GDT: Montréal @ Buffalo, 7:00pm edt, 10/23/2015

[sicknfla]

What I'm confident with GMTM about is that he is constantly evaluating the talent and trade possibilities for the long term. If Darcy was still here the top centers would be Connelly and Hodgson.

It is always Murray vs Darcy. I like to look at it more as Murray vs an experienced GM who has put together winning teams. My opinion is and will continue to be an experienced GM that Pegula used some of his coin on would have us in far better shape.

 

Also, I forgot to add Gorges to my list of players that are attributed to Murray. When you look at all the draft picks, players, and prospects that he has unloaded I don't know how anybody can question what our return has been.

[bob_sauve28]

Notes: Sabres got eaten alive on the dot - which gave a ton of point shots to the Habs.

Face offs matter - especially if you have guys like Subban and Markov that can pump biscuits on net.

I'm not as discouraged as you may normally be after a 7-2 loss.

That could have easily been a 5-5 game. 3 times they had the Condon beaten and hit pipe.

Kane, Ennis, and somebody.

Sabres need some ugly goals.

Ocho, well, he'll need to forget this one.

Amazing how good Mitchell and Flynn look on fourth line duty.

I really thought....at least the first two periods that Sabres were stride for stride with the Habs forwards.

Actually for 65 min. It was fun to watch.

It really wasn't as bad a game as the score indicates. Rome was not built in a day

[Johnny DangerFace]

It really wasn't as bad a game as the score indicates. Rome was not built in a day

Ramo was though

[LGR4GM]

in 05/06 didn't we have an early season 10 game losing streak?

 

 

Last night clearly sucked. We lost 7-2 which means we didn't skate with the other team, we got owned by them. It's game 7 though of the post tank era.  This thing was ripped down to the studs, sure we have walls and a roof now but it takes awhile to get the electricity connected. This team will have several games within the first 41 that are like this where they flounder.  Let's just take a deep breath and see how they respond. They should beat up the NJD.

[Johnny DangerFace]

Everyone knew there would be growing pains, it's common sports sense. It's obvious the irrational Murray hate would come from a insignificant few, who cares.

[darksabre]

Ramo is Tuttle, the best damn backup goaltender I ever saw.

 

WTF is Ramo?

I find it a little odd that two of the guys who attended the analytics hoe-down are citing "puck luck." What, they weren't carrying their lucky rabbits feet in their pants? Kane forgot to throw salt over his shoulder before the opening faceoff? Come on. Maybe, just maybe, for one more era of Sabres hockey, we have guys who just aren't good at finishing (Yeichel was asked to leave the room before this rant began Jack will be fine.) Maybe now that the fancystats seem to indicate the goals should be coming, the lack of goals can be explained by something other than they forgot to sacrifice the squirrel at the morning skate again: gnarled, link sausages for fingers, the wanting to sit down, the wanting to rest.

 

 I was thinking about luck last night. Why is it bad luck for a player to hit the post, or good luck for the goalie? When a placekicker hits the upright, we don't say, "Oh, nice kick, just a bit unlucky." We say, "You suck! Die! Go back to soccer!"

 

"The goalie got lucky there." I don't know. Lucky maybe that some dude with no hands couldn't bury one, but leave the iron out of it. You can even give the goalie credit sometimes for taking everything else away, forcing a shot to the outside.

Luck is a huge part of sports. It's what causes variation in data. If there were no luck, player performance would be completely predictable and things like pucks deflecting at high speed wouldn't matter.

 

Look at at least two of the goals scored on Johnson last night. He was in position to make an easy save and Montreal players managed to get their deflections on net just right. It's rare to see that kind of production off of deflections in a game. But Chad got burned on some great deflections last night. That's luck. 

 

Look at the the chance Foligno had at the end of the game where the Montreal player just happens to place his stick just right in the open maw of the net. Most of the time Foligno gets an easy tap in there. The Montreal player got lucky. 

 

Sports are like this. All the data in the world isn't enough to overcome chance. 

[Stoner]

Ramo was though

Bionic?

[Johnny DangerFace]

Bionic?

Nah, from my experience it can be done anywhere from 9 seconds to minutes!

[TrueBlueGED]

He should have grabbed Ramo.

Ramo's career SV% is 904. Johnson's is 910. Take that as you will.

[Stoner]

Ramo's career SV% is 904. Johnson's is 910. Take that as you will.

I'd take it and flush it down the toilet. Who cares? JFC.

[TrueBlueGED]

I'd take it and flush it down the toilet. Who cares? JFC.

That's kind of my point, actually. Ramo wouldn't improve our goaltending situation, so why bother?

[Marvelo]

How many goalies have we had in the last year or two? Ten? Buffalo has always had very good goaltending because we have needed it. But it seems GMTM can't pick a good starting goalie if he fell on top of him out of the sky.

[Hoss]

How many goalies have we had in the last year or two? Ten? Buffalo has always had very good goaltending because we have needed it. But it seems GMTM can't pick a good starting goalie if he fell on top of him out of the sky.

Dude... We're seven games in and his starting goalie played half a game.

[That Aud Smell]

@pA: these things have a way of evening out. If this process were to continue, the goals must come. They must. THEY MUST.

[Iron Crotch]

The problem with quoting stats is they are devoid of context.  Johnson got about half of his NHL games on a Presidents Trophy-winning Bruins team that no one could score on.  Otherwise, he hasn't been very good.  That's why he has been on 5 teams already.

 

 

[Stoner]

@pA: these things have a way of evening out. If this process were to continue, the goals must come. They must. THEY MUST.

Isn't that the gamblers fallacy?

[Eleven]

Ramo's career SV% is 904. Johnson's is 910. Take that as you will.

 

Doesn't matter.  Need warm bodies while Ullmark and Makarov develop.

[North Buffalo]

Doesn't matter.  Need warm bodies while Ullmark and Makarov develop.

?Does it hurt or help Ulli and Mak to bring them up a few times a year to see where they are at and give them a taste of what they need to work on or might it hurt their development. Goalies are such freaks, I just have no idea???

[Eleven]

?Does it hurt or help Ulli and Mak to bring them up a few times a year to see where they are at and give them a taste of what they need to work on or might it hurt their development. Goalies are such freaks, I just have no idea???

 

Not sure, but neither should be the backup while we wait for Lehner, and I don't think Lieuwen is ever going to really make it.

[Claude_Verret]

This reminds me of those who thought the tank was ruined last December because we went on a winning streak despite being dominated in those games. It's seven games. Calm down.

[Taro T]

How many Sabres teams post 7/1/7 would have fought back against a division leading team after giving up a bad goal 1 minute into the 2nd to go down by 2? Getting tied back up was impressive. Unfortunately, a normally reliable FO man lost 2 draws cleanly and a deflection and a bad goal put them back in the hole.

 

They were outhitting & out-chancing Moe-ray-all for nearly 40 minutes.

 

This team, is very entertaining to watch. Even the '09-'10 team that won the division wasn't this entertaining. W's will come.

[inkman]

This reminds me of those who thought the tank was ruined last December because we went on a winning streak despite being dominated in those games. It's seven games. Calm down.

This FFS.

[That Aud Smell]

Isn't that the gamblers fallacy?

Not quite.

[Doohicksie]

Isn't that the gamblers fallacy?

 

The gamblers fallacy is that if a non-likely event happens too frequently, it will be balanced out by the alternative.  So if you flip a coin 10 times and it comes up heads every time, you may think that the next 10 coin flips have to be tails.  What actually happens is that if you get the heads the first 10 times, all you can expect after that is a 50-50 split going forward, so if your total number of flips is 10,000 and you started out with 10 heads in a row, you'll end up with 50% heads and 50% tails, but only because the first 10 flips have become insignificant (you may actually only have 49.95% tails, but you round off to 50% because you don't consider .05% to be significant).

 

So if we're only shooting 3% right now and the NHL average is 9%, and the reason we're shooting so low is random chance, it's fair to assume we'll shoot 9% going forward and with enough shots well eventually approach the average.  But it's not logical to assume that we will shoot 15% for some period of time to "force" our overall percentage to 9%.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Robins Egg

[That Aud Smell]

Good stuff.

 

I can't articulate it, but there's also an apple-oranges fallacy in likening our anticipated puck luck with a gambler's folly on breaking even.

 

The odds for gamblers are such that they are supposed to lose to the house over the long haul. That's why casinos pop up like mushrooms after rain.

 

All I'm saying is that the Sabres should start to gravitate toward an average shooting PCT. The game, the league isn't rigged to prevent that (although an absence of net traffic will keep a team from getting there).