mjd1001

I posted this in another thread yesterday, but here goes the PP part of it here: Want to know what is different about the PP this year vs last? Mostly Cozens and Tage. Those 2 guys had 11 pp goals by this time last year. This year? 2 PP goals between them. This year the team is at 14.29% on the PP. If you add those extra 9 goal shortcoming between those 2 guys, you get the PP back to 25%, which is 6th or 7th in the entire league. Have Tage pick up the pace and get CLOSE to his form of last year, and have Cozens do ANYTHING of value offensively to justify $7+ millon dollars, and there is your power play fix. And it is not the style/coaching the PP that is bringing those guys down, its really those guys that are bringing the PP down. Its not just the PP, both of them are producing a lot less than they have last year in all aspects of their game. (the last 2 years with Tage). Tage probably due much to injury..and Cozens just needing to be better all around. The Style of the PP, the coaching, the number of passes, etc...all looks a LOT better if Cozens and Tage get back on track.

I wish I could disagree with this but I agree with most if not all of what you said. I have seen glimpses, or more than glimpses of Adams That makes me believe he's a pretty smart guy who knows hockey and knows what he's doing. I also don't think Granato is a bad coach. I think he's a good coach. I am not sure how much I believe he developed guys but he all of a sudden turned into a bad coach in terms of wins and losses. As I said in another post this team shortcoming is Cozens and Thompson not producing like last year, not Granato being a bad coach. What I cannot do... Is look from the outside and see examples where Pegula is anything but a bad owner. I don't have inside information obviously, but every little bit of circumstantial evidence I see tells me he's a bad owner and he makes big mistakes.

I keep revisiting this thread every 3-5 days, after most games and I'm still in the same place. This team's primary problem this year is scoring. Why? and how is it fixed? -Last year they were 7th worst in goals allowed. This year they are 6th worst. About the same, but this DOES appear to be getting better, and the UPL/Levi long term combo seems like it will be better long term. So, defense and goals allowed aren't good, but not much worse than last year with at least room for potential improvement. Offense. They were first for good parts of last year, and they finished 3rd in the league in goals. This year they are 24th. THIS is the problem. Much of the same roster, same coaching staff, so this is where they are falling short. So why? and who has to change/improve? -Its not Skinner, he's on pace for 35. Tuch? hes on pace for almost 30...the problem is that he is missing games, so maybe games missed is a small issue with him? -VO and Peterka. They basically are wash from last year. You have 15 goals in 50 games from them this year (combined). Last year you had 40 goals in 152 games combined. This year, you are getting slightly more production per game. So its not really here. -Cozens. Here we go. 31 goals last year. This year...4 goals in 26 games (on pace for 12-13) There is issue #1. If December 10th of last year he had 10 goals. More than double what he has this year. -Tage. 7 goals in 19 games isn't bad (30 goal pace) but last year by December 10 he had 21 goals. 14 goal shortfall. And you want to know why the PP is so bad? Those 2 guys had 11 pp goals by this time last year. This year? 2 PP goals between them. This year they are at 14.29%. If you add those extra 9 goal shortcoming between those 2 guys, you get the PP back to 25%, which is 6th or 7th in the entire league. So, Tage and Cozens. 20 goals less this year from those 2 guys than they had at this time last year. Its not the rest of the team playing worse. Its not coaching (directly). Its not half the team playing worse than last year. Again, take those 20 goals less you are getting and spread them out among all the games this year and, you turn a lot of those losses into wins. Tage in part due to injuries, Cozens due to just too many awful games. You don't need those guys to play BETTER than last year...just equal..or come CLOSE to their production last year and there is your PP fix and there is your team being in the hunt, if not already in a playoff position. Tuch getting back healthy and Quinn playing just add a bonus to that. I'm not totally, 100% against a coaching change, but I'm not sure how a coaching change fixes this problem....Tage scoring and Cozens giving you what you expect when you gave him $7m per year makes this coaching staff look a lot better. If they play the way they are, I doubt a new coach fixes the team.

Just like almost every single year, 95 points MIGHT get you in, but 98 is the number you want to shoot for to just about guarantee it. Right now in terms of point percentage, the last spot is held by a team with .577 which is about 95 points at the moment. So when we find out about this team...its a sliding scale. It doesn't look good now, a winning streak makes it look better. But the optimist in me says they aren't out of it until there is no chance they can get 'back into it'. If things are awful now, but a 5 game win streak puts them back "into it", then as long as there is still a chance for that 5 game win streak, they aren't out of it. But the numbers.....to get to 98 points they need to get 74 points in the next 55 games. That means they need almost 68 percent of possible points. That is about a 110 point pace for the rest of the year. With Tuch still hurt, with Cozens not playing well at all, with Tage probably not yet 100%. Possible? yes, but it looks really tough already.

Agree. Not to mention, that is probably the 'easiest' path...UPL starts, Comrie backs up....Levi gets some time in Roch with the occasional call-up to Buffalo when needed.

Looked at the replay of the goal scored against last night again.... It was a deflection so it was unlucky a bit...but on that play you can still see the Sabres have problems in their own end, either communicating with each other or just knowing how to cover for each other. If you look at Mitts, Thompson, and Johnson....they all do things that MIGHT make sense to them in a vacuum, but not as a team. Coyle was WIDE OPEN for an easy tap in if the puck wasn't deflected and made it to him. Johnson and Clifton BOTH chase the puck behind the net and BOTH D-men end of in the same place. Mitts skates through the center and joins them, with now all 3 of them collapsing on the same guy. With Thompson trailing on the near wing trying to not abandon the point...the fact that 3 sabres players are occupying ONE Bruin is a problem. Good game overall and only 1 goal allowed. But watch the Sabres score a lot of their goals over the last month and they often have less room to work...but when the Sabres allow goals or chances, it is because stuff like this happens often...they just don't work as a 5 man unit in their own zone and WAY too often they chase the puck, or 2 or 3 guys go to the same spot and leave HUGE areas of the ice wide open for the opposition to slide right into.

Jost and Krebs can alternate for all I care, they both have taken a step back this year. Sure, there is something to be said for giving a guy a chance without him worrying about getting benched, but both of those guys have had that chance and it didn't do much for them. I'm at the point where you play them, and let them know they give 100% effort all the time and bring it each game, and if they don't, its the other guys turn.

This almost deserves a thread of its own. I grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo, but after college I moved and lived in quite a few areas. Boston Suburbs, Cape Cod, 2 times in Florida (South Florida and the Daytona/Orlando area), and very short stints in South Carolina and New Hampshire. My wife was born, grew up, went to college, and had her first full time job right in NY city. It took her a while to adjust to not being there. But right now, there really is no other place we'd want to be, and we had choices. Both now, and when we bought our house, we had flexibility in where we could work (remote work and an option to transfer to other places.) As other have said, the 4 seasons (fall and spring... light jacket weather is my personal favorite), less traffic (helped by us being in Niagara county), and a lot of things others have said. Where I used to live in Florida, we still have relatives that live down there, and we visit every year (sometimes twice a year) and each time we go down there, we hear them telling us over and over how much they love Florida, but it is so bad it's almost as if they are trying to convince both us and themselves of it. I do know this, one of them has a house about the size of ours. 10 years ago they paid a fraction of the property taxes we do, but now their property taxes have just about caught up to ours, they insurance is triple on their houses and double on their cars, their local supermarket (Publix) is more expensive than Tops or Wegmans, and traffic (even though they don't live in a 'city') is awful by them. Each time we visit my brother in law complains that his 20 mile commute to and from work takes over an hour, that the summer is too hot he can't get much done outdoors, the his homeowners association keeps raising fees and gives out too many fines, his homeowners insurance got canceled and he had to pay double for a new company/policy, that his property taxes are going up by almost $1000 per year the last few years, there is no good food, restaurants have a 30+ minute wait on any weekend...there are parts of town that are too dangerous to go out at night in.....but he finishes all that by saying he is so lucky to live in 'his paradise' (yes, he calls it a paradise, out loud he says that word over and over) Everyone likes different things, and honestly many of us live in the area we want to live because we like that. But honestly, I'm happy being here, and if the population stays the same or grows just slightly that is fine with me. I wouldn't want our area to turn into those areas that "all the cool people' are moving to.

Levi had a good game last night, but I'm still thining "UPL is the starter" for the time being.

Agree with you on Skinner and Cozens. TNT? I do see him hold his position better than the other ones in the D-zone and his reach helps him in a lot of situations. Skinner and Cozens are terrible in the D-zone though. They have to score at a 30+ goal pace to be of any use. Skinner still is...Cozens obvioulsy isn't even close. 2 Last week I posted about all the goals allowed by the Sabes in a game, Cozens play positionally (or as far as losing loose pucks) in his own zone was directly responsible for 2 goals and played a part in a 3rd goal allowed, in one single game. I"m not sure why the rush is there to move on from Zemgus by so many. Hes no great, but he skates hard, doesn't make a lot of mistakes in his own zone, and honestly scores at a decent rate for a 4th liner. Above average at Penalty killing. Okposo needs to be gone though, and Jost? Last year he was a good 4th line center this year he hasn't been. Peterka is good. He's not great in his own zone, but he isn't as bad as Cozens or Krebs.

I'm there on Greenway. Not AWFUL, but other than penalty killing (which he is above average at), he isn't really doing much. He's big, but he isn't all that physical. He doesn't skate well which makes it challenging for him to get to and control a lot of loose pucks. Stats? Hes been with the Sabres for about 1/2 season now (38 games) with a total of 6 goals and 5 assists. On pace for about 12-13 goals and 10-11 assists. So, hes not terribly BAD, but doesn't really bring much that is helpful other than filling a spot on the roster.

Ok, I decided to take a closer look at the goals allowed last night, not sure where to put this so it goes here: -1st goal: Kinda back luck, but I keep going back to forwards in the D-zone just floating around and having no sense of covering zones. It starts out OK with both D-men behind the net with the puck, Mitts in front of the goal and Thompson on the wing (Skinner IS on the ice but no where to be found). But as soon as the puck goes to the near boards, BOTH Thompson and Mitts go toward the puck carrier/near boards...why is Mitts there? The center of the ice is WIDE open. Thompson I think got a piece of the pass, but the score was scored from out front anyway, The entire center of the ice was open. Assist to Samuelsson on this one though...he went toward the shooter just slow enough to not get there, but just fast enough to provide a massive screen for Comrie. -2nd goal: Go back and watch the replay on this. Forward and defensemen just have no sense of who should be where. When the puck goes in one direction, often times NO Sabres follow the puck or TOO many Sabres follow the puck. They have no idea who should cover who. I'm not a big NBA guy but I do know when an a team in a half court offense sets a pick or guys cross over, the Defense in the NBA knows who should pick up who/guard who when that happens. Its pretty common. The Sabres? Not a clue. Have 2 offensive players change positions from side to side and I'm surprised the Sabres don't just run into each other and take each other out. Again, watch the replay, simple puck movement by Detroit and the Sabres have no idea who is covering who. Assist here to Power, he seems like he is allergic to making any kind of contact to interfere with an opposing player right in front of the net. -3rd Goal: PP goal. This is the same story over and over. The Sabres AGAIN have no discipline in their own end. When they DO maintain the pk box, they are effective. When they stay in position, they cause the other team to pass the puck around the perimeter and take perimeter shots. You ONLY leave your spot when there is a loose puck you have a chance to get to, right? The Sabres? Nope, watch the replay they start chasing all over the place and the PK box? Its a Box, then a Triangle, then a different triangle, then a Rhombus, then kinda to a straight line and then the goal is scored. Now go watch when the Sabres on on the PP and they fail to score, you know why? the other team maintains the PK box and causes the Sabres to play the perimeter. -4th goal allowed: This one is confusing. How does Dahlin and Clifton both end up in the same spot on the ice leaving a wide open lane for the scorer to go in on net alone? Looks to be no communication again. Clifton takes a forward and stays with him crossing the ice..While Dahlin is looking up the ice at? I'm not sure. Again, is like the offense is running a simple pick play and the Sabres have one guy playing man-to-man while the other guy is playing zone (Dahlin). That is mistake #1. Mistake #2, the eventually goal scorer streaks down the far side of the ice where neither Dahlin or Clifton are...but through the neutral zone Skinner was with him. Skinner just STOPS near Center ice, he slams on the figurative brakes and lets his guy go. Now why would he do that? When you freeze the replay just before the pass is made to the goal scorer, ALL 5 Sabres players are looking at the puck. No one is remotely close to being aware where the other 4 detroit players are. Is this coaching? Are the players not listening to coaching? Take a look at the picture I put in here. I would think effective NHL defensive play would not have EVERY SINGLE player on your team looking at the puck carrier with NO-one having any sense of where the opposing players are. In the NFL, if all 11 players in the Defense were just watching the QB all the time, you would think that eventaully a receiver is going to get open for a reception...well, that is what is happening to the Sabres. The Sabres are losing a lot because scoring is down for them Thompson had a slow start, got hurt and is just coming back but between him and Cozens, they are missing a lot of goals. But play without the puck? I don't get it. When the other team has the puck they are playing pond hockey.

There is zero reason Arizona should be anywhere close to Buffalo in terms of performance, talent, anything. Yet again, they stumble upon a goalie having the type of year that Buffalo can't get just one time. It might not last, but Ingram is 11-3, a .930 save percentage, 2.30 GAA. Previously in his career, he was about a 3.50 gaa, .900 sv percentage guy in limited starts, 26 year old minor league journeyman with only 29 career starts in the 7-8 years since he was drafted.

The one thing I don't get is seemingly everyone wanting 'more grit', more 'tough to play against'. This team was 1 point from the playoffs last year. They are playing defense/allowing goals just about the same as last year (not good), but it is the scoring that is way down from last year. Last year the team got .555 available points. If they were doing the same this year, they would have 27 or 28 points...in a wild car spot right now. If the MAIN difference from this year to last year is scoring, how does a gritty, tough, hitting vet forward or two change that? They need 3 things more than anything else: 1.) Thompson back and scoring like he has the last 2 years 2.) Cozens to pick up his scoring to close to where he as last year. 3.) if you DO want to prevent goals, get the young forward to have a clue about what they are supposed to do in their own end. (That will make those bottom 2 D-mean a lot more tolerable) I see those 3 things as many, many times more important and impactful than making a trade for a tough-nosed, veteran forward. That guy isn't going to fix the scoring or the lack of knowing what to do by the rest of the forwards in their own zone.

Agreed. These forwards are awful, not helping out the D and in many cases making them look worse than they actually are. Look at the 2nd (game winning goal) against Nashville last game, thePuck DOES go through Jokiharju, but in the 3-4 seconds before the goal is scored: -Puck on far boards, Benson really doesn't do much but wave his stick at the D-man who directs the puck to the center of the ice -Puck goes right to Cozens, I think its actually on his stick in front of the Buffalo net, but he loses it. -about 1 second later, Cozens has the puck on his stick again in front of the Buffalo net, has it easily poked away by a Nashville player -Goes to another Nashville player, Cozens waves his stick at him, isn't able to knock the puck away, and it eventually goes to the shooter. When the shot is taken, both Buffalo D-mean are at least where they should be. Benson could have impacted the puck on the boards a bit more and he didn't. Cozens had the puck on his stick 2 times and a 3rd time could have knocked it away (all within about a 2-3 second period) and failed in all 3 attempts. Peterka? kinda just gliding around a few feet inside the blue line, more stick waving. Cozens is a skating disaster is his own zone this year, and the wingers don't do much but glide around and wave their sticks. Just because you are a "forward" and not a "defenseman" doesn't mean when your team is playing in your own zone you can just kinda do whatever you want...but to many of these forwards it sure seems like it.

I thought the Red wings were overhyped coming into the season. So far I've been wrong but I still feel that way. Detroit has a bunch of veterans on defense who don't make that many mistakes, and they have forwards who know where to be. They're not overly talented from top to bottom, but they just wear you down without making many mistakes. In terms of pure physical talent, skating, shooting, I think the Sabres are more talented. However, this Sabres team has worn me down to the point where now I am expecting losses against pretty much everyone.

I know, tradition, tradition...but... Get rid of conference championships to reduce the number of games, just go to a 16 team tournament. The main argument I have heard is that that would lead to too many games played. If you play in a conference championship game, you are playing in 3 if you make the title game. 16 team tournament means just TWO teams would play 4 games. If you absolutely have to, integrate the conference championship games into the round of 16 somehow. 8 team playoff is needed now. 16 would be better. Open up the playoff tree to more teams and maybe teams will be less afraid of 1 or 2 losses and we can get rid of most of the Alabama vs Mississippi-Community-College type games for much of the season because they wont' be afraid to schedule tougher games.

Jack Hughes. Top 5 player in the league? Guy who will challenge McDavid and Matthews for league MVP/best player in the next couple of seasons and might get some discussion in the next couple years as the best in the NHL? Missed some games this year, but he was leading the league in points when he got hurt. Since coming back, 4G and 6A in 7 games, keeping the lead in points per game and closing the gap toward the overall top spot. Last year he had 40+ goals and 99 points. As a 21 year old. I'm pretty confident McDavid is going to pick things up pretty soon and could surpass Hughes in points this year. But what Hughes is doing as a 21/22 year old might not be getting enough attention around the league. Here's another way to look at it Last 82 games played for each player: Connor McDavid, 52 goals, 26 years old (near statistical peak for a forward), $12.5m per year Auston Matthews, 50 goals, 26 years old, just signed an $13.25 per year extension Jack Eichel, 28 goals, 27 years old, $10m per year. Jack Hughes, 45 goals, only 22 years old, $8m per year signed until 2030.

Columbus even has wone back to back games a couple times this year....Buffalo....one single "2 game" winning streak. Just one. And Columbus has a better goal differential per game than Buffalo.

Some things I agree with, others I disagree. Firing Ruff. He has shown he has been a good coach for years after he was fired. If you were going to 'tank' or 'rebuild' just had to make sure he was on board, and he would have been better to do that than a lot of others that were here. The tank, its an old discussion but i'm still on the side of good idea, poorly executed. The year after Eichel most fans and media were thinking the Sabres would take a D-man. They took Nylander with McAvoy, Sergachev, and Chychrun still on the board and taken right after. Players were brough in that didn't fit with 'the room' and/or the young guys weren't developed that well. You basically had a GM that old you they were rebuilding and there would be 'pain' and it will take time, and then you replace him and the guy you give the keys too tries to rush things along. So many mistakes made from the top down.

Yes and No. But I still feel 'kinda' good about Granato. My issue is the Young(er) guys up front, they aren't playing well across the whole ice. Will a new coach get Krebs, Cozens, Peterka, and any other young guys you bring up and play (Kulich or Rosen) play a better all around game? Get those guys to be better in your own end? If Granato and his staff are the reason for the young guys lacking in that regard, then I would listen to the idea of a change. BUT, as you mentioned, who is going to step in here and do better? If someone will please consider it, but instead of just saying "fire Grananto, bring in someone with experience", who is that? and specifically what is their 'experience' going to do to make this team better?

I agree. Yes they lost their quarterback, and yes there is a likely chance that the replacement quarterback is not as good. But... They have done everything on the field that they needed to. No way a one loss team should be in over an undefeated major conference conference championship team. I understand the other side of things, there can be an opinion that Alabama might be a better team. But then again they might not be. And the tiebreaker would be they have that loss... And by the way a lot of wins that are not of high quality.

I can see that. But the question is is it really gone or different? They're scoring is down. Their quality chances are down also, but remember this is a team that was getting outshot and out chanced in many games last year also. The difference this year? Thompson. He had 13 goals in December last year and I think he was in the teens going into December. So by the end of December he was closing in on 30 goals. He's hurt right now sure but he has six. That's a big difference. Cousin's also. Over 30 goals last year and many were expecting him to repeat it or maybe improve on it but he's at what? 4? Skinner and Tuch are producing like they were last year. VO and Peterka have basically exchanged production levels but they're about the same also only slightly behind. So really, it's not the whole team to me, most of the drop in production, and the drop in quality chances, is due to Thompson's slow start and now injury, and Cozens... Whatever is wrong with him. To me, that's not a change in coaching or coaching's problem. That is mostly Thompson and Cozens.

I'm going to have to disagree on that. He had a good game last night, but didn't score but the rest of the season he's just not good. His production obviously is way down. As others and myself have referenced with examples, he is very often out of position and goals against are scored from areas where he should have been. He chases the puck and leaves wide open zones. And there have even been a couple of cases where he hasn't hustled back where goals have been scored against, hanging the defense out to dry.. Reduced offensive production, replays that show he's coasting when goals are scored against, and terrible positional play. One good game last night doesn't erase that. He has been not average, but a bad hockey player for this team this year.

Cozens is a bad hockey player right now.