The System

[Doohicksie]

Losing faith in the Buffalo sports teams. I thought Dan B would have the Sabres flying and scoring. Far from a playoff team

 

It comes with the territory.  Don't worry, another 3-game winning streak is coming along that will renew your faith (before it is inevitably crushed again).

[Radar]

Losing faith in the Buffalo sports teams. I thought Dan B would have the Sabres flying and scoring. Far from a playoff team

Withholding judgement on Dan Bylsma. Rex exactly what I expected, all talk.

[Eleven]

Time to euthanize him.

[North Buffalo]

Time to euthanize him.

Sodium Barbituate anyone?

[LGR4GM]

Last night I almost never saw anyone in the center of the ice when Buffalo was on offense. Several plays died in the neutral zone because a player came up the boards after receiving a long outlet pass was met by 2 forwards so tossed the puck to center ice but instead of there being support, 1 forward was at the blueline far side and the other forward also at the blue line waiting for the dump in.  

 

Defender gets the puck in our zone, every single player immediately exits the zone accept his defensive partner. Good forechecking makes it almost impossible to exit the zone in control. 

 

Very little net front traffic although last night was better than most. Lots of cycling down low and then tossing it back to the point for a hard point shot that gets blocked. All board passes in the o-zone. And again, no one in the high slot or middle slot ever. Everything was outside the circles accept on the PP. 

[LGR4GM]

I am getting rations... all the rations (beer, lots of beer) and going to hold up in my Bylsma Bunker.

[Randall Flagg]

Thanks for the kind words, Neo.

LGR, come join the group hug in the bunker True and I built.

[qwksndmonster]

Thanks for the kind words, Neo.

 

LGR, come join the group hug in the bunker True and I built.

I hated Hot Daniel before it was even cool!

[Randall Flagg]

I hated Hot Daniel before it was even cool!

You can be a founding father too, then. I can't remember these things!

[qwksndmonster]

You can be a founding father too, then. I can't remember these things!

No, I don't wanna be in your stupid club!

[pi2000]

Last night I almost never saw anyone in the center of the ice when Buffalo was on offense. Several plays died in the neutral zone because a player came up the boards after receiving a long outlet pass was met by 2 forwards so tossed the puck to center ice but instead of there being support, 1 forward was at the blueline far side and the other forward also at the blue line waiting for the dump in.  

 

Defender gets the puck in our zone, every single player immediately exits the zone accept his defensive partner. Good forechecking makes it almost impossible to exit the zone in control. 

 

Very little net front traffic although last night was better than most. Lots of cycling down low and then tossing it back to the point for a hard point shot that gets blocked. All board passes in the o-zone. And again, no one in the high slot or middle slot ever. Everything was outside the circles accept on the PP. 

 

This is an improvement from Nolan being that we have some structure with Bylsma.     

 

However, that said, I've never come out of a Bylsma coached game with the feeling we won because of some clever strategic mid-game adjustment.    I understand it's not football, but there are things you can do throughout the course of the game to change it up if you're either not generating shots or bottled up in your own end... etc.    It seems we have one style of play and we're going to play it come hell or high water.

[Drunkard]

http://nhl.nbcsports.com/2016/11/18/evander-kane-score-two-goals-against-the-sabres-and-youre-going-to-win/

 

Saw this article with a quote from Kane. Wonder if there's dissention in the ranks.

[Eleven]

http://nhl.nbcsports.com/2016/11/18/evander-kane-score-two-goals-against-the-sabres-and-youre-going-to-win/

 

Saw this article with a quote from Kane. Wonder if there's dissention in the ranks.

 

As noted by Mike Harrington in multiple tweets today, Kane also took some personal responsibility for the lack of scoring, but no one is reporting that.

[Drunkard]

As noted by Mike Harrington in multiple tweets today, Kane also took some personal responsibility for the lack of scoring, but no one is reporting that.

I saw that too but I'm already sick of DB and his system so I've chosen tofocus on the negative. Because Buffalo or something.

 

One Buffalo....one heaping pile of Bison .

[LGR4GM]

The more I watch other teams the more depressed I am about Bylsma's system. It's vintage 2009, when no one blocked shots like today

[Sabres Fan in NS]

News flash ... there is no system.

[Randall Flagg]

News flash ... there is no system.

There is. These guys aren't running like chickens with their heads cut off a la Nolan teams.

[LGR4GM]

There's clearly a system. It stifles creativity

[GASabresIUFAN]

Is it a system problem that our guys can't put home great scoring oppotunities? I've watched us dominate in the OT lately and we still can't score. This tells me more then anything that it's the players. They can't score 3 on 3 or 5 on 5 with point blank chances. That's not DD fault.

 

You can rightly complain that the system is to defensive oriented. However considering that we have forwards that can't finish and defenders who can't clear the zone consistently, what choice does DD have but to make sure the forwards at least back check to help keep pucks out of the net?

[Randall Flagg]

I mentioned in the other thread that the heat maps are fun. I'm not sure how much value they have or what they tell us, but I thought I'd grab some from the teams that we generally do well against, like NYR/Ottawa, and teams we can't beat, like Carolina/Boston, and compare them to ours. See if the areas we give up lots of shots are where teams are very good/very bad at shooting from relative to league average. It might be a bunch of nonsense but I have some time to kill. 

 

Here are Buffalo's even strength shot for/against heat maps:

 

What do I get from this first chart, above? It definitely matches the eye tests of many posters here. Just looking at it, we can picture Risto and Franson flinging pucks from that right point, and Kane taking shots from his favorite spot on the left, both where the Sabres shoot from more often than average. I can also picture Matty Mo shoveling pucks into pads from the slight red in that spot in front of the net, maybe Gionta too. Sometimes Samson. Eichel may also share the Kane spot on occasion. And it has been pointed out how we seem to be unable to access the middle of the ice and the upper slot, and it shows here. We don't pass through it, much less take shots from within.

 

 aga

This chart of shots against shows that we are pretty good at clearing the crease and not allowing guys in there with control, which honestly surprises me a little bit, because I often picture Risto and McCabe and Bogosian being soft on guys there. Maybe they're actually better than average at it. There's a slight hole in the mid/high slot, but it isn't terrible, and the rest of the slot is largely clogged up. Teams take many point shots on us, perhaps because it's all they can do to generate consistent chances, perhaps because they know Lehner kicks out rebounds. 

So that's the Buffalo Sabres. I think these charts lend some evidence to the conservative nature of our style. Not a lot of high danger chances for or against, low event hockey. 

I can only do like 5 pictures per post, so I'll post this one and start working on some other teams to see how their charts compare to ours. Hopefully it gives some insight. Even if not, it's fun to look at.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Randall Flagg

[pi2000]

very interesting data there.

 

I think that also shows how poor BUF is at blocking point shots... right? And our left D can't get pucks through.

[Randall Flagg]

very interesting data there.

 

I think that also shows how poor BUF is at blocking point shots... right? And our left D can't get pucks through.

It could mean they are bad at blocking, and it could mean that teams funnel their offense so much more through the point against us than other times because of other factors, or a combination. Certainly needs some dedicated watchers and other stats to get a full picture, but I'm having fun.

[TrueBlueGED]

Huh, it's almost as if we know what we're talking about! Go figure.

 

As an aside, the systematically limited dangerous shots against is why Lehner's GSAA is gloriously average, despite his cumulative SV% being quite good. In other words, although he's being peppered by shots and stopping a respectable number of them, it's not overly hard to stop what he's being asked to stop.

Edited February 10, 2017 by TrueBlueGED

[Randall Flagg]

Let's see what the New York Rangers like to do. The Sabres seem to play them very well, winning 3 of the last 4 games, scoring 4 or 5 goals on Hank in those wins. The loss was an OTL. I always believed that the open style of the Rangers forced us to play similarly, and that we had the skill to exploit their weak defense. 

 

 

 

Wow. The Rangers do everything they can to shoot from where you're most likely to score goals. Helps to explain why their season goal totals are so high. And it's right in the area that we shut down the best. They almost never shoot from the point, where teams generally have success getting their shots to hit Lehner/Nilsson. And now that I think about it, I remember a handful of their goals coming from the point, McDonagh and a Staal tip from Eich's second game. Perhaps this favorable matchup helps explain our recent success?

Here are their shots allowed:
 

They allow a lot from a spot that we have a slight red, and are pretty good at shutting down the points. I bet Jack really likes that area above the left circle (right in the picture). Recent games, that's where Jack scored the go-ahead goal from, when NYR came to town. Gionta too, to tie the game at 2.

 

Funny how different teams can be. 

[That Aud Smell]

very interesting data there.

 

I think that also shows how poor BUF is at blocking point shots... right? And our left D can't get pucks through.

  :huh: