/62
• Quinn 19/29/48
• Zucker 21/24/45
• Power 7/36/43
• Byram 10/32/42
• Benson 15/26/41
• Doan 17/24/41 *(rookie, small sample size)
• Kulich 25/15/40 *(rookie, small sample size)
• McLeod 16/24/40
• Danforth 12/16/28
• Kesselring 6/22/28
• Greenway 10/14/24
• Krebs 8/15/23
• Timmins 4/18/22
• Samuelsson 4/12/16

Basically, the above is based on all 18 projected starters playing the full 82 games, which won't happen, and no one else playing at all, which also won't happen. The fill-ins almost certainly won't be scoring at the same rate as the starters so it trends to the optimistic.

To factor in injuries, I took 89% (the mean NHL games lost to injury is 11%) of the above total (303->270)) then added in the amount of goals scored by Sabres skaters not in the top 18 for games played last year (12).

And I ended with a grand total of 282 goals. The NHL median last year was 245.

Obviously this is math and what actually will happen is impossible to predict and we'll all apply our own biases (Quinn will get 30! Doan might not even make the team!)

But I think the logic is pretty sound in terms of giving us a ballpark figure of what this roster might be capable of and it's better than I would have expected given our moves.

EDIT: the single biggest question mark to me here is pretty obviously Norris and his availability, then the small sample sizes of Doan and Kulich.

 

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by dudacek

[GASabresIUFAN]

51 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I ran a bit of inexact model that tries to project what kind of offence we could reasonably expect from the current lineup.

I took the three-year average of each player, added a % to the U25 kids who have yet to break the 250 game mark (Power, Byram, Kulich, Doan, Benson and Quinn) and subtracted a % for the vets who have passed their peak and the age 30 threshold (Danforth and Zucker). The percentage was based on this model.

https://medium.com/@mattdesfosses/the-hockey-aging-curve-b0f33b91d1e4

And I got something that looks like this:

• Thompson 44/37/81
• Tuch 33/39/72
• Dahlin 18/53/71
• Norris 34/28/62
• Quinn 19/29/48
• Zucker 21/24/45
• Power 7/36/43
• Byram 10/32/42
• Benson 15/26/41
• Doan 17/24/41 *(rookie, small sample size)
• Kulich 25/15/40 *(rookie, small sample size)
• McLeod 16/24/40
• Danforth 12/16/28
• Kesselring 6/22/28
• Greenway 10/14/24
• Krebs 8/15/23
• Timmins 4/18/22
• Samuelsson 4/12/16

Basically, the model is based on all 18 projected starters playing the full 82 games, which won't happen, and no one else playing at all, which also won't happen. The fill-ins almost certainly won't be scoring at the same rate as the starters so it trends to the optimistic.

To factor in injuries, I took 89% (the mean NHL games lost to injury is 11%) of the above total (303->270)) then added in the amount of goals scored by Sabres skaters not in the top 18 for games played last year (12).

And I ended with a grand total of 282 goals. The NHL median last year was 245.

Obviously this is math and what actually will happen is impossible to predict and we'll all apply our own biases (Quinn will get 30! Doan might not even make the team!)

But I think the logic is pretty sound in terms of giving us a ballpark figure of what this roster might be capable of and it's better than I would have expected given our moves.

EDIT: the single biggest question mark to me here is pretty obviously Norris and his availability, then the small sample sizes of Doan and Kulich.

 

 

 

Now run a projection of goals against.

By the way, in the last 3 years only 13 teams finished the season with 282 goals or more.  This Sabres group won't approach that number.  

[Weave]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

 

EDIT: the single biggest question mark to me here is pretty obviously Norris and his availability, then the small sample sizes of Doan and Kulich.

You don’t consider Quinn a big question mark?

[dudacek]

8 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Now run a projection of goals against.

By the way, in the last 3 years only 13 teams finished the season with 282 goals or more.  This Sabres group won't approach that number.  

Interesting.

And one of them was the Sabres, 293 wasn’t it?

Im inclined to agree with you if I was a betting man.

But after doing this I also think it’s not out of line to believe this team is capable of overcoming the loss of Peterka’s goals.

Just now, Weave said:

You don’t consider Quinn a big question mark?

Scoring 19 goals? No.

Being a positive player? Yes