dudacek

Wasn’t Casey on the top PP to finish the year, in VO’s place? I remember Cozens/Krebs/VO was a thing late in the year on PP2

Two numbers stand out while considering what Craig Anderson meant to the Sabres last year. The first is .897, a save percentage that ranked Anderson 45th among the 53 NHL goalies who played at least 25 games. The second is .548, Anderson’s winning percentage, good for 18th out of the same pool. This on a team with an overall points percentage of .454. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=130908 The Sabres didn’t ignore the first set of numbers, signing Eric Comrie to compete with Anderson and Ukko-Pekka Lukkonnen for the starter’s job. But not before they doubled down on the latter, re-signing Anderson for another year while giving him a raise from $750,000 to as high as $2 million if he hits incentives. It can’t be ignored that Anderson is 41 and was pulled off the retirement heap last summer after playing just 4 games the previous season. It should also not be forgotten that the last time he played more than 30 games and put up a save percentage over .903 was in 2017. But Kevyn Adams said he also couldn’t ignore the effect the cagey vet — who called last season one of the most fun he’d ever experienced — had on his young team: "He gave us a chance to win when he was in the net. He played well, and he also gave our team confidence. When you look at our young D corps, just that kind of mentorship that he showed I think really went a long way for some of our defensemen." What do you expect from Craig Anderson this year? (Last year’s takes here):

😘

Like @Thorny said, based on statistical trends Miller’s a much safer bet short-term. Long-term, Thompson offers much better up-side. There’s a chance the Miller deal may turn out like the Okposo deal, but a better bet is that he puts up 70 points for a few more seasons before he falls off. When and by how much will determine how good the deal is. It’s the standard gamble one takes with a UFA in his late 20s. Thompson is the standard gamble GMs have to decide whether to take on RFAs on their 3rd contract. The Sabres decided to role the dice with Eichel and Thompson, and not with Reinhart and Olofsson.

I don’t think so. The contract doesn’t kick in until 23/24. If it were in effect this year, it would rank Tage 29th among centres. Last year, Tage ranked 8th among centres in goals, 23rd in points. I’d say good value exists as long as he is statistically producing, say, 25th to 40th among NHL centres. Based on last year’s totals, 27 goals and 64 points is fair value. But the point of this deal for the Sabres is that as salaries rise around the league, Tage’s will not. Many players will pass him. In 3 or 4 years, he may only need to rank 40-50th statistically to be at fair value, and at the end of the deal, assuming the cap behaves like it usually does, that may be 60-75th.

Adams in the Buffalo News Adams wants the extension to serve as a message the club will reward players who are committed to improving and want to be in Buffalo. “I think one of the things I've talked to our players about, both collectively as a team and individually, is we want to do this the right way and really build this to set ourselves up for sustainable success,” he added. “And to do that, we have to identify who fits and who doesn't, who wants to be here, and who wants to be here for the right reasons. And we made it very clear when players show that and perform, that's how we're going to move forward with this group. “I think for the players, this is just maybe an example to our group of what we've been talking about. To me, it's exciting. And we really want our players to perform and be in a position where we can do this more and more.” We’ve talked a lot about signings, and I've talked to (media) about discipline, and making sure that we're doing things appropriately. And one of the reasons we’re doing that is so we have the ability to sign our key core younger players to deals like this. We're also being strategic a little bit, to be honest, about the timeline knowing that there's other guys potentially next summer where we're going to be in this situation. We want to make sure we're being strategic on when and how we put these deals together. And that's why I felt like it made the most sense for us right now.” https://buffalonews.com/sports/sabres/inside-the-sabres-how-team-navigated-a-unique-marketplace-to-sign-tage-thompson/article_b17a4254-2aba-11ed-b45b-2b1b8ad1f5dd.html

They shoot the other way and are often listed the other way, but Peterka played RW and Quinn LW most of the time in Rochester. I think flipping them in your lineup makes more sense from a chemistry style as well: Peterka’s style is closer to Tuch’s and Quinn’s Skinner.

I'm not sure why you seem very confident of this and much less so about Tage. The 5 full seasons before Miller got to Vancouver, he scored between 43 and 58 points. The 3 seasons before that, he had 33 points total, kinda like Tage's 35 in his first 3 NHL seasons. Miller has had 1 season similar to Tage's 68 points — a 72 — and last season's 99, which was certainly an outlier based on a 10-year sample season. I do not think paying Miller $8 million from age 30 to 36 will turn out to be a smarter investment than paying Thompson $7 million from age 25 to 32.

I mentioned it upthread, but Donnie and Casey each had interviews this week where they said this is going to happen, at least part time. The AHL coaches were pretty adamant about Krebs being a centre and played him there exclusively during the playoffs, so i suspect there's been an organizational decision made that Tage/Cozens/Krebs is currently their preferred centre spine.

Neither do the voters. Quite the sweep here for the optimists

There must have been times during the past year when Casey Mittelstadt looked at his buddy Tage Thompson and said “it coulda been me.” Coming off the best stretch of hockey in his life in the spring of 2021, Casey was the star of last year’s training camp and entered the season firmly slotted as the Sabres 1C. You know the rest: the opening night injury, a recovery fraught with setbacks and spotty production, and a lineup void at centre that Thompson admirably filled to the tune of 38 goals and $50 million. Mittelstadt made some modest gains on his possession numbers, coming in at just under 50%, but never found that 60-point gear he had shown to close out the previous season. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=192483 As training camp looms, he and Thompson may finish the circle. Both Casey and Don Granato have referenced the likelihood that the lifelong centre might see considerable time at wing this year. Rightly or wrongly, early Mittelstadt was pigeonholed as an immature talent who really didn’t have clue about the dedication and the discipline necessary to be a pro. The past year or so, chatter coming out of the organization paints a different picture: a 24/7 hockey nerd and glue guy in the room, who desperately wants to be an impact player and has put in the time to do so, only to have his efforts short-circuited by misfortune. He is poised to turn 24 this season and has reached that time when you stop becoming a projection and simply are what you are. There is a large group of offensively gifted young forwards coming hard for his ice time and he needs to show he can produce at a 2nd line pace in more than fits and starts, or he risks losing his job. What do you expect from Mittelstadt this year? (Last year’s takes here):

No scoffing from me. I think you’re right: most hockey execs run the D the way they do because that’s what’s been shown to work. What you might be hearing is resistance to the automatic assumption that a guy can’t or shouldn’t play his off-hand. I think if Brandon Montour is a #3 on his right side and a #6 on his left side, you’re wasting an asset playing him on his left side and you need to make a move to correct the imbalance But if Jacob Bryson is a #6 on either side, there is no reason not to play him as your 3rd-pairing RHD. I agree that most D are better on their strong side under modern systems and that’s why they are deployed that way.

Wasn’t arguing against any of this. The bold was my entire point. It is the way it is because the hockey world generally believes that’s best way to win hockey games. Doesn’t mean they’re 100 % right in all instances, mind you. I think it’s more like being “big” or “fast” or good at faceoffs. it might be an advantage, but it’s not necessarily a necessity. I will say that the game evolves; I remember a time when this didn’t really matter and a time when CCCP dominated the world with the entire team shooting left. So it may evolve again when coaches and/or players perceive a tactical advantage.

Remember Reinhart’s 3rd year when he was taken off O’Reilly’s wing to start the year and instead was asked to centre the 3rd line? And Phil and Jason gave him Benoit Pouliot and Seth Griffith to play with? What’s Jack’s worst-case scenario right now? 4th line minutes with Girgs and Hinostroza, or Peterka and Krebs?

I wouldn’t say primarily, but GM for the Amerks is among his specific duties.

The athletic with good fuel for the skeptics: a list of 20 times a player was signed following an outlier shooting % year and the contract blew up in the team’s face: https://theathletic.com/3559089/2022/09/02/nhl-contracts-shooting-percentage-tage-thompson/ You’ll recognize the names Leino, Skinner and Stafford. (Sorry, @eleven) IMO most of the players don’t match Tage’s profile in that they weren’t just starting their careers, but the author says it is hard to find examples of players who maintained that kind of leap in their shooting.

This. I’m certainly not opposed to adding RHD with upside, but this guy at 22 seems to be in the same place in his development today where Jokiharju was at 19. He seems to be a Pilut type player with a skill set that’s kinda redundant on a team with Power and Dahlin.

Looking at anchoring from another angle: Player A is 23. He has put up career highs of 32 goals and 68 points. He’s got 89 points in 106 games over the past 2 years. Player B is 24. He has put up career highs of 38 goals and 68 points. He’s got 82 points in 116 games over the past 2 years. Player A is touted by many as franchise centre, with the possibility of a 100-point season in his future. Player B is being talked about by many as a major risk to hit 60 points again. The difference between the 2 is basically 2019 when Elias Pettersson’s Calder Trophy season fixed him in the minds of most as a superstar in the making, and Tage’s Thompson awkward toe drags while ROR was winning the Conn Smythe fixed him in the minds of most as a terrible bust. Anchoring is a real thing.

@LGR4GM posted a while ago about “anchoring” and how once people’s initial impression is cemented it is very hard to move them off of it. Most of the criticisms I’ve seen of the Tage contract have very little to do about his game on the ice. They mostly amount to “I thought he was ***** before last year, so last year must have been a fluke. Look at his shooting %. He won’t repeat.” Development is rarely a straight line, but there is nothing unusual about a forward breaking out into what he is somewhere between 22-24, or after 200-300 NHL games and spending the next 6-8 years revolving around that level. Because of injury and Ralph, Tage never had that 40-point ”maybe he’s better than I thought” transition year statistically to show people, but clearly he spent 2019-21 getting stronger and getting better.

That's exactly how I described him, although Taro pointed out how Varada was actually a big producer as a prospect.

The Sabres signed a number of cheap bottom-of-the-lineup veterans last summer that Sabrespace collectively dubbed the JAGs: low-maintenance, good-guy space-fillers designed to buy time and not do much else. Most of them did exactly what they were signed to do. Vinnie was the exception, finishing 6th among forwards in goals, points/60 minutes and ES ice time, while basically breaking even as a puck possession player. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=130908 His efforts — alone among the Sabres UFA players — earned him a contract extension. That 1-year extension included a raise from $1 to $1.7 million. The money quotes? Granato: “We missed that guy that kind of drags others into the fight because he just plays at such a high pace. If you’re his two linemates and you’re not ready to play at a high pace, you’re either gonna hear from him or you’re not going to be able to keep up.” Hinostroza: “You don’t get to see the inside of the locker room and really how close-knit this team is and how close it is to being something really special. I think being a part of it is something really cool. This is a place I want to be. I don’t want to keep moving around. I want to be somewhere that I love and I love it here.” What do you expect from Vinnie Hinostroza? (Last year’s takes here):

Truly the one who will lead the (Sabre) dance. https://www.name-doctor.com/name-prokhor-meaning-of-prokhor-1936.html

And I’d say the pros lean towards offence and the cons toward defence, so you know which way most coaches will lean.

Well, if history means anything, the chances of Thompson slipping back into being a career 20-goal scorer are pretty slim. 17 other Sabres have scored 35 or more goals in a single season. 15 of them hit 30 at least 4 times in their career. Mogilny: 8 30-goal seasons, 473 career goals Gare:: 8 25-goal seasons, 354 career goals Lafontaine: 9 30 goal seasons, 468 career goals Martin: 8 30 goal seasons, 384 career goals Perreault: 13 25-goal seasons, 512 career goals Vanek: 8 25 goal seasons, 383 career goals Andreychuk: 13 25 goal seasons, 640 career goals Foligno: 9 25 goal seasons, 468 career goals Turgeon: 9 30 goal seasons, 515 career goals Robert: 6 25 goal seasons, 284 career goals Satan: 9 25 goal seasons, 363 career goals Skinner: 7 24 goal seasons, 298 career goals Sheppard: 9 24 goal seasons, 357 career goals Drury: 5 23 goal seasons, 255 career goals McKegney: 9 23-goal seasons, 320 career goals Eichel: 5 24 goal seasons, 153 career goals Hawerchuk: 10 30 goal seasons, 518 career goals The 2 that didn't/haven't were Eichel and Drury. Eichel is the only one without at least 250 career goals. It seems that when a Sabre scores as well as Thompson did this year, he's likely to keep scoring.

I’m intrigued in seeing where his game is at camp. Last year, they were hoping he’d take the job and ended up with the worst camp of the four. This year, it feels like they’ve already got him ticketed to Rochester. I wonder if he can change some minds.