mjd1001

These numbers I think are some of the best 'single number' metrics that determine how much you contribute to your team winning games (positive number) or how much your play contributes to losses (negative number). Of course, these are raw numbers...so situation isn't taken into consideration....but overall they provide a good snapshot as to who helps you win and who causes you to lose. For this far into the season...+10 is a very good number,-11 is....terrible. The Sabres have won 6 of the last 7, and in those games, Cozens was either even, or a plus in this category every single of those last 7 games. The team is a good team simply when Cozens doesn't 'suck'. If he can turn his game around, or if he is removed from the team entirely (traded), as much as it seems so simple....all evidence is the team is automatically a MUCH better team this year.

There are some fans who are a little late to acknowledge that. He isn't perfect, but when he does make a mistake they'll jump all over him "Look! he's bad defensively!" Very few players make no mistakes. But honestly, he is at least average in terms of not makign mistakes, but his size disrupts passing lanes and causes issues for other teams in the neutral zone in ways we don't always notice. Overall, Tage is average-to-good without the puck, and with the puck he is an elite NHL scorer. At $7m per yer, IF he can stay relatively healthy, one of the best bargains in the league. Or they could just simplify this and not call it the 'best lines' in the league based on one player...but just use the exact same metrics and rank the best players.

Its short sited. I posted this a few times in prevous threads, but to summarize what I said: I have 2 nieces, 1 nephew, our daughter and her fiancee who all watched the Sabres when they were growing up. They are all on their own now not one of them has a cable package. They hardly follow the team anymore, and when I talked to my nephew about it, its less about the team being bad and a lot more about them not being avaialble to watch. I told him you can get the spectrum package with MSG now where it is a little less exensive (you get to pick 10 channels of your choice, MSG is an option) and he laughed at that idea...there is just no way he's getting a cable package. A lot of these owners only know a world where the vast majority of thier 'customers' have cable. That has been, and continues to change. They ARE losing long term fans.

An interesting article to me: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2620934/sports-streaming-is-too-expensive-and-the-streamers-know-it.html Some highlights: Like a lot of streamers, the regional sports networks have underestimated peoples’ ability to tune out. In Utah, a subscription to watch local Jazz games still costs $20 per month, but you can also watch for free with an antenna. “The more people watch, the more people come to games, the more we sell in concessions, the more money we bring in with sponsorships,” Smith said. Comcast has stopped offering regional sports in its base packages to keep prices down. Meanwhile, a growing proportion of cord-cutters are realizing they don’t need pay TV bundles at all. It’s taken a couple years, but regional sports networks are starting to realize they charge too much to stream local games. NESN 360, which offers live streams of the Boston Red Sox and Bruins, just dropped its annual price from $330 to $240, while also throwing in four Red Sox tickets. Main Street Sports Group, which operates regional FanDuel Sports Network channels, has hinted at lower prices as well, and in some markets, local games stream for free or are available over-the-air with an antenna.

I'm with you on the politics, I can get that anywhere, but people like to bring it up, even if its to get in a little jab. I know the mods are busy, but when politics gets brought up in a thread, I wish it would be dealt with a lot quicker than it is.

Easier games? It depends on how long you consider a 'stretch'. I view it the other way...the next 2 weeks are pretty rough. After tonight, 7 games in the next 2 weeks (not a lot of time off) including Edmonton, Tampa, Detroit (who has one 8 of their last 10), Florida (and Vegas if you want to look out one game past the next 2 weeks).

Wasn't Housley at the time of his hire highly thought of around the league as a somewhat older, but up-and-coming head coach? I don't remember it that well, but I think I heard talk that it was thought he did such a good job as an assistant coach working with D-men (Nashville was it?) that even outside of Buffalo he was a 'hot candidate' for head coaching jobs.

Not too surprising to me at all. I posted this yesterday about Tage, but he is the best in the league in even strength goals per 60. Tops. No one is more dangerous goal scoring even strength than him. And that is even with him missing a few games and playing a few coming back from an injury. The issue with this team is the production/lack of defense so far this year form Cozens and Quinn. That is most of it. The rest of the team minus those 2, they are positive in goal differential, their low level and high level metrics are mostly positive. When Cozens DOES play even a little better (the last few weeks) the team has won 5 of 6. Tage is an elite goal scorer. This team IS a playoff level team when Cozens doesn't play, or if/when Cozens actually plays with his head on straight.

Right now the Sabres are 6th worst in the league, with odds saying they would draft 6th overall. They are a 3-4 game winning streak from moving to 10th overall. If they play slightly above .500 hockey the rest of the year, they have a realistic shot of dropping all the way to 12th.

Buffalo news for one. They ran an article earlier this year (the offseason) where he was involved in hockey related decisions.

Its pretty small, but I'm pretty sure they have a good number of F-18 super hornets...nothing like Russia has seen in combat.

Since the calendar flipped to 2025, he has played in 17 games and has 1 single goal. That goal was against Buffalo where he was set up about 10 feet away and had all day to pick his spot to shoot while UPL was down on the ice after scrambling around. There is something up with his game. I like Pettersson, I think he has so much talent but how could his scoring drop off so badly?

My whole point is when he is on the ice, he doesn't need to be the #1 center to drive the #1 line. He can be center, he can be wing with a different center....it doesn't matter where he line up, He is the guy that drives the line. The first line is 'set' with a healthy Tage on it. This team needs to focus on lines #2 and #3 centers.

Again, I'm not paying him based on his shooting percentage being that high. I'm paying him not to be a scorer. I'm paying him to be competent both ways...to give me a reliable 15 goals, with the potential for a handful for more., to be a pretty good penalty killer, and to be reliable as a 3rd line center with the potential to fill in 2nd line minutes in a crunch. When you have a Center that honestly, hardly makes any mistakes that hurt you and is only in their mid 20's....you bet that is the guy I'm going to pay. With the cap going up, $6m per year is going to be around 5.5-5.8% of the cap for most of that deal. When Cozens signed his deal was over 8% of the cap. Yep, $6m per year for what he has been giving you, even with less goals, for about 5.5-6% of the cap...I sure will do that. The sabers are as bad as they are for the past few years because they gave a long-term contract that was over 8% of the cap to a player that has actually hurt them. They also haven't spent cap room to bring in other quality players to compliment this team. Giving a contract to him for about 5.5-6% of the cap is nowhere near the mistake that those other two items are.

I'd disagree that he is not good defensively. Not "Good"? Well, he's not a shut down guy that will take the other teams top guy off the board, but he's not bad, not bad at all. He covers a lot of ground. He is not out of position all that much. Actually, I'd say his positioning is pretty darn good considering as the most dangerous offensive player on this team, I WANT him to be the one guy going in so deep into the opponents zone that he is likely to get back late. I don't go to many games, but when I do I like to follow the top players without the puck, and I watch almost every single replay angle I can of goals the Sabres allow. I cannot understand why people say he's bad defensively. Not great? Sure, but I actually think he is above average simply because of the size/reach he has and how he can take away passing lanes..and he just does not go out of position that much leaving line-mates and D-men out to dry. I don't see it. I will go as far as saying, in the handful of games I have been to, his neutral zone play is very, very good without the puck. He doesn't have to look like an elite Defensive forward in his own zone because when he is on the the ice, he distrupts passing lanes, tips passes, causes a lot of stuff to happen in the neutral zone so the puck doesn't get into the defensive zone as much. That is probably why is analytics are pretty decent defensively.

As far as Tage this season... #1 in the entire league in even strength goals per 60. The best, and its not really that close (Ovechkin is 2nd, 0.26 goals per 60 behind him) He has been the single more dangerous scorer in the NHL even strength this season. #6 in terms of goals per game overall, all strengths. (if he had some better Power Play linemates, this might be higher) He is an elite goal scorer. He just needs to stay as healthy as possible and get SOME support from the lines #2 and #3. Its crazy to think that 2-3 weeks ago there were reports that he was on the list of players the Sabres are willing to trade.

I would. $6m per year going forward with the cap going up will be like what....$4.5-$5m when Cozens signed his deal? As a percentage of the cap that is.

The thing with McLeod is, he doesn't have games where he kills the team. He may vanish for periods of time offensively, but so does Cozens. But when McLeod isn't scoring, he's not often hurting you. Thats not the same with Cozens through this year and most of his career.

When healthy, Tage is a bit of a unicorn. He's one of the few players in the NHL that other teams really have to game plan around. He can play center, and recently we saw some games where he is productive at wing. So what do I think all this means? You don't really need a traditional "first line center" if Tage is on the first line, and healthy. He can play Center, or you can put someone else and center and put him at Wing, and the line will succeed. Now, that doesn't mean take a borderline AHL player and throw him there and things will be fine. You want to have a good player there. But I think he allows you, again when healthy, to play him at center or play him at wing with a 'good' other player at Center and the line will be fine. This team is in more need of a good, quality, productive, 2-way guys at Center #2 and #3. I like the 2/3 season of McLeod so far, lets see if they extend him and if he can be what he has been long term.

I hear what you say, and the reason I criticize Cozens and still don't know his value is....that season 3 years ago, is it repeated? He shot 15% that year, but every other year he has shot in the single digits. When you break down that season, it wasn't even the whole season. Almost half of his goals that year came in about a 8-10 week stretch where he shot nearly 20%. And when you break down that season even further, despite that offensive production, his line was still on the ice for more goals allowed then they scored. I don't know. I fall into the camp that his best season MIGHT be repeatable, or it might not, but it isn't the norm. I think he is, and has always been awful defensively and away from the puck...yet now we have a period of about 10 games where that has improved. He hasn't been stellar, but most of the obvious gaffs are gone. Is this a permanent step up in his play? I can't figure him out.

And it appears Zemgus lasted here a lot longer than many fans thought/wanted. Also, I do beleive there was a report that they Sabres did try to bring him back, wasn't there an offer on the table for him to come back again, but he decided it was time to move on? It is my feeling that he is that way with Cozens. I remember one of the last interviews he did a few years ago that I saw, he mentioned a bunch of players but Cozens kept being brought up over and over. I'm paraphasing here, but he was talking about the good young guys and he said someting like...Cozens and Dalin and Thompson and Cozens and our draft picks, and Cozens. (I'm exaggerating a bit but it felt like that). Eliotte Friedman was on one of the insider shows on 590 out of Toronto a couple years ago when I was driving home from work and he said his 'info' was the Pegula was a major force in getting Thompson and Cozens locked up to those 7 year deals...Plus I keep thinking back to the heritage classic and not only did Cozens stop by Pegula after being ejected but how they talked there for quite a bit of time. Its not exactly Pegula 'meddling', but when the big boss who pays the bills wants something done, I guess you get it done or you don't mess with what he wants.

I agree with most of what you said. I also have an opinion that I have little to no proof for, but I sense its true. I get the impression that Pegula is close to some players, he likes them personally, like the way a fan might really like a guy that he bought a jersey for. And more than some 'business only' owners, Pegula wants things run by him and he is much more unlikely to approve a trade of guys who are his favorites. Again, just a feeling, but I think some guys get a little more leeway for bad play, a little more is forgiven, because the 'guy upstairs' likes them.

And the circular argument is....why did that dig that pit to begin with? A playoff caliber team that makes the playoffs is good enough to not lose 13 straight. A playoff caliber team has enough depth so they can make the playoffs even if their 2 top players miss time or have to play hurt. So when fully healthy, they may be a playoff caliber team, but isn't part of being a team good enough to make the playoffs meaning you have enough depth? Other teams apparently do. To me, to be a playoff team you need stars that can carry you. The Sabres have that in Dahlin and Thompson. You need some secondary players that are not stars but really good. Tuch fits that role for me, Peterka is on the edge of fitting that role, same with Byrum. You would reall like very good goaltending. UPL CAN be that but he is a bit inconsistent. The problem with this team to me, why they are not good enough, is they have too many players that play bad, or at least well below an average NHL player too often. Its harder to say this after Cozens had a pretty good game last night, but you can't have a guy hurt you as much as Cozens and Quinn do on a nightly basis yet give them so much ice time in so many critical situations.

Football is much different. More complicated rosters, a lot more coaches, many more layers of management and coaches. But to answer your question directly, I think he is better. Not a great owner, but better. The football organzation has so many more people in it, he had no choice but to fully staff it up. Also, because it is a money-maker on a yearly basis (something the Sabres are likely not), he might mentally justify not cutting costs as much. Oh, and with him wanting that new stadium, for the past few years he couldn't exactly run the organization on the cheap leading up to funding for it. Finally, When the Sabres were his 'new toy' he spent money on them. He may not have known what he was doing, but he was spending money on renovating the KBC locker rooms, adding management pieces, bidding on Free agents. Now that the Bills are his 'newer' toy, and the toy he gets more attention to....he spends money there, but most of those things he spent money on with the Sabres, not so much. Everyone may not agree with this, but maybe he spends more 'time' talking to the GM about the roster and the players....as a substitute for spending money and hiring enough guys..or the right guys...to do it for him. Yet at least early in each Sabres season, we video of him at Sabres practices sitting right next to Kevin Adams talking to him during practice. Which goes back to my original point made above....it may not be HOW much attention he gives to each team, but is it the right kind of attention a good owner would give?

Lack of involvement can kinda mean the 'type' of involvement he has. If he is not doing what other successful owners in the NHL are doing, then he's not involved enough (even though he may be involved, just in a different way.) Not showing up to upper level meetings where you are constantly evaluating the people below you. (We think he doesn't do that because he simply wants people to do what he says) Not spending the time and effort to put together a well trained staff or simply hiring enough of them. (We think he doens't do that because he doesn't want to pay for that) He doesn't spend enough time with his 'hockey people', asking the right questions about the direction they are taking (We think that is becasue he set the direction and now he can sit back and let it go on autopilot, "no change" "the answers are in the room", no need to do anything) He can not be involved enough in others eyes because he is not involved in the way most owners are....putting together complete staffs, making changes when needed, and demanding they excel at their jobs. Why bother? if I critical decision needs to be made, he can just show up and ask his magic 8 ball himself.