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 yesterday at 04:59 PM 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 yesterday at 06:35 PM 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. 

[Thorny]

2 hours ago, mjd1001 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.

The goal is to build a good team not one slightly better than the one with DC 

Not really sure where I’m losing you here 

Adams can “win the trade” yet still not properly build out the top 6. Obviously Norris being a good top 6 player is more important and a greater reflection on Adams than merely “being as good as Cozens, anything else gravy”

Adams doesn’t get to artificially lower the bar for what’s expected of a top 6 C merely because he installed a very bad one for a time 

are we grading him on a curve? lol 

Edited 21 hours ago by Thorny

[Big Guava]

He is going to win the Norris Trophy 

[...]

7 hours ago, Thorny said:

The goal is to build a good team not one slightly better than the one with DC 

Not really sure where I’m losing you here 

Adams can “win the trade” yet still not properly build out the top 6. Obviously Norris being a good top 6 player is more important and a greater reflection on Adams than merely “being as good as Cozens, anything else gravy”

Adams doesn’t get to artificially lower the bar for what’s expected of a top 6 C merely because he installed a very bad one for a time 

are we grading him on a curve? lol 

Like it or not, this is the standard of the Pegula era Sabres.

[mjd1001]

13 hours ago, Thorny said:

The goal is to build a good team not one slightly better than the one with DC 

Not really sure where I’m losing you here 

Adams can “win the trade” yet still not properly build out the top 6. Obviously Norris being a good top 6 player is more important and a greater reflection on Adams than merely “being as good as Cozens, anything else gravy”

Adams doesn’t get to artificially lower the bar for what’s expected of a top 6 C merely because he installed a very bad one for a time 

are we grading him on a curve? lol 

I'm not sure the point  you are making relative to what you responded to.

I said he's looking better than cozens so that is an improvement. Full stop.  I never said he was or wasn't going to be 'slightly better'  We'll see if he is slightly better, or a lot better. I'm sure we are both hoping he is a lot better.  My comment was nothing more than he looks 'better' and for now, until we consider the extent of it...that is a good thing to start with.

[OverPowerYou]

One thing the Sabres are good at is trading away soft ineffective players for players that are a little better. Their problem is that they wait too long to do it

[JohnnyK]

46 minutes ago, OverPowerYou said:

One thing the Sabres are good at is trading away soft ineffective players for players that are a little better. Their problem is that they wait too long to do it

The problem is they keep drafting soft ineffective players!!! exception might be their last 1st round pick!

 

[Pimlach]

If you watched a lot of hockey you already knew that a healthy Norris is a better player than the past Dylan Cozens.  
 

It’s too early to say that he is going to make a difference, he has to be available to play.  But he was productive in Preseason so that is a good sign. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Pimlach

[LGR4GM]

11 minutes ago, JohnnyK said:

The problem is they keep drafting soft ineffective players!!! exception might be their last 1st round pick!

 

Zach Benson is certainly known for being soft and ineffective. Ziemer and Helenius too.

[ska-T Palmtown]

31 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Zach Benson is certainly known for being soft and ineffective. Ziemer and Helenius too.

shhhh! you'll ruin some carefully crafted narratives and bedtime stories people tell themselves around here!

[Taro T]

Norris looked very good.  Thought he and Thompson weren't meshing particularly well in the 1st game, but they worked better together after that.  Wasn't sold on having Norris play with Tage, but if they have a playmaker with them that guy is going to get a lot of assists.  Benson makes a ton of sense there, but even Krebs looked good there (going against mostly AHLers, admittedly).  Have said elsewhere, if Krebs can work there, would like to see Benson play with McLeod and Tuch so the Sabres could have a borderline elite 2 way line (similar to what the Drury line gave them back in the day).

His faceoff wins alone, should he stay healthy, should be enough to vault the PP up to top 22.

He's good in his own end and gets to places where he can get good shots off.

He's pretty much as billed.  The big question is, as nearly everyone else has mentioned, can he stay healthy.  If he can, this is Adams 1st true "win" of a trade.

[GASabresIUFAN]

My first thought when he got buried by Clifton was that he was going to have a concussion and be gone for a month or two.  
 

His play has been good, now can he just stay healthy. 

[dudacek]

26 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

My first thought when he got buried by Clifton was that he was going to have a concussion and be gone for a month or two.  
 

His play has been good, now can he just stay healthy. 

To the best of my knowledge, Norris has missed time in the NHL for one injury not connected to his chronic shoulder issue.

I get why people would worry about the shoulder, but I don't understand why they treat him like he's Samuelsson or Greenway.