Thorner

This lends some caution to the idea it’s purely a KA thing, no? Like, it wasn’t just “free cap space!”, the actual tangible dollars mattered?

A tangible goal is Dahlin not going 8 games without points. We generally win when he contributes points and doesn’t when he does not. Not running him into the ground minutes wise should greatly aid, and that means defensive additions and assuredly not rookies.

Nah, we need a system that priorities our strengths and players good enough to offset the weaknesses relative to the weaknesses of other teams The Boston comment is wild. They are, assuredly, significantly more talented, “apt” (whatever word you wanna use) than Buffalo. It’s not even close. All around ability is also ability. Goaltending is also part of the roster. You basically said outright that there’s no difference in talent, and that the difference between a 21st place team and the greatest regular season of all time is system. That’s wild.

Biggest straw man going in Sabresland right now, here, Twitter, or otherwise “Even prime hasek” the absolute gall to suggest the best goalie of all time wouldn’t improve (substantially) on guys putting up “nearly average” numbers. It’s honestly hilarious, the amount I’ve seen people tweet: “look, our goalies are almost average, what about the rest?” WHY is goalies the only thing we’d be ok with being “almost average.” My word in heaven. It’s like, “could hasek replicate his numbers EXACTLY with a poor D? No? HAH! I guess we don’t need improvement in goal at all!” It just makes zero sense. An utterly terrible straw man. it’s like “good being the enemy of great” as Creed. Worse than even the band.

^ It is admittedly a weird thing re perception Talking labelling here, when you get labelled a good “defensive Defenceman“, that means you have to be TWO things: 1) good on defence 2) poor on offence but just because samuelsson is a good defensive Defenceman, just because defending is HIS speciality, it doesn’t mean it’s better than Dahlin’s. Dahlin isn’t an “offensive Defenceman” complete with all the accompanying connotations. He’s just a great Defenceman

A few reliable, stay at home types, but real NHLers, that coach would be unafraid to ice unlike Bryson and co would go along way to preserving our minute eaters on D. A goalie add would go a long way towards addressing the D acumen of the F purely through the highly scientific principle: “no harm, no foul” - - - Add in a sprinkle of defensive growth, but still setting the forwards loose on O and providing a fail safe in net probably represents a more feasible correction strategy than finding more defensive, and good scoring, forwards.

Interestingly, we have 4 players at +10, leading the team. 3 of them are defensemen. Considering that’s half the top 6, and the half much harder to find, there’s a non negligible chance it’ll be easier to fix the D of our D than the D of our F

I suppose starting 5-6 rookies would be an explicit message to the fans, in and of itself

It’s true, I’ve been mentioning how Dahlin’s numbers have taken a big hit due to lack of D depth catching up to him - it’s not as extreme with Thompson but it’s still taking a toll at this time. At once what looked like a certainty, Tage will need to score 13 points in his last 13 to reach the 100 point mark. Currently in 10th in league scoring, still good for a tie with Jack’s placement on said list in 19-20

Hughes, Hamilton leap Dahlin in D scoring race. Dahlin currently tied for 5th with Fox. With Makar charging and closing in, 2 points back in 10 less games played, mostly at this point I guess I just hope Dahlin stays ahead of Heiskanen, for 7th? Haha, tracking it at that point has probably lost it’s luster

So here we go, wanted to follow up on this. Our goal differential seemed to go and reconcile itself, as I was alluding to: it now sits 20th league wide while our points % sits 20th, as well. So it’s more less reflective of the overall group’s play, at both ends. With obvious allowances for G being the biggest negative factor, but one factor among several nonetheless

Whoops, thought you’d know I was kidding

Good one. Agree with all this - I like the point about face offs. They don’t really matter that much, that’s exactly what I’d say if someone asked me, cause that’s what the data reveals in large sizes. But as it seems to happen so frequently, in a non hyperbolic sense- the Sabres love to sit around the historical outliers and exceed them. Playoff drought? Face offs we are DEAD LAST. Ok, UNCLE! you got me, they matter for Buffalo! sabres the truthful, frequent embodiment of paradise lost Better to reign in hell, indeed

The correlation between Dahlin scoring and the team winning is equally prevalent, over a larger sample size, and more compelling due to Samuelsson’s case having much more correlation v causation wiggle room. The Sabres played their best game, and their best defensive game, without Samuelsson, for the record. To me the data and (especially?) eye test supports the idea it’s difficult to lose ANY good player right now considering our lack of impact player depth, and that Samuelsson is a good player. He’s good. He’s not *particularly* good - he’s, arguably, particularly valuable, due to our lack of depth on D. But he’s not even the best defensive D on the team. By the numbers and (especially?) the eye test, that’s easily Dahlin (least until last few weeks). Is Samuelsson our second best in that area? Power? One of the two

You didn’t vote till NOW? way to go out on a limb, dude..

There’s some good merit here now that I think about it, KA has a good track record for additions, but I feel like the good ones looked good pretty quickly - it’s not unreasonable to be disappointed in what we’ve seen from Greenway in that KA set his own high precedent with Jost

I agree with you. We tend to live and die by the moment, but years later we just look back at the point total to more less assess how a season went- there’s a reason we do that. The most accurate reading is almost always in the larger pool of data People will say it doesn’t matter, maybe it’s semantics, it almost seems too simple, but sometimes I think we / I do over complicate. Win more games to end, and prove yourself a team *less in NEED* of that higher pick. I want to be a Sabres team that finishes with 89 points, not a Sabres team that fails to break Bylsma’s mark from my first season posting here. maybe it doesn’t matter but on balance, in the macro, I’ll take the season w/more points as far as what it means for the future. Nothing wrong with the future seeming a little more in reach

*this has been a paid advertisement by thorny

twitches

^ Hobbits, to the Elves:

West road def easier Vegas will need to be reckoned with though. They look great. Eichel hatty yesterday Ya Makar was down. He’s back and closing in on Norris conversation, now

Every asset we have is available for the right price, full stop - - - Other than goalie: I did a breakdown recently of the fact the Sabres don’t win games when Dahlin doesn’t contribute on the scoresheet. Biggest need after G is competent reinforcements on D, as good as we can get, so as to ensure we can get Norris Dahlin for a full 82, let alone playoffs. The fact they hit a wall is exactly why I put stock in it The fact they hit a wall, the fact our point total ends up at whatever it ends up at, is simply revelatory of what the 2022-23 sabres actually are Guy who busts it out of the gate in a marathon and gassed himself to run the first half in a good time, collapses down the stretch can’t logically write off the end and extrapolate the earlier bit forward. No logic in it. The Sabres are what they finish with.

If the playoffs are truly the expectation, ie falling short is viewed as a detriment to the rebuild we cannot afford, a starting goaltender is a must. Otherwise, playoffs CAN ONLY be a hope. Playoffs being “the hope”, but not the expectation next season, is not something I can get on board with

We don’t need Hasek, we would see a lot of improvement merely by striving for “not absolutely terrible” The goaltending is simply awful, *relative to what our poor (in need of improvement, but not awful) defence gives up*. That means, accounting for how many chances we give up, and the quality, the goalies STILL save significantly less than others in the same position what this means is that, SHOULD we improve the D, and the amount of chances and quality chances we give up, our goalies will STILL give up more than the other goalies league wide facing those chances ie any way you dice it we need to improve in net

Very true..