Big Guava

Against Carolina, Dahlin set the record this year for skating distance in a single game at 4.91 miles https://www.nhl.com/news/rasmus-dahlin-sets-top-single-game-skating-distance-of-2023-24 Dahlin also recently became the only Sabres defenseman to ever log 29+ minutes of ice time in a game 7 times in a season and the first player to do it since 2016 in the entire NHL.

Since January 1st Sabres are: 1st in goals against with 50 2nd in GA/Game at 2.17 3rd in shots against/game at 28.45 5th in goal differential/game at +0.83 6th in shots/game at 32.96 12th in PP% at 22.7% They have been playing pretty well...now they just have to not take half a season next year to figure out how to be good like they have the last 2 years.

Defense has made an absolutely remarkable improvement since the start of the year. Neve though this team would become one of the best defensive teams in the NHL. Last year they were one of the best offenses, now turning into one of the best defenses and the offense is starting to slowly get better and better. Goaltending has been great lately. PP is much improved lately as well going 8 for their last 21 or 22 I believe... They could have something here. Imagine once Quinn comes back to add to it.

Sabres turning it up!

This team has become outstanding defensively. Honestly remarkable. 2nd in the NHL in GAA/game since Jan 1st, 6th since Dec 1st. Now they have to figure out how to add a little more offense to their game now.

Wow...that was quite the takedown... Calls him selfish and that the reason he has played 900 career games without ever making the playoffs is because he is "me first" and only cares about his stats. https://www.si.com/fannation/bleav/nhl/jeremy-roenick-believes-jeff-skinners-playoff-drought-is-due-to-selfishness-jb13

Pretty much the same game we saw them lose to them down the stretch last year that for all intents and purposes killed their playoff chances. Same score too.

They played Carolina even in November also and lost by the same score.

UPL has played the same number of games now as he did last year, 33. He has 4 more shutouts, allowed 38 fewer goals, faced 173 fewer shots, made 136 fewer saves, decreased his GAA by 1.13 Goals per game(3.61 vs. 2.48), increased his save percentage by 0.21%(.892 to .913) and won one fewer game(17-11-4 vs. 16-14-2). Not sure how that is possible, but shows how much they are struggling to provide goal support for him like they did last year even tho they are doing a much better job defensively. The Sabres have scored more than 3 goals only 8 times this year with UPL in net versus 18 times last year.

See...the worst team on February 25th in league history loses again!

Erik?

Meaningless stat for tonight? Of the teams active in the NHL, Carolina has the worst record on today's date compiling a 6-11-0-1 record all time, good for only a .361 points percentage. Sabres have a 12-10-1-3 record good for a .538 points percentage. Advantage Sabres.

Was just doing some stuff on statmuse and it didn't give me back the result I wanted but instead gave me back a teams all-time record on a day. So I put in today's date and got some meaningless knowledge. Toronto is the all-time winningest team on February 25th compiling a 31-14-6-1 record. However they are not the best in terms of point percentage at .663. The Rangers(.695), Kings(.675) and Sens(.667) have better points percentages. Ironically, of teams that are active in the NHL, our opponent tonight, the Carolina Hurricanes have the worst record on this day, going 6-11-0-1 for .361 points percentage. The Sabres are 12-10-1-3 for a .538 points percentage. Advantage Sabres tonight?

Same...how hard is it to put the graphic for shot totals next to the score? Literally every other team in the NHL does it. Which is why I always watch the opponent feed.

Sabres also are 5th in the NHL allowing only 29.07 shots per game. That's far better than last year's 33.05 shots against per game.

Slightly? They are averaging .65 goals a game less. That's over 2 fewer goals every 4 games. That's significant.

Yeah their offense is killing them right now. They are looking like the last place Sabre teams that scored 2 goals a game every night and it was a minor miracle when they got 3 or more. They are way too talented to be in this position. They need to figure it out.

As is the team D...they are helping him out as well. That they are playing good defensively?

Interestingly enough, analytics suggest that the team playing better defensively is most of the reason and his actual numbers are not that much above where they would be expected. Possible there could be a large split between 1st half and 2nd half of the season tho and those numbers are significantly better in the 15-20 games.

So irritating the Sabres seem to need 15 good chances to score 1 goal most nights. Last year they'd have scored 5 with those same chances.

Kinda crazy as this team was horrible defensively and now has become mostly very good. They have only allowed 40 goals since January 1st, the best number in the NHL. Their issue? They have sacrificed a LOT of offense to do it. They need to figure out how to do both at the same time. Shots are about the same as last year on average but their shooting percentage has gone from 5th at 11.0% last year to 9.3% which is in the 20s this year. Is it a regression to the mean and last year was a career year for many players? Maybe. But almost 2% seems like a huge dropoff. More likely they will be somewhere around 10% most years which means they are underperforming this year in terms of scoring. Seems this year a lot of chances they would have buried last year have stayed out of the net. If they continue their defensive play and can figure out how to play offense this team could start making some noise. Maybe too late for this year but it would bode well for next year.

After all this time they should be happy they still get the support they do. They don't deserve it with the way they typically play in front of the home fans.

Once again we make a whatever goalie look like Dominik Hasek in his Prime. SMH

This team needs 100 chances to score most games while other teams are getting garbage goals left and right...WTF...they aren't even fun to watch anymore

That play just summed up our season. SMFH