Making up for the loss of scoring from JJP (and Cozens among others).

[dudacek]

I think one of the reasons the Sbres offence has been as effective as it has is the amount they generate from the blueline.

This team has three of the top 20 even strength scoring defencemen in the league and Kesselring added another player in the top 50.

Owen power was 3rd on the Sabres, but would have been 1st on 19 teams.

The Sabres top 4 D accounted for 141 points last year. Colorado led the league with 132.

Forwards generally find is easier to score with that kind of support from the blueline and I suspect it will help the new arrivals.

[GASabresIUFAN]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

I think one of the reasons the Sbres offence has been as effective as it has is the amount they generate from the blueline.

This team has three of the top 20 even strength scoring defencemen in the league and Kesselring added another player in the top 50.

Owen power was 3rd on the Sabres, but would have been 1st on 19 teams.

The Sabres top 4 D accounted for 141 points last year. Colorado led the league with 132.

Forwards generally find is easier to score with that kind of support from the blueline and I suspect it will help the new arrivals.

Does that come at much too high a cost?  Is the D too focused on creating offense that they consistently breakdown defensively?  Would ten less goals by the D, lead to 20 less goals against by eliminating a significant amount of high danger chances against?

[dudacek]

21 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Does that come at much too high a cost?  Is the D too focused on creating offense that they consistently breakdown defensively?  Would ten less goals by the D, lead to 20 less goals against by eliminating a significant amount of high danger chances against?

I don’t think so.

I don’t see a team where the D are making a lot of bad offence-first choices and giving up a ton of chances as a consequence. 

I saw (in particular) Clifton, Power and Samuelsson making a lot of poor zone coverage decisions and execution.

And I saw forwards (especially Quinn and Cozens) too often making a lot of bad puck decisions that flipped the ice the other way.

[LGR4GM]

The Sabres have to remove 17% of their goals against. There offensive output is borderline irrelevant without that change. 

Getting just average gt brings you down to only needing 10% goal reduction. That's how bad UPL and Levi were last year.

 

Quote

Buffalo Sabres (T5) – Presumptive starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has been a beacon of hope for Sabres fans over the past few years, a promising former second-round pick who looked fantastic two seasons ago. His stop rate plunged to 88.5 per cent last year, nearly nine goals worse than a replacement-level goaltender based on the shot profile faced. Much like Swayman in Boston, the Sabres critically need a bounce-back campaign from their 26-year-old goalie, or they may be hunting for the next solution in net. 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by LGR4GM

[pi2000]

Keeping JJP and his 30 goals, while also reducing goals against were not mutually exclusive choices.

The only reason we're having this discussion is because the GM wasn't creative enough to find a way to do both.... so now were trying to rationalize it... "other guys will score more", "we didn't need those goals", "he was a defensive liability"... etc etc

Facts is it was a ***** trade and the team is worse because of it.

[LGR4GM]

11 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

Keeping JJP and his 30 goals, while also reducing goals against were not mutually exclusive choices.

The only reason we're having this discussion is because the GM wasn't creative enough to find a way to do both.... so now were trying to rationalize it... "other guys will score more", "we didn't need those goals", "he was a defensive liability"... etc etc

Facts is it was a ***** trade and the team is worse because of it.

Do you think Buffalo will score 30 less goals this season because Peterka is not here? Or even 20 less goals, let's go with that. 

They scored 269 last year, do you think Buffalo will score 249 goals this year?

[Taro T]

59 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

Keeping JJP and his 30 goals, while also reducing goals against were not mutually exclusive choices.

The only reason we're having this discussion is because the GM wasn't creative enough to find a way to do both.... so now were trying to rationalize it... "other guys will score more", "we didn't need those goals", "he was a defensive liability"... etc etc

Facts is it was a ***** trade and the team is worse because of it.

Agree that a better GM would've found a way to upgrade the D and not send out one of their best goal scorers for about 70 cents on the $.

But IF Adams uses the rest of that $5MM in cap space he gained through that deal to add another top 6F, the trade gets much closer to being equal value.  

[dudacek]

2 hours ago, pi2000 said:

Keeping JJP and his 30 goals, while also reducing goals against were not mutually exclusive choices.

The only reason we're having this discussion is because the GM wasn't creative enough to find a way to do both.... so now were trying to rationalize it... "other guys will score more", "we didn't need those goals", "he was a defensive liability"... etc etc

Facts is it was a ***** trade and the team is worse because of it.

I'm really curious to see whether Peterka is more Sam Reinhart or Miro Satan.

[LGR4GM]

How quickly we all forgot how good Samson Reinhart was on both sides of the puck. Truly one of the dumbest trades of Adams illustrious career. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

24 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

How quickly we all forgot how good Samson Reinhart was on both sides of the puck. Truly one of the dumbest trades of Adams illustrious career. 

"....but he didn't want to be here"

 

[Cityo'Rasmii]

And no PT's

[GASabresIUFAN]

5 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

The Sabres have to remove 17% of their goals against. There offensive output is borderline irrelevant without that change. 

Getting just average gt brings you down to only needing 10% goal reduction. That's how bad UPL and Levi were last year.

 

 

This is a fair and accurate post.  Hard to win if you can't stop the other team.  (ask the Bills in the 4th qtr of the playoffs)

Adams has had years to address the goaltending.  The last game Ullmark played for the Sabres was 4/13/21.  The next season, Adams gave us UPL with Anderson, Tokarski, Dell, Subban and Houser.  He followed that up with UPL plus Anderson, Comrie and a late season visit from Levi.  Next came UPL with Comrie and Levi followed by last season's S..t show of UPL, Reimer and Levi.  Is it any wonder this team can't crawl out of the cellar.  

This coming season we are getting UPL with Lyons and Levi.  Does anyone really expect a different result in year 5 running back the same failed strategy in goal that has failed for 4 straight seasons?

[mjd1001]

1 minute ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

This coming season we are getting UPL with Lyons and Levi.  Does anyone really expect a different result in year 5 running back the same failed strategy in goal that has failed for 4 straight seasons?

Maybe not, but that 'strategy' in goal was pretty successful just 2 seasons ago.  It has not failed 5 years in a row.

UPL had a great year, and, if I remember correctly, was the best or 2nd best goalie in the league in many/most metrics the 2nd half of the season.

[PerreaultForever]

Well, their strategy for making up for Peterka's goals is clearly 3 things. 

1) Norris is healthy and contributes more than Cozens did.

2) Quinn regains a scoring touch instead of Peterka goals we get Quinn goals.

3) Benson keeps rising and starts finishing his plays and putting the puck in the net.

You go +10 on each of those 3 and there's your 30 goals. That's their plan. 

Personally, as things stand, I'd throw some money at Roslevic, but maybe he doesn't want to be here either.

[Thorny]

On 8/4/2025 at 9:59 AM, GASabresIUFAN said:

If y’all want to discuss (bash?) our goaltending, please put in another thread.  Thanks.

Dude it’s August 5th

we always have it down to a single variable by now