dudacek

Tonight was kinda the Sabres season in microcosm: They were the better team 5-on-5. The PK failed them when they needed it The PP failed them when they needed it Tuch, Thompson and Dahlin provided offence The rest of the team did not provide enough Dylan Cozens turned what should have been a routine play into a high-risk play that eventually ended up in our net Our goalie failed to make a save when he had to it was close but the Sabres found a way to lose Not really related, but I'm so disappointed in Lindy; he's brought nothing to this team.

Pettersson is to 1st-line centres right now as Dylan Cozens is to 2n-line centres.

Alex Tuch is better player than Elias Pettersson right now and has been all season. Anyone saying differently has not watched the Canucks play very often. Tuch’s counting stats are pretty much identical to Brady Tkachuk’s and his analytics are better. I think he’s the latest to fall victim to “Sam Reinhart syndrome” around here: the old “we don’t win so our top players aren’t good” thinking. I do think that Tuch is much more of a potential flight risk than Bowen Byram in terms of the potential for long-term signing: older guy more cognizant of the limited time he has left in pro hockey, with more leverage in terms of dictating where he goes and how much you’ll have to pay to keep him. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s moved in that context. And Jim Rutherford would take Tuch straight across for Petersson’s contract, play, and attitude in a heartbeat right now. I guarantee it.

Shh.. Lets pretend he’s not the 10th-highest scoring RW in the NHL over the past 3 seasons while being a consistent plus player over that span, unlike 5 of the nine guys ahead of him. He’s put up 184 points An above-average 2nd line RW has maybe cracked 100 points in that span. An average 3rd liner has about 50. https://www.nhl.com/stats/skaters?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20222023&seasonTo=20242025&gameType=2&position=R&sort=points,a_gamesPlayed&page=0&pageSize=50 Sabres suck. Alex Tuch is a very good hockey player, who as also been a good Sabre.

It's a statistical evaluation built around the team's linchpin forward. From the article: We’ll begin by identifying every team’s No. 1 center as a proxy for the first line and then examining the results when that player is on the ice. There will be exceptions for teams whose top center has moved up and down the lineup, as opposed to staying fixed on the first line, or has missed significant time with injury. In those cases, we chose a winger to represent his team’s top-line minutes (e.g. Kirill Marchenko for Columbus, Mitch Marner for Toronto, David Pastrnak for Boston, etc). To measure performance, we’ll look at the goals for and against differential when that first line is deployed at five-on-five. As an example, it means we’re looking at how many goals Edmonton scores and how many it allows with Connor McDavid on the ice at even strength. So both offence and defence. It's 'best' in terms of how much the line has outscored the opposition on a per 60 basis. There's a built-in assumption that these are the lines the opposing coach is most concerned about and generally trying to match up against.

I’ve been thinking that lost in this painful season has been the fact that Tage Thompson has been having a fine year. Apparently it’s been better than I thought. The Athletic has published a piece ranking the NHL’s best first lines based on 5-on-5 goals for and against differential over 60. As the thread says, Buffalo ranks 6th. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6160282/2025/02/27/nhl-top-lines-2024-2025-analysis/ Buffalo Sabres It is almost hard to believe the Sabres rank this high and are still nowhere close to the playoff race. Buffalo’s first line has piled up 3.91 goals for per 60, which is the second-highest rate among all top lines. Tage Thompson’s huge bounce-back has been the main driver — he leads the NHL with 22 five-on-five goals despite having played several fewer games than the players right behind him. Thompson’s linemates have fluctuated — Alex Tuch, JJ Peterka, Jason Zucker and Jiri Kulich have all gotten looks — but most have supported him well. The Sabres’ underwhelming second line (Dylan Cozens and Jack Quinn have had miserable years), woeful 27th-ranked power play, poor defensive play, subpar goaltending and below-average penalty kill are some of the reasons the club is so far out of the playoff conversation despite its top line clicking at a strong level.

They're family.

The Tuch comparisons are apt in my view, because their physical gifts are very similar. Tuch is a far better player (underrated in my view) because he forces turnovers instead of gifting them to the other team, wins a majority of his contested pucks, and makes smart decisions, with and without the puck. Cozens plays with a little more snark. Minus that, Tuch is what Cozens could (should?) be.

The bold is right there in my first paragraph 😁 I was a little surprised to see the Sabres have only lost twice outright (with 2 OT losses) when leading after 2 this year. It felt like more. I wonder how much responsibility Ruff owns for that. When he took over it was a stated goal to teach the team how to finish games. He's .810 (17-2-2) when leading after 2, good for 24th in the league. Granato was 53-1-5 over the 2 previous years, .898 and good for 4th overall.

I'll bite. He is 6'3" right-handed centre who competes hard and can skate and shoot the puck at speeds in the upper 3rd to quarter of the league. The concept of Cozens ticks a lot of scouting boxes. Too bad about his ability to use those tools.

Hard to fathom given our lived experience, but the Sabres are a slightly above average ES team. They are 14th in Shot attempt % They are 12th (at +10) in ES goal differential. They are 3rd in the NHL in goals for at 5on5. Their goals against 5on5 isn't good (21st) but it is almost identical to Carolina and Vegas. Individually they have a number of players that stack up well Dahlin is 4th and Byram 14th in ES points by defencemen. Tage is tied with Jack Hughes and Artemi Panarin, ahead of players like Nylander, Reinhart and Point. JJ Peterka's ES production is the similar to Austin Matthews Ryan McLeod is comparable to Anton Lundell, Alex Tuch to Tim Stutzle and Sebastian Aho Jason Zucker's numbers echo Mark's Stone's, albeit in more games played All five of those Sabre forwards are among the league's top 80 in ES points. All seven of those players save Peterka (-3) are + hockey players; the Sabres are winning the battle 5 on 5 when they are on the ice. Basically, we have three players in significant roles who are failing 5-on-5: Cozens Quinn and (defensively only) Power So why do we suck? Our PK is -32 this year, good for 23rd in the NHL. Our PP is +22, good for 26th We've allowed 18 goals when the opponent pulls the goalie, 1 off the league worst. We've scored just 7 empty netters, good for 25th Basically, we're fine overall playing 5-on-5, but we're a disaster in most areas when we're not.

If you look at the 64ish NHL centres getting middle six ice time (15:40 to 19:10 per game) McLeod ranks 40th in points, 9th in plus/minus Mittelstadt is 35th in points, 57th in plus/minus Cozens is 50th in points, 61st in plus/minus McLeod has been one of the league's best 3rd-line centres. Cozens and Mittlestadt two of its worst 2nd-line centres

Lot of bitching about Adams not acquiring the right players to surround his kids with. i don’t think that’s exactly right. Byram has been a good sidekick for Dahlin. McLeod has been a good 3C. Zucker has been everything they were hoping for in the middle six. He overpaid for Malenstyn, but the guy is what you want in a 4th line winger. The issue is the kids themselves: this management team expected UPL, Samuelson, Power, Cozens, Quinn and Peterka to be rounding out a playoff core by now. None have been better than middling contributors and all save maybe Peterka have been below average at best for where they should be relative to their roles.

And before anyone jumps on me, I’m not drawing any conclusions other than the Sabres are indeed playing firewagon hockey and for a longer period and a higher degree than the OP suggests

I dont think you guys are paying enough attention. Since the end of 13 games that crushed their season, the Sabres have been the highest-powered offence in the league. Over the last 2 months - 21 games - they lead the league with 3.86 goals per game. Only 8 teams are averaging even 3.10. Caps are 2nd at 3.6 and the Jets 3rd at 3.5. Over that same span they are 24th in goals against https://www.nhl.com/stats/teams?reportType=game&dateFrom=2024-12-22&dateTo=2025-02-23&gameType=2&sort=goalsForPerGame&page=0&pageSize=50

Your work on this has been exemplary over the past year. Appreciate the effort you've put in. What my eye test has shown is how often plays have died when the puck is on the stick of Cozens and Quinn: bad passes, pucks skated into traffic. Defencemen look bad because pucks that should exit the zone don't and they have to defend more than they should. Forwards look bad because they get stuck in no man's land when a puck unexpectedly turns over or doesn't go where it should and the play is launched in another direction. I think there is a pretty good case to be made that if the Sabres had a more reliable "2nd line" that wasn't weighing everyone else down and a good power play they'd be in the playoff race. Those two are certainly prominent in both those areas.

Curious how often you’ve watched him play?

So sad what the franchise has sown.

The question of what kind of contract he should get is another conversation entirely. There is no debate that Byram benefits from playing with Dahlin. Every player does. I suspect that if Byram and Power traded roles they'd also trade results, because the drop-off from Dahlin to Samuelsson, Jokiharju and Clifton is considerable. But as good as Dahlin is, it's false to suggest that being his partner is "easy"; he's unpredictable, takes risks, plays a ton, and against the opponent's best players. A lot of NHL players would be in over their heads. Out here on the West Coast, I'm reminded of how Quinn Hughes boosts everybody and Filip Hronek does not. But Hronek is good enough to play off Hughes and Hughes/Hronek tends to give you the best of both players. Players can only be judged by how well they've performed in the role they've been given. Byram has been given a prominent and important role and played it well. And Dahlin has played some of his best hockey with Byram as his partner. The Sabres don't need to move on from Byram or Power — those aren't the spots that are broken. They need to round out their top 4 by acquiring the player Samuelsson was supposed to be.

I’d look for seravalli’s actual quote and context first before worrying too much about it. That article provides neither a link, nor a direct quote. Seravalli is hit and miss. Yard barker has no credibility at all. I always thought the best way to judge what a team thinks about a player is to look at his ice time. Byram has played more minutes than any player on the Sabres this season by a pretty wide margin, and is 2nd to Dahlin in TOI per game. Draw your own conclusions. Not sure when expected goals became the final arbiter of a player’s worth. He’s also +8 despite playing some of the hardest minutes on a last-place team, while sitting tied for 7th in the entire NHL in ES points by a defenceman, with 27. His peers in the latter stat are Theodore, Morrisey, Karlsson, Dahlin, Toews, Hedman, Fox and Carlson who are all between 29 and 24. If you are literally using “hasn’t been great” to mean “he’s no Dahlin” then I agree. But to the point of the post, Byram is having a career year and has been the Sabres 3rd or 4th best player. If the team is disappointed in his play, what the hell did they think they were getting?

I don’t think people fully grasp what kind of contracts this escalation will bring. Saw elsewhere that in terms of a percentage of the cap, the numbers Zdeno Chara signed for in his big deal with the Bruins in an escalating cap world will equate to $16.3M this summer. In the first year of his $8.3M 7-year deal, Owen Power is making 9.5% of the cap. Part of the reason that looks bad right now is because three years ago that deal, under a mostly flat cap, was worth maybe $8.5M in today’s dollars and we’ve gotten used to that world. But three years from now, that will translate to just $6M in today’s dollars. Inflation is going to make a lot of players very wealthy over the next few summers.

Yes, exactly my point when it comes to Byram.

If you want to know what Byram has actually said, you'll find things like this: “(The contract) can be stressful,” Byram said. “People that don’t admit to that or don’t say that are probably lying in my opinion. It’s a big part of your life. It really is our entire lives. Wherever you’re signed, it’s where you’re living, it’s where you’re playing, it’s where your family is coming to visit, it’s where your spouse is living most of the time. I just try to stay present in the moment and enjoy what I’m doing and enjoy the people you’re doing it with.” “I feel like you have that here,” Byram said. “Good blue-collar, hardworking people. On top of that, it’s just really easy living. You go to some places on the road and you’re in traffic all day. I’m lucky to not have to deal with that here. It’s pretty low-key. I really like that about Buffalo. I feel like it fits my lifestyle. I have a lot of good things to say. You never really know what you’re getting into when you go somewhere new, but I’ve loved it here so far to be honest with you.” “At the end of the day, (the contract)’s not really up to me in a lot of circumstances. I’m more so focused on playing hockey and playing at my best. Things will take care of themselves. I’m just mostly focused on playing. But at the same, it’s always kind of in your head when you’re on an expiring deal. I love it here and don’t have anything negative to say. We’ll see how things shake out.”

"There's a belief that..." OK. Now find me one with Byram saying those things.