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

[JohnC]

9 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Doan and Kesselring ranked 1st and 5th respectively on Utah in terms of Corsi at 58% and 54%

They were 7th and 3rd in ESGF% at 53.7% and 56.5%

And they ranked 1st and 7th in terms of xG% at 60.6% and 53.3%

Neither player was getting the most mportant minutes, but they were clearly winning the battles in the matchups they were seeing.

An argument can be made that in the JJP trade we sent out the best player in the exchange. On the other hand, a good argument can be made that the trade made this a better roster by addressing other areas of need.

[Thorny]

1 minute ago, JohnC said:

An argument can be made that in the JJP trade we sent out the best player in the exchange. On the other hand, a good argument can be made that the trade made this a better roster by addressing other areas of need.

Link? 

[dudacek]

38 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I think they are almost entirely focused on cutting their goals against significantly and transforming from a -20 team goal-differential team to a +20 team, which almost certainly will earn them a playoff spot.

Analytically speaking, and superficially at 5 on5:

Norris for Cozens appears a wash

Doan for Peterka a small gain

Danforth for Lafferty a small gain

Kesselring for Jokiharju a small gain

Timmins for Clifton a significant gain

It kinda follows the Athletic analytics model: they got incrementally better overall, but not enough to make up the gap needed.

 

[dudacek]

Now nobody actually thinks the team improved by swapping Peterka for Doan and most of us could get invested in Cozens for Norris and Jokiharju for Kesselring no matter what the analytics say, but that's fancystats for you. 

[dudacek]

Analytically speaking the Sabres best hope might be this:

• Owen Power career 51.9% Corsi despite playing with a rotating cast of bad partners over his first three NHL seasons
• Jack Quinn significant drop-off across the board in all three categories after being a positive player in all three over his first two seasons.
• Mattias Samuelsson, see Jack Quinn

Along with Dylan Cozens, these seemed to be the skaters who suffered the most from the coaching change and the players with the most analytical potential to bounce back

 

[JohnC]

21 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Link? 

It's an opinion and doesn't come from a link. The returning defenseman hopefully improved the unit and we got a player who plays hard and two-way game. If the unhappy player didn't want to be here, then so be it. I wish the departed player the best and am happy to move on from his unhappiness. The last thing that this team needs is an unhappy player in a constant battle with a coach who isn't satisfied with his all-around game. 

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

I think it's broader than that.

They've added Norris, Doan and Kesselring and they expect growth from Quinn, Benson and Kulich. They also want to score more on the power play. Combined, they think those factors should at least mitigate things.

But I think that's an afterthought in terms of off-season strategy.

I think they are almost entirely focused on cutting their goals against significantly and transforming from a -20 team goal-differential team to a +20 team, which almost certainly will earn them a playoff spot.

and to do that they what? Added Kesselring? A lot on those shoulders then. 

[dudacek]

10 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

and to do that they what? Added Kesselring? A lot on those shoulders then. 

Speaking only in terms of their play defensively, the Sabres seem to believe:

• Norris > Cozens
• Doan > Peterka
• Danforth > Lafferty
• Kesselring > Jokiharju
• Timmins > Clifton

They also think Lyon is more capable of supporting/challenging UPL than Reimer was because age limited Reimer's workload.

If you think that's basically boils down to Kesselring, I guess we'll see.