dudacek

He's going to play because people get hurt and Lindy won't hesitate to juggle his lineup. But as far as being a guy who stays in the lineup, I see 3 paths: 1) Beat McLeod out for the 3C job. This is the least likely path, given what the Sabres just gave up to bring McLeod in, but it's not impossible. Sabres fans have convinced themselves McLeod is going to be a great 3C, but the Oilers saw fit to upgrade him when they traded for Henrique and he was a healthy scratch in the playoffs. Krebs has more edge to his game; if he rediscovers his offence he could conceivably earn the job nobody wanted to see handed to him and push McLeod down a line, or over to the wing. 2) Hold on to the 4C centre spot. People haven't really talked about him in this role, but It's been his job the past 2 years and he hasn't been bad at it. His defensive numbers are solid, and he likes to mix it up. Lafferty can and frequently has played on the wing, so it's not necessarily an either-or situation. Basically, he just has to outplay one of Malenstyn, Aube-Kubel, Lafferty or Greenway. Krebs can also slide in on the wing ahead of one of those guys as well. 3) Grab a middle six wing spot. I'm leaning hard into what Adams said at the end on the year about playing him on the wing, but I'm wondering if he gets a look at the potentially open spot at left wing beside Cozens and Quinn. He and Cozens had excellent chemistry together as juniors and there's a school of thought that says maybe he can reignite that, after the combo has basically been ignored since Krebs' rookie season. Last year's Krebs of the meagre offence won't cut it, but the concept of Krebs can and maybe adds some defence, playmaking and instigating in the process. Nothing wrong keeping Zucker and Greenway honest. I agree with you entirely that he starts — and should start — at the 13th forward, but I also agree with @Cascade Youth that he just might be a Lindy kind of guy and I do think he will be highly motivated. It's a make or break season for him as a Sabre, and maybe as an NHLer. It's going to be up to him to earn his spot and in the process make the guys in front of them earn theirs. That's the way it should be.

I always wondered a bit about how the Sabres developed Krebs. He never seemed to get the opportunities or the leash his peers got. Kid’s numbers in his 48-game rookie season compared favourably to the mid-30s totals Quinn and Peterka put up a year later, and he was about a point-per game as an Amerk prior to his call-up and in the playoffs. His production was tracking well. But the following season he got the more conventional rookie treatment: limited ice time in a bottom-six role, grinders for linemates and a spot on the bench when he screwed up. It seemed to me the organization made a decision that he was going to be the 3C behind Tage and Cozens and they were going to force-feed him lessons on defence to prepare him for that job. It kinda worked. 26 points is a respectable total for a 22-year-old 4C - pretty similar to what Ryan McLeod put up as a 24-year-old 3C - and he went from being a rookie turnover machine to a respectable checker. A year ago, I was still pretty high on him becoming a good 3C. But like so many of his peers, his game stalled last year. It’s like in the bid to make him more reliable, they stripped away the creative part of his game. Last year he was pretty much the definition of a JAG.

It's not particularly unusual for a player coming off his ELC to still be unsigned this late in the summer, Puckpedia currently lists 15 of them. But I'm really curious how (if?) Krebs fits into Kevyn Adams plans and what the respective positions are in contract talks. I think most of us have Krebs pencilled in as the team's 13th forward. Does he have a path to becoming a roster regular? Does he have a level beyond what we've seen in his 202 NHL games in Buffalo? Does he have a future in Buffalo?

Not sure if I can remember this place as uniformly high on a young player breaking out as we seem to be on Quinn. Havent really seen the fantasy predictions yet, but I’m kinda curious if the rest of the league has noticed. I certainly don’t hear his name much outside Buffalo fandom.

Watched a pod of of 6 or 8 orcas rub themselves on a beach about 30 feet from where we sitting. They flipped over and scratched their backs along the rocks as they repeatedly swam past.

I'm not arguing anything. I was genuinely curious as to which group you preferred.

I really think possession numbers aren't much different than +/-: they're an attempt to apply a team stat to an individual player and are moderately useful in context. While possession (SAT) makes obvious gains by expanding the sample size it also loses by tracking something far less important when it comes to the outcome of a game. Something else I consider when comparing a 52% player to 48% player is how that translates to being outshot 26 to 24 in a game. I know @thorny is going to tell me every inch matters, and he's not wrong. But I can't help but think that when comparing two players it's not something too dramatic;

Who would you rather have? Thompson Cozens Quinn Dahlin Power Levi Or Celebrini Smith Eklund Dickinson Ferraro Askarov

To what? Possession numbers as a meaningful stat, or the numbers themselves?

Isak Rosen was pick 14 in the 2021 draft. 11 players taken in that draft are NHL regulars, 3 of those players (Wyatt Johnson 23, Matthew Knies 57, and JJ Moser 60) were picked later than he was. 143 U21 prospects played at least a game in the AHL last year. Rosen ranked 3rd in points with 50, behind Logan Stankoven’s 57 and BradLambert’s 55. When you add in the AHLers who are a year older than him, he still ranks 7th. Im not a real fan of the way Rosen plays, but it would be a mistake to say he is trending toward a bust.

Historically, JJP has had a lot of success at the right half-wall, which is a spot that was unsettled at PP1 for the Sabres last year. My first choice for that spot is Byram, but given Appert's history with him, and think we'll see JJ get the first shot there and I wouldn't be surprised if he's successful. Quinn worked the left half-wall for Appert, but I would be shocked if they moved away from Tage there. I think he gets first look at the bumper spot, which Lindy seemed to suggest was going to be a focus. He's got the skills to be a weapon there, and I think he'll be an upgrade on Skinner regardless of how he's used.

After Dahlin, the Sabres' best returning possession players >40 games played are 2 Tage Thompson 53.2 3 Zach Benson 53.0 4 JJ Peterka 52.8 5 Ryan Johnson 52.5 6 Peyton Krebs 51.9 7 Mattias Samuelsson 51.5 All stats from NHL.com https://www.nhl.com/stats/skaters?report=puckPossessions&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20232024&seasonTo=20232024&gameType=2&playerPlayedFor=franchise.19&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,40&sort=satPct&page=0&pageSize=50

The Sabres 3 worst returning possession players >40 games played are 18 Jordan Greenway 47.3 (tied with Patrick Kane and Erik Cernak at 437th out of 611 skaters) 17 Henri Jokiharju 48.7 (366) 16 Connor Clifton 49.1 (335, tied with Brad Marchand) The lowest ranked NHL player with more than 40 games played was Boston's John Beecher at 36.9%

The Sabres best possession player last year was their best player. Rasmus Dahlin recorded a 53.7% total, tied for 84th in the NHL with Nikita Kucherov, Adam Fox and Vladislav Gavrikov out of players who played at least 70 games. What I thought was an interesting bit of context: Of the NHL's most-used defencemen (more than 18 minutes ES per night), Dahlin ranked 9th overall. In that same category Owen ("trainwreck in his own zone") Power ranked 12th with 51.5%

On the flip side, the players the Sabres walked away from included their three worst possession performers last year. 21 Tyson Jost 43.6 20 Erik Johnson 46.6 19 Victor Olofson 47.0 Other guys who moved on: 15 Zemgus Girgensons 49.7 12 Casey Mittelstadt 51.0 11 Eric Robinson 51.2 10 Jeff Skinner 51.2 9 Kyle Okposo 51.3 I did not dive into their deployments either

The other players the team acquired recently aren't nearly as strong. Bo Byram was 50.2% in Colorado, but dropped to 46.5 in Buffalo Jason Zucker was 47.7 in the desert, 49.1 in Nashville Sam Lafferty was 48.4 in Vancouver Dennis Gilbert was 49.2 in Calgary Nick Aube-Kubel was 43.2 in Washington Beck Malenstyn was 40.7 in Washington The board has talked elsewhere about how the latter pair's numbers were coloured by historically difficult defensive deployments. Which is a good spot to point out that possession numbers are certainly influenced by who you play with, when and where. I did not dive into the deployments of the other new acquisitions

The best possession player last year currently on the Sabres is Ryan McLeod. He ranked 34th overall at 56.7 He put up 53.9 the previous year in 57 games as a sophomore.

The gold standard for possession teams is Carolina: adjusting for players who played at least 70 games, every one of the top 9 possession players in the league were Hurricanes. Jesper Fast and Jordan Staal led the way with just over 63 per cent. Only 11 NHL players hit 60% and only 43 hit 56% 50%, obviously, is the mark of a middling possession player

The New Jersey Devils under Lindy Ruff were an excellent puck possession team: They ranked 5th last year at the time of his firing, and 4th overall the year before that. Even the 28th-place team of three years ago finished above 50% and 14th overall

Some individual player conversations and the weight that some people put on possession numbers inspired me to to take a deeper look at how the Sabres stack up. First of all, some context: shots for and against charts generally follow team and individual success, but they don't necessarily dictate it. Nobody will be surprised to learn Carolina, Florida, Edmonton and Dallas were top 5 in this area last year. They may be surprised to learn LA was 4th, New Jersey 7th and Philadelphia 8th. Buffalo was right in the middle of the pack, finishing 16th at 50.7 per cent. Teams right around them include Toronto, Tampa, the Rangers the Senators, the Jets and the Flames. Detroit and Montreal were bottom five and Boston, Washington and the Islanders weren't much better. https://www.nhl.com/stats/teams?report=percentages&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20232024&seasonTo=20232024&gameType=2&sort=satPct&page=0&pageSize=50

Here's a stat that surprised me, considering my perception of last year's offence: The Sabres ranked 12th in the NHL in goals for at 5-on-5 last year, tied with the Bruins with 174 Just five more even-strength goals would have tied them for 6th overall. They scored more 5-on-5 goals than Tampa, Carolina, the Rangers and the Panthers But at 5-on-4, they scored just 34 times, ranking 29th. Tampa had 67, Carolina 61, the Rangers 56 and the Panthers 59 It seems pretty simple to me: fix the power play and the offence will be fine

You write a lot about baseline competence, To me, that’s what Chevaldayoff has shown. It ain’t excellence and comparing it to the Sabres incompetence doesn’t change that. (It’s like we’ve switched accounts 😁)

I like Johnson, but I see him with Clague on the 5th pairing right now. I thought he was behind Bryson last year and Bryson was brought back to give Johnson room to develop in the minors. Meanwhile, Gilbert brings a more needed skillset and to my mind he’s ahead of both of them. I hope Johnson’s given the Prospal order: rip up the AHL and force us to give you a slot

Barring serious injury, no Sabre prospect will get more than a cup of coffee. Kulich would be my pick if an injury to an offensive forward opens a hole. He’s a 3rd year pro who Prospal publicly challenged to rip up the AHL this year to earn his chance. Im glad the Sabres are at a point now where they can say that to their top prospects.

Craig Rivet apparently has coached against McGroarty for years and says he’s one of the most entitled kids he’s ever come across. Sounds like if Chevy did his homework he might have avoided this situation entirely.