JoeSchmoe

Update. A couple new takeaways... I think I'd sit Lafferty once Aube-Kubel comes back. Nice to see Clifton go from the near the cellar last year to where he is now. I didn't think he was great last year, but shedding Eric Johnson and his so called veteran "knows how to win" presence has helped him greatly.

Maybe his Sunday pre-Bills wake and bake went a little harder than usual, because I would have thought Dahlin was one of the most liked guys on the team.

Thompson looks like 22-23 Thompson. If we are going to make the playoffs, this was one of the keys. Hopefully he keeps it up because he doesn't just look like a top 15C when he's playing like this. He looks top 5.

Appreciate the positive energy... Don't let the posters beat you down. Keep in mind though- Most of us here lived through an early season 10 game winning streak. That can change one's outlook.

But you got them anyways.

UPL currently sitting at under 1 expected goals against. He needs to play better.

Good point! I still like to think there'd be enough goodwill that they'd rather see a full building and make a bit less than have empty seats, especially with concession and souvenir sales once in the building. I also realize that they still drop a lot on the secondary market and no one shows up, but by the time the secondary market ticket price really falls, people have other plans. I.e. I'll skip my kid's hockey game if I bought tickets before their schedule comes out, but I won't buy them a day or two before if I know my kid has a game. After they cheaped out this offseason, I'm on a boycott anyways until the team is sitting in a playoff spot... so it wouldn't matter how cheap they got.

Limiting player salaries to curb ticket price inflation.

https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/j20-nationell/stats/2021-2022?age=u18&sort=ppg I ignored the first guy since he only had 2GP. Looks like Liam Öhgren was available. Anaheim got him at 19. He is bigger than Östlund and as you can see far outproduced him. That said, he's maybe only a bit ahead development wise. Carlsson is a December kid and wasn't available until the next draft and went #2. Lekkerimaki went one pick ahead of Östlund and again looks to be slightly ahead as well. As I keep saying, if it were me and I saw not a lot of high end "proven" skill left on the board, I'd have gone for more size. Ivan Miroshnichenko taken at 19 is 6'1 194lb and had 25pt in 47GP in Hershey last year. He could be a solid 2nd or 3rd liner eventually. Nathan Gaucher taken at 22 is 6'3 over 200lb and put up 25pt in 72GP in the AHL last year with 68 PMs. He's got a solid shot at being a contributing 3rd or 4th liner in the league.

The Swedish Junior numbers are in Elite Prospects. EDIT- In his draft year, Östlund was 4th among U18 players in ppg in the Swedish U20 league.

This seems about right. Some of the smaller guys we drafted like Benson and Savoie were major point producers and they were good picks despite being small. Östlund and Rosen were not especially good as point producers even before the Sabres drafted them. My position is if a guy is undersized AND doesn't produce points at an elite level, don't draft them in the 1st round. If no elite scorers are left, take a guy with size who has upside as an effective 3rd or 4th liner.

Don't confuse writing off with wishing he was traded. Also don't ignore his mediocre stats going back to before he was drafted.

Here's what it says on Elite Prospects. Unless this is wrong, he was a major reach.

Ignoring his start, there's nothing in his history that suggests top 6, and I'm not sure if we need another undersized bottom 6 F. Maybe he had little to no trade value already, but we should have packaged him for a top 6 F. Interestingly, the two guys Adams reached on (Rosen and Östlund) have not performed well, while the guys that fell to him (Peterka, Benson, Kulich) have all exceeded expectations. There's a lesson here.

When they drafted them, both of them were lacking in size. Normally you can look past size if the production in junior is there, but neither one were exactly can't miss in that regard either. My take is they should have went bigger given no elite scorers were available.

Just saw Östlund got his first point in his 5th game this season. That doesn't sound so good. Is it his linemates? If you know me I'd have liked to have seen him and Rosen dealt as part of a package for a legit top 6 player. In comparison, Matthew Savoie has been pushing the PPG ballpark with his AHL stints, even when he was younger. My worry is that if Östlund doesn't improve, his trade value will hit the toilet.

Here's the update for 5 on 5 expected goal % this season after last night's game. Not sure what I did for the first one but I qualified this by min 30min played (it's a slider and hard to get 30min exactly so it might actually be 29min).

I thought so too. Very dynamic.

Cozens looked much better than Quinn tonight.

Gotta love when your goalie gives you a chance to win. Too many years where this wasn't the case.

Cozens did some good things. Like the puck movement.

Cozens is 40%, Benson is 25%. They're probably seeing this kid being on the ice for so many GA and saying his inexperience is costing the team.

His actual goal % is worst on the team despite his expected goals being one of the best. The team may be valuing actual production vs expected production.

I'd really be curious to know what kind of data actual NHL teams have. It wouldn't surprise me if there were teams that had data similar to this. It's all about the budget and how much you want to buy in to the math / analytics vs the artform of the eyetest. From the looks of it, it seems this offseason the Sabres were looking for value on under represented point / expected goal players that might have had tougher assignments. McLeod, Zucker, Aube-Kubel, Lafferty, and Malenstyn all fell under this umbrella. With our cap space, I'm not sure we needed to penny pinch like we did, unless a deal on a top 6 fell through and we don't know about it.

His 5 on 5 expected goal % 58.5. That's really good... Means he's playing strong defensively and creating chances Problem is #1 D get a lot of their points on the PP, and we all know that's going.