LGR4GM

Here is your claim "all 3 players (Cozens, JJP, Quinn) have made mistakes/been out of position more than most other forwards on the team allowing prime chances and goals against." So since I am "more worried about making your point than you are about seeing what is real" and "You just apparently do not want to admit when you are wrong" and " is you just ignoring reality because reality doesn't support your case. I can't argue/discuss this anymore with someone who's head is in the clouds about an issue just because it doesn't fit their narrative" let us examine your claim. There are several ways to do this but let's start easy. All numbers are courtesy of natural stat trick or elite prospects. First let us take a look at the list of goals against in all situations for the Sabres. Cozens actually is at the top of that list (you are right! huzzah) with 34ga in all situations. Peterka is 11th with 18ga. Now Jack Quinn wrecks the "all 3 most other" point because he sits at 19th with 11ga. This is out of 21 qualifying players who have played 10 or more games. Second let us take the raw numbers and put them in context because GA is one metric but GF is the other and players with more toi will likely have a few more goals against. These numbers are for all situations so every second of ice time regardless of PP/EV/PK To do this we get a percentage of gf%. Jack Quinn is 2nd on the team with a 67.65%. JJP is 6th with a 58.14%. Cozens is 10th with a 52.11% and Cozens is the last player out of the 21 who has a gf% over 50 meaning more goals are scored when they are on the ice and under 50 is less. Quick note before moving away from raw goal counts. Cozens has been on the ice for 4 empty net goals against and 3 for so that doesn't really change his numbers much. Third, let us look at Cozens, JJP, and Quinn as a line, the full CPQ line at 5v5. They have only 92 minutes together (5v5) thus far which is a little light still but again we are examining where they stand. They have 9gf and 7ga but what interests me here is the xgf and xga numbers. Those show us an 8.16xgf and a 4.42xga suggesting that they are producing about a 1/3 more (64.86%) chances for themselves than they give up and that is impressive for a 21, 21, and 20 year old in the NHL. Since we went with "most other forwards" let us compare to the top line of the Sabres and then Olofsson and Mitts for poops and laughs. Tage, Tuch, Skinner have played 194 minutes together and have 13gf and 8ga against at 5v5. What is interesting is that their xgf and xga numbers show us 12.1xgf and 11.06xga which comes out to 52.24% and that is far below the 64.86% we see with the CPQ line even if they have a slight advantage in real goal differential. My guess is that Tage and Skinner's shooting abilities are part of the reason where as Cozens shot issues are somewhat known at this point and Quinn went through a weird slump before his recent breakout. Now the fun one... Olofsson and Mitts (Im not including a 3rd person here because they rotate that 3rd a lot). The 2 players have been on the ice together for 206minutes and in that time... my god. They are 3gf and 11ga but do have a slightly better xgf% at 6.87% with a 10.7%xga. So they are almost exactly at the xga with 11 v 10.7 compared to the young guns line that has 2.5 more goals against then they should by xgf (yes real goals count just looking at context). That results in a stunning xgf% of 39.10% which is shockingly awful. The short version would be that while the CPQ creates 64.86% of the offense when on ice the MO line creates only 39.10%. Again the xgf stuff is all at 5v5 because I think that is what we are really looking at and talking about. So where does that leave us? Well, I actually don't disagree with you as much as you think about Cozens playing a little outside of himself at times. I think he has been out of position at times but overall that isn't the case. He has some things to clean up in his own end for sure. JJP is a middle of the road guy on this team who is not worst than most forwards and is basically average with improvement clearly visible. Jack Quinn is one of the best forwards on this team. He is highly adept at shutting down other teams and creating chances. He is probably better than Cozens in some ways and will overtake him IMPO. Combined, in their 92minutes of 5v5 ice time, this line is not and has not been worst than most forwards. In fact they are better than the Tage line, and so superior to the Mitts line that comparing the 2 is laughable. Jack Quinn, John-Jason Peterka, and Dylan Cozens are not worse than most forwards on the team. All of them with or without eachother maintain a positive gf/ga ratio. At 5v5 overall (no regard for linemates) Jack Quinn is 1st on the team at xgf% with 61.34 and 3rd on the team in actual gf% with 61.54. JJP is 6th on the team with 55.04xgf% and 8th on the team in actual gf% with 55.26. Dylan Cozens is 4th on the team in xgf% with 55.49 (3rd if I ignore Jost) and tied with JJP at 55.26 for actual gf%. So yes it is objectively FALSE that they are "worst than most other forwards on the team" and in Jack Quinn's case, there might not be a better 200ft forward on this team right now. Conclusion, you think I don't believe you that Cozens has been out of position at times when in fact I do. He has some learning yet to do but generally speaking, Dylan is pretty good at stopping the opposition and getting the puck up ice. JJP is still a hair behind on some plays but I think that is a simple age learning curve issue and the game will continue to slow down for him. Jack Quinn has clicked, he is very efficient at stopping the opposing team, working up ice, creating chances. So for one last time, it is objectively false that "all 3 players (Cozens, JJP, Quinn) have made mistakes/been out of position more than most other forwards on the team allowing prime chances and goals against."

I'll bet you Owen Beck makes the team.

Give me an hour.

I feel oddly invested in this tale of finding this jersey before Christmas.

What a strange response. Oh yea, I knew I forgot someone. Joker should be back, he's been decent. Going ufa

This is just objectively false. Like stats, eye test, old testament, casting dice, divining the stars or with any other method it's wrong.

I'm sorry but no. The Cozens line is one of the best in the entire league at tilting the ice in favor of the Sabres. You wrote +/- but then ignore Quinn, jjp, and Cozens are all in the top 10 on this team in that stat. We aren't losing because that line isn't defensively around. In fact they are shockingly good at shot suppression and some exits.

I will do this for real now. No Kane and no Chychrun. Skinner - Tage - Tuch JJP - Cozens - Quinn Girgs - Jost - Asplund/Olofsson Savoie - Unknown player - Kulich/Weissbach/Outside addition Muel - Dahlin Power - Grans R. Johnson - Boosh Comrie Levi I trade Mitts and a late 2nd to LA for Helge Grans. Mitts give them a reclamation project who probably at the very least gives them some depth and the 2nd is the sweetner (they have a lot of defenders in LA). Levi signs and makes Buffalo out of camp. Weissbach gets promoted with Kulich not far behind. Savoie comes to Buffalo so they can work on his development but he will be on and off the active roster so Murray or someone else will also get added. They will have to add another C that is a veteran and good defensively. They also need 1 more defender but I bet Bryson or Fitz gets stays around. Bryson is signed for another year so he seems likely to be here.

One of the fun parts of Georgia winning last year was the journey to get there. At least the team entertains me now, under Krueger and Bylsma I was bored watching a flat boring style of hockey with lots of 1 note players and no personality who acted like cliche hockey bots.

We aren't allowed to enjoy the fun parts of the season. If they don't make the playoffs everything is a failure and anyone saying otherwise is a loser with a loser mentality. The second we make the playoffs this will shift to winning a playoff round and anything else we like makes us losers. As soon as we win a playoff series it will be win the conference and anything else we like is loser mentality, then it will be Stanley Cup or bust and if you enjoy any other part of the season you are an idiot and loser. I've enjoyed parts of this season and if that makes me an idiot with a loser mentality, cool. At least I am being entertained.

Hold up. You are changing the conversation. You said "they basically are out of options and career-minded front office types will not set foot in that organization" and now you are comparing the 32 jobs too eachother. Sure if I get offered the NYR gm versus the Sabres, I take the Rangers but that isn't how it works. There will be like 3 - 5 GM jobs this summer that open. So you don't get to compare it to 32 different spots because you might get offered 1 or 2 if you are the top dog. If I am GM McAwesome and I am looking I might have a couple of offers and once I am gone that job is gone so again there are only 32 jobs and if any of these guys trying to be GM get an offer they take it without another one on the table. Also you ignored ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL of the highly qualified and experienced ppl this org has hired since Adams became GM. For an org that is out of options they certainly have hired some highly qualified and respected ppl. Who got re-signed that you are worried about? This sounds like "if I don't see instant results, these ppl aren't the right ppl". Bingo

I think the talent level overall of the top 6 we have now is higher even if some of that is still measured in potential (which is a fickle biatch). There is more 200ft and unselfish players than before.

And then there is this. Buffalo's got Don Granato as coach who is highly respected around the league and even though this board has members who love to ignore this, the guy has 20 years of coaching experience. They have an analytics staff that is a who's who of the hockey analytics community. Their agm is well known commodity from a winning org. The goaltending coach likewise comes from 2 different winning orgs. One of their development coaches is one of the most successful undrafted players of the last 20 years.

Well that's just not accurate IMO. I think they will clear 80pts though so it is a moot point. The Adams statement here implies that they are stuck with Adams and that he isn't very good at his job. I have seen signs of mistakes but he often corrects them and actually has an articulated plan he is following. So far the jury is still out but he's been the most cohesive and adaptive GM since Darcy. You imply that they are out of options... there are 32 GM jobs in the world, whenever anyone implies no one will take a GM job, they are honestly full of it.

There may come a day, where the courage of men fails. But it is not this day!

Everybody but yet you can't provide one example of "everybody" saying this.

Prove yourself right.

I didn't see a thread yet for this but USA and Canada should be announcing teams today and Sweden tomorrow. Also, there is a lack of clarity if Savoie will go (I think he should)

When he signed his ELC, didn't go through this but could be some talk in there but again, that's just hope and excitement when someone signs. We want ppl to succeed.

2020 Mitts Contract Thread: No one is even talking anything close to 10mil I can't find his next contract conversation which would have been last year? I think. But in 2020 no one wanted him for 10mil a year, if some wanted that shortly after he was drafted, that's really just draft talk. We all hope our picks light it up.

I just want to mention that out of those 5 names, you can pick 2 that will bust and wash out as nothing more than replacement level. The odds of all 5 being good is low. We have seen some good signs from Kulich and Rosen this year. Östlund is hard to evaluate playing in Allsveskan but looks fine. Savoie has a dip in production which is hard to feel great about. Krebs has had a rough go. The good news? Kisakov, Poltapov, Neuchev, Bloom, Kozak, Nadeau should give us 1 other good forward (no idea which one) so that helps too. AND! We have 4 picks in the top 2 rounds in a deep draft so we could pull 1 other forward there. Basically by the start of 2025 we could have another 5 forwards that are middle 6 quality at least.

Well you would be trading Olofsson so something would be coming back. Yes, I believe that the Sabres have enough forward talent to make Olofsson expendable at this very second, let alone by the time the trade deadline rolls around or when next season does.

I got another RHD for the list of defenders in this draft... David Reinbacher, 6'2": https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/703646/david-reinbacher

In terms of draft language, he has multiple levels of manipulation he uses to create space for himself. It is a highly translatable skill once the game slows down.