dudacek

Yes and no. Yes, I am giving 50 per cent of the weight to last year and 50 per cent of the weight to this year. What would you do instead and why? And no, every single player did not have a career year last year. Tuch, Thompson and Cozens did. As GA points out, Zucker had a bit of an outlier as well. Peterka had a career year this year, and Dahlin and Greenway less-dramatic ones. Quinn got hurt and the others are rookies or basically the same year-to-year. Again, I am not saying "this is what I think these players will get" I'm simply presenting numbers, mostly based on the past two seasons.

This is all reasonable, but it's not really what I'm going for here. There is no projected explosion from Benson or Thompson, or huge regression from Peterka and Dahlin in my post: there's none of the bold going on with this one: it's strictly a numbers thing based on what the players have done in the recent past.

I figured people might point to Tage and say "too much weight to one flukey season". That was kinda my perception before I ran the numbers. But if you pull it back another year, he scored exactly 38 goals that year — that's his average three seasons running. That's a pretty significant sample size for NHL hockey. No idea on the fudge factor. I strictly pulled last year's Sabres team, no idea what is typical, but it didn't seem out of whack. And to be clear, the flip side is also true for injuries. Had Quinn been healthy last year the fudge number would likely be lower, but the Quinn number would probably be correspondingly higher. How do you come up with 253?

I was using "expected" here more as a median. Not sure what would be a better word. Over/under? What is a reasonable figure for this group that's neither optimistic, nor pessimistic based on their track records, and how should we determine it? Obviously, there are way too many variables to expect anything.

The question about whether this team still has enough offence is an interesting one. I crunched some numbers. Looking at the current starting 18, the Sabres have 10 guys who have been around long enough to have a reasonable track record. For these guys, I simply averaged their past 2 seasons as a moderate guesstimate for what we could expect this year. Thompson 38 Tuch 29 Cozens 24 Zucker 21 Greenway 8 Lafferty 12 Aube-Kubel 5 Dahlin 17 Jokiharju 3 Clifton 5 The other 8 are harder because they don’t really have reliable track records because of youth and/or injury. For these guys, I mostly leaned toward last year’s totals but extrapolated some based on goals per game and previous years totals. Quinn 22 Peterka 24 Benson 11 Krebs 8 Malenstyn 6 Power 6 Byram 12 Samuelsson 2 Finally, teams get contributions throughout the year from players outside their 18 starters. Last year, forwards outside the Sabres top 12 and D outside their top 6 contributed 20 goals, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that will happen again. The team, as constituted above, can reasonably be expected to score 273 goals, which is 29 more than last year and would have been good for 10th in the NHL. There’s no guarantees, obviously - the above doesn’t account for devastating injuries or big breakout seasons. And there’s a new coach, which will mean a different system and different deployments. But there is nothing there that seems out of whack with what these players have produced before, the vast majority of them in similar roles. What have I missed?

I had no idea. 33 career fights. 19 for Aube-Kubel, 12 for Lafferty, 13 for Malenstyn, according to hockeyfights.com

He went to the net chasing loose pucks. How many times do you remember him driving the net with the puck, shoulder first against a defender? How many times hard without the puck with a man on him off the rush trying to beat the guy to the post, or create a lane for the trailer? How many times eating crosschecks to create a screen or a tip? He goes to net when the puck is there and he has a gap to exploit. His game is about creating chances for Jeff. It’s an asset and he’’s good at what he does, but his net game is mostly lurk and lunge. He doesn’t supply the other elements of the net front game that I think @triumph_communes is referring to.

The question then becomes where does he pivot? Mangiapane, Faksa, Joseph, Reilly Smith… all available at prices he could have paid. It’s not like he couldn’t have overpaid another free agent like he did Zucker. When a door closes, it’s his job to find to find another. You've heard him say it: try to get better every single day.

Byram is entering into the final year of his contract, but he will be just a restricted free agent next summer. He is under Sabre control for at least 3 more years.

@Thorny you might get a new first-round pick every year, but the odds are pretty damn good you are going to get more than 82 games out of 4 of them. This is a steep price for a signed Ehlers. Look at the prices paid for Sergachev, Fiala, Reinhart, and many others of similar value. It sounds like Adams was prepared to pay exactly the type of overpay you want him to pay: lose the trade to get the player. Paying that price for a rental would be ludicrous.

😁

Hockey reference is showing him a -3 on expected goals, and -1 on actual ES goal differential. His Corsi is -0.3. Those are his Buffalo numbers only. If he's a train wreck in his own zone on whatever metric you saw, he must be pretty much exactly the opposite at the other end.

Taking it a step further, here's Casey's stat line as an Av versus Bo's as a Sabre. They each played 18 games. Mittelstadt: 4/6/10 -2 Byram: 3/6/9 -1 This perception some people seem to have that Casey starred for the Avs and Byram sucked for Buffalo is bizarre to me.

Yep. We're the only two people who ever seem to discuss Bowen Byram on here except GA when he's portraying him as a latter-day David Cooper. The context here is the above discussion about in/out and the effectiveness of Byram versus Erik Johnson. Johnson paced for a 5-point 80-game season as a Sabre. Byram paced for 15 goals and 40 points. Johnson was relied on for less than 14 minutes a night and had a relative Corsi of -17%. In Byram's nearly 22 minutes a night he posted +1% Even "disappointing" Bo Byram was light years better than Erik Johnson

The only thing I saw was a report in one of those generic "hockey rumours" sites that read like it was written by AI. No one was quoted and the only source cited was literally "rumours say"

Apparently not 😁

How come in the steady stream of crying over spilt Mitts, nobody ever talks about the other shift that went with it? We upgraded Erik Johnson to Bowen Byram. In my view, we have downgraded our 3rd line, but in the process upgraded our 2nd and 3rd pairs. (We also upgraded that “harder, faster” team identity theme that has continued to play out this summer) I guess remembering that Byram exists has become my Sabrespace thing.

If there are no other additions should there be an open competition in training camp with Helenius, Savoie and Kulich to elbow aside Krebs? Or is it essential that Krebs get the job because of his experience? What will break first, @Thorny’s unbendable guideline that this team cannot, under any circumstances, put even more rookies in the lineup, or his unquenchable distaste for Krebs (and his tattoo) in the 3C role?

Adams said he expects him on the NHL roster. 🤷 I see him as splitting time with Bryson as the 7, but there’s no way anyone cracks the current top 6 without a trade.

I like how they followed through on the philosophical decisions of: faster, harder, more accountable. I struggle to see how the roster on paper is better because the talent level appears worse and the profiles of the new additions are low. That said Skinner, Girgensons, Olofsson and Okposo combined for 51 goals last year, Zucker, Lafferty, Malenstyn and Aube-Kubel had 39, so maybe it’s not as bad as it feels? I also fully expect more productive seasons from the vast majority of holdover players given the track records of some and the youth of most. Yet I struggle mightily to reconcile management’s inability to use the considerable resources still at their disposal to improve their roster. I believe another shoe should drop, it almost has to. Yet it’s hard shake the feeling that it won’t. Probably time to step out of armchair GM mode and just watch the next 2 months until prospects camp unfold.

Good find. Thanks for posting. It felt like that’s what was going on, but seeing it like that really drives it home.

Don't mistake my argument as saying Adams has to "win" or even "break even" value-wise on every deal. My argument in the post you quoted was twofold: That I perceive Chevy's situation and "market value" adding up to "we haven't seen his final offer" Adams needs to do his due diligence in maximizing any potential deal he is negotiating. Its impossible to have a good discussion about whether or not Adams should just pay the current price when we don't know what the price is.

I hope to god you aren’t repeating 3rd or 4th hand that AI-generated pap that was quoted elsewhere on the site? Or, I guess more accurately I hope you are. 😁

You sound like you’re selling me a limited-time offer on a time share. My goal is not making the playoffs at all costs and if it was, I don’t believe Ehlers is my only path to get there. Do you believe we should be acquiring Ehlers at all costs, or that Adams should pay whatever is asked without negotiation? Desperation is a bad look and a bad strategy.

If Ehlers is going to UFA regardless, Chevy is better off trading him this summer than having to make that call at the deadline while in the playoff race. If I’m Adams, I’m betting on that and not caving July 3 with a huge overpay. In that context, I’m thinking of what Adams said (paraphrase) about “If we’re not making a fair offer then why hasn’t the player been moved?” Sounds to me like he believes that right now his offer (on at least one trade) is the best offer. If it’s also a fair offer, and the player needs to be moved, he’s right to hold for now. It will be a long time before the season starts.