dudacek

Even for Boston?

Seems to me i saw this reported somewhere too, but it's not accurate. it's less than half the number of wins Donnie Edwards put up in his rookie season, and actually ranks 6th all-time https://www.nhl.com/stats/goalies?aggregate=0&reportType=season&seasonFrom=19691970&seasonTo=20222023&gameType=2&playerPlayedFor=franchise.19&isRookie=1&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=wins,savePct&page=0&pageSize=50

Yeah, the Mitts one is interesting because he is a very good player but he and Vic were a mess together. i don't recall Victor and Cozens playing together much, but I think Dylan is about to emerge as a guy who makes his linemates better. I also am very much intrigued by the idea of a Krebs/Olofsson/Greenway 3rd line. On paper I can't think of three non-elite players with better matching skilsets, in that they each seem to fill the holes in the others.

When was the last time we've had a forward as entertaining as Tage? He always looked skilled, but it's hard to believe this is the same player we watched in 2019 — the confidence and authority with which he handles and shoots the puck. I think his physical presence is highly underrated on Sabrespace. Neither he, nor Tuch beat people up, but they are both so massive and difficult to match up with, and they play hard.

Isn't Olofsson highly likely to get ice time with some pretty good players this year?

Ottawa and Buffalo are in roughly the same spot and are going to be nipping at each others heels for years. Each has pretty much all the necessary core pieces in place now. The team with the better depth and better goaltending will emerge this year, but the seeds are there for a long-term back-and-forth rivalry. Detroit could hang with them this year because of their excellent veteran depth, but long-term they do not appear have the core players to match up with the other 2. Really Seider is their only star. Thompson Stutzle Larkin Tuch Tkachuk Raymond Skinner Giroux Debrincat Cozens Norris Copp Dahlin Chabot Seider Power Sanderson Wallman Levi Korpisalo Husso

It was the perception among some at the start of last season that the year was a largely about seeing who among the current roster fit into the team’s long-term plans, and how. It was the perception of more by the end of the year – despite a career-high 28 goals — that for Victor Olofsson the answer was ‘not him, not now”. Too many lengthy droughts where he didn’t bring enough in the other areas of the game, combined with crunch-time healthy scratches seemed to have sealed the deal. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=142605 Do people know that over the past 4 seasons Olofsson has scored more goals than Evgeny Malkin, Anze Kopitar, Brock Boeser and Jack Eichel? That his production is very similar over that period to that of Jordan Kyrou, Jesper Bratt, Travis Konecny and PL Dubois? Do they know he was tied for 48th in ES goals for the entire NHL last year, and is a positive possession player for his career? Most of us expected Victor to be traded before the season got underway, but the Jack Quinn injury may have put a damper on those plans. There is certainly a spot available in the middle six. Can he take advantage? Will he be given the opportunity? What do you expect from Olofsson this year? (Last year’s takes here)

Remember almost exactly one year ago, when all we were talking about was the wisdom (or lack thereof) of signing big #72 to a 7-year, $50 million contract? Tage erased any and all questions with the 13th-most productive season in Buffalo Sabres history. Only 4 men have ever scored more goals in a season in a Sabres jersey and none in the past 30 years. Thompson parlayed one of the most impressive highlight reels of anyone in recent memory to a spot on the periphery of most NHL “10 best centre’ lists. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=177831 People talk about his injury hampering him down the stretch. The raw numbers show a player who finished the year with 6 goals and 14 points while compiling a -10 over his final 19 games. If he wants to cement the elite player talk, he’s going to have to prove the final month wasn’t a product of a more prepared, determined opposition. And he’s going to have to improve his play in those areas that aren't about creating offence. What do you expect from Thompson this year? (Last year’s takes here)

He's such a likable kid, he's got great tools and he competes. I wouldn't say I expect him to take a leap, but his history and his circumstance make it seem more likely than not.

I just can't get past how easily Bryson gets overpowered. For most of his 1st 2 years he would tease me that his feet were good enough to compensate, but last year they did not. And he brings no offence whatsoever. I just don't think there's room for him as a regular on a good NHL blueline corps, even one as potentially top-heavy as ours. As a spare part he's probably as good as any, but I think I'd rather have Stillman's bite.

You’re absolutely right. It’s ridiculous that anyone could possibly be bothered by a bunch of obnoxious Leaf fans coming into their home and treating it like their own. I can’t believe we’re even talking about it.

Are there actually NHL teams with a 7-8-9 significantly better than Stillman-Bryson-Clague? Boston has Mitchell-Regula-Lohrei. Florida is rolling out Reilly-Carlsson-Kiersted. Isnt 7-8-9 usually “yuck” by definition?

This is so far removed from the topic at hand - giving Sabre fans first crack at tickets over the fans of other teams - that it should almost be another thread.

It’s not hard to understand: we don’t have a problem with Leaf fans in our building, we have a problem with them taking over the building and ruining our in-game experience. We are powerless to prevent it and appreciate that the team is taking steps to protect us. Ive explained why “ice a better team” is overly simplistic upthread and I’m not going to repeat myself.

Clague was #7 in games played for the D last year with 33. Fitzgerald, 23, Stillman 18 and Pilut 17 were 8, 9, 10 The previous year it went Miller 38, Butcher, 37, and Fitzgerald 32. Bryson was actually #2 that year, after Dahlin.

While I’d have to agree with the bold, I don’t know that you’re seeing the point: the issue here is not preventing 2 or 3,000 opposition fans from showing up, it’s not allowing 12 or 13,000 of them to take over the building like they did last year.

So maybe the plan should be exempting those nearby Canadian postal codes that traditionally buy tickets when the Leafs aren’t in town, or implementing the policy only for Leaf games?

The plan is unfinished. As proposed, it doesn’t affect their season-ticket holder base at all. And it doesn’t even prevent those North of the border from buying tickets, it just makes them wait until the last-minute. Basically all it is attempting to do is make sure the local market has an extended opportunity to fill the arena before opening the gates to the invading Huns.

It’s not hard to get tickets for a Leaf game because the Sabres suck, it hard because there is an extra 5 million Leaf fans competing to get those tickets.

There will always be the fans of a visiting team; they exist in every market and it’s their only chance to see their team. There might be 500,000 Leafs fans within an hour of Vancouver compared to 2 million Canuck fans and 5000 Sabre fans. That’s a helluva lot different than the 2000 Canuck fans 2 million Sabres fans and 5 million Leafs fans within an hour of Buffalo. (Yes, my numbers are made up, but you get my point.) Your stance smacks of “why can’t the poor just get a job, then they won’t be poor any more.”

Maybe, but I don’t think there were 5 million Sabres fans within an hour of their arena. This is more about geography than demographics.

So much this, even if it makes things tougher for this Canadian fan to get tickets. The Florida/Carolina stuff is a false comparison because there is volume issue here that doesn’t exist there: there are literally more Leafs fans within an hour of the game than there are Sabres fans, which creates for those Leaf games a completely different market. That won’t change if the Sabres are good and the Leafs are bad. I don’t want those ***** in my building regardless of what it means to the bottom line of the team or that of the season tIcket holders, and I’m glad the Sabres brass at least recognizes that and agrees.

Statistically, a regression makes sense. Last year's numbers read like an anomaly over what history teaches to expect. But I'm going with the eye test and my sense that Tuch better fits the 'right place, right time" profile and will continue to do what he did last year as long as the team around him gives him the same support and his coach uses him in the same way. Tuch had only played 300 NHL games prior to last season and very few of those with any kind of leadership expectations. True character reveals itself under pressure and what we saw last year is who Tuch is.

Did anybody notice that JJ Peterka went through a 22-game stretch between Dec. 31 and Feb.26 where he managed zero goals and just 2 assists? It largely flew under the radar as it happened while the team was on a 14-7-2 run that seemingly put them firmly into the playoff race. When most people think of Peterka’s rookie year, they think more about a handful of highlight-reel connections with Cozens and Quinn, the overall production that was the 7th-most by a U21 Sabre in 20 years, and a stellar World Championship where he had 12 points in 10 games and was named the tournament’s best forward. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=226507 Don Granato put up with a lot of inconsistency from Peterka last year that might not be on the menu in year two with winning taking precedence over development. While he was nominally the left wing on the team’s 2nd line, JJ ranked 10th in ice time among team forwards. An opportunity exists for much more — consider the void left by the Jack Quinn injury and the open question as to who is the team’s #3 winger — but one suspects it won’t be handed to him. The -15 sticks out, but he was a relatively neutral possession player 5-on-5, while being only moderately sheltered. Peterka has finished each of his past two seasons on a high note on prominent hockey stages and has demonstrated real growth every year since being drafted. What do you expect from Peterka this year? (Last year’s takes here)

In the space of a little over three weeks, Bryson went from being perceived as a serviceable young NHL bottom-pairing defenceman, to being the unanimous whipping boy for Buffalo fandom. Other Sabres defenders got hurt, Bryson got elevated into the top 4, and promptly went -14 in an 11-game stretch right about the same time the Sabres lost 8 games in a row. Although he stabilized to the tune of going ‘just’ -9 the rest of the way, he never really recovered and became a frequent healthy scratch. From November on, the Sabres went 3-9 in games he played more than about 16 minutes, and 20-18 in those games he played less. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=187489 Surprisingly enough, Bryson was a tad over the magic 50% for his 5-on-5 Corsi last year despite his abysmal +/-. And it is hard to remember he was a relatively neutral performer over his 1st NHL season-and-a-half before his horrendous fall of 2022. Was he the victim of a bad month, under horrible circumstances, or was he exposed as a minor-leaguer who got off to a fortunate NHL start? The Sabres clearly liked him, given that unexpected $1.8 million deal he signed a year ago, but they clearly also aren’t going to count on a bounceback, acquiring three new defenders since the deadline. He opens camp as the #8 on most depth charts. What do you expect from Bryson this year? (Last year’s takes here)