Pre-season impressions of Norris?

[dudacek]

Curious what people's impressions are so far of the man tapped to be our 1C this year.

His pre-season stat line in 4 games played: 

• 3/4/7/+2, averaging more than 19 minutes a game TOI
• 1 giveaway, 2 takeaways, 3 hits, 4 shot blocks
• 1 minor penalty taken, 3 penalties drawn
• 55.91 SAF%, 71.43 GF%, 51.59 xGF%
• 59.68% on faceoffs

 

 

[Wyldnwoody44]

Haven't watched a lick of pre season, decent stats on paper. The question is and will remain.... Can he stay healthy enough for those numbers to matter. Time will tell. 

[Two or less]

38 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Curious what people's impressions are so far of the man tapped to be our 1C this year.

His pre-season stat line in 4 games played: 

• 3/4/7/+2, averaging more than 19 minutes a game TOI
• 1 giveaway, 2 takeaways, 3 hits, 4 shot blocks
• 1 minor penalty taken, 3 penalties drawn
• 55.91 SAF%, 71.43 GF%, 51.59 xGF%
• 59.68% on faceoffs

 

 

 

If only he can stay healthy. To me, he was our best player in pre-season. On both ends. 

[LGR4GM]

I thought his speed and connection with Tage were good. I worry about them being able to dig pucks out of corners. Norris seems to have better effort than a bunch of our players which feels like the difference between most franchises and ours. 

His shooting and faceoffs are nice. You also don't have to panic like Cozens in the defensive end. He's an effective top 6 center. 

[mjd1001]

Him being here prevents Cozens from being here and actually hurting the team.

Any production above and beyond that is just great.

As others have said, the key is to stay healthy.

Its going to be hard for me to have any concrete opinion at all with hjm, or the team for that matter, until minimum 10 games are played.

[Flashsabre]

IF Norris can stay healthy the Sabres win the trade running away.  Norris has all the tools Cozens did but he has a brain to utilize the tools effectively. He was the player that impressed me most in the preseason.

[The Jokeman]

16 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

I thought his speed and connection with Tage were good. I worry about them being able to dig pucks out of corners. Norris seems to have better effort than a bunch of our players which feels like the difference between most franchises and ours. 

His shooting and faceoffs are nice. You also don't have to panic like Cozens in the defensive end. He's an effective top 6 center. 

Ideally he's a 2C but on this squad he gets top billing as nobody else good enough unless keep Thompson there.

Edited 3 hours ago by The Jokeman

[Thorny]

1 hour ago, mjd1001 said:

Him being here prevents Cozens from being here and actually hurting the team.

Any production above and beyond that is just great.

As others have said, the key is to stay healthy.

Its going to be hard for me to have any concrete opinion at all with hjm, or the team for that matter, until minimum 10 games are played.

That..doesn’t make any sense 

the goal when building a team isn’t to “find a guy at least better than Dylan Cozens”. We were counting on Dylan to be a top 6 C, and that’s the role we are penciling Norris in for, now. That Dylan failed to deliver doesn’t absurdly lower the bar for the next guy where are only need him to marginally replace the failed guy: the playoff line doesn’t follow suit 

You are thinking in terms of how one might evaluate a trade, I guess. But “winning trades” is a shade of the importance of team building. What matters most is how well he fulfills the role of top 6 C. Anything beyond THAT, is just great 

Adams’ duty to field a legitimate 1C/2C supersedes his duty to win the trade for Dylan Cozens. Norris’s primary objective isn’t to prove the trade right, it’s to be a good top 6 C. What good would simply avoiding being a net negative while notching 1 goal be if there’s a gaping hole in the top 6? Essentially- we definitely aren’t in a situation where it’s “avoid being a net negative and anything else is gravy” which is basically what you said 

Edited 1 hour ago by Thorny

[Broken Ankles]

I think his chemistry with Tage is above average.  The slash lines are crazy and I hope a harbinger of things to follow.  I think I’ve seen 3 games he’s played in and he and Tage were dominant. Let’s see if he can breathe some life into an ineffectual PP.  

[RochesterExpat]

2 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

He's an effective top 6 center. 

This.

Now lets see how he does in the regular season.

[French Collection]

Solid C so far. Like everyone else says, his health is the key.

75 games at  around a point per game, a good faceoff number, helping the PP and not getting caved in defensively will help the team be in the playoff run. This could allow the GM to be a buyer and get another top 6 player at the deadline?

[mjd1001]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

That..doesn’t make any sense 

the goal when building a team isn’t to “find a guy at least better than Dylan Cozens”. We were counting on Dylan to be a top 6 C, and that’s the role we are penciling Norris in for, now. That Dylan failed to deliver doesn’t absurdly lower the bar for the next guy where are only need him to marginally replace the failed guy: the playoff line doesn’t follow suit 

You are thinking in terms of how one might evaluate a trade, I guess. But “winning trades” is a shade of the importance of team building. What matters most is how well he fulfills the role of top 6 C. Anything beyond THAT, is just great 

Adams’ duty to field a legitimate 1C/2C supersedes his duty to win the trade for Dylan Cozens. Norris’s primary objective isn’t to prove the trade right, it’s to be a good top 6 C. What good would simply avoiding being a net negative while notching 1 goal be if there’s a gaping hole in the top 6? Essentially- we definitely aren’t in a situation where it’s “avoid being a net negative and anything else is gravy” which is basically what you said 

It makes perfect sense to me.

If Dylan Cozens on the ice made "X" number of mistakes in a given game, and the guy 'replacing' him makes less, then yes, your team is better for it.

[PerreaultForever]

He's a solid player and brings some tenacity that we could use. If he stays healthy it's a top line combination but staying healthy is the key as we all know. He hasn't managed that for a long time. If he gets a little dinged up will he shy away from contact and be less effective? I don't know. At the moment, he's the #1 center.