Sabres Christmas wish list

[sweetlou]

1. Healthy Defense (Struggles of late is when we lost McCabe)

2. Second line center (Mitts needs another year as 3rd line center)

3. Secondary scoring (Sheary and Okposo need to score more)

[Beer]

1.  Jack to stay healthy and break 100 pts  - I would really like to see what he can put up in 82 games

2.  LTC for Jeff Skinner - 8 x $8M or less

3.  A #2 C w/ 2-3 years left on contact

4.  Victor Olafsson up on the big club for a couple games

5.  Just beat the Leafs in 2019

Oh yeah and Sabres in the 2019 Playoffs!!!

Go Sabres!

 

Edited December 25, 2018 by Beer

[Wyldnwoody44]

2 hours ago, Beer said:

1.  Jack to stay healthy and break 100 pts  - I would really like to see what he can put up in 82 games

2.  LTC for Jeff Skinner - 8 x $8M or less

3.  A #2 C w/ 2-3 years left on contact

4.  Victor Olafsson up on the big club for a couple games

5.  Just beat the Leafs in the playoffs of 2019

Oh yeah and Sabres in the 2019 Playoffs!!!

Go Sabres!

 

FTFY

[Eleven]

Relax on Casey.  He'll be fine.

[StuckinFL]

If nothing else, beating the leafs in a playoff series would be magical. I think that might be even sweeter than winning the SC. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

Make the playoffs and the rest will take care of itself. Although a 2nd line center would be nice.

[WildCard]

2 hours ago, StuckinFL said:

If nothing else, beating the leafs in a playoff series would be magical. I think that might be even sweeter than winning the SC. 

This. Bounce the Leafs from the playoffs

[Brennan Huff]

5 hours ago, StuckinFL said:

If nothing else, beating the leafs in a playoff series would be magical. I think that might be even sweeter than winning the SC. 

I definitely get it, but nothing will be sweeter than winning the cup....

[SABRES 0311]

1. Skinner contract for the long haul.

2. New PP scheme.

3. A SH goal (for us).

4. Pilut’s first goal.

5. Leaf’s season to take a dramatic dive.

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

1. for RJ to lift the CUP in the square downtown.

2.Jack's 100pt season plus 35pts more in playoffs.

3. Skinner's LTC

4. Pilut to stay up with the big boys.

5. The Leafs move to Quebeque

[French Collection]

4 hours ago, Brennan Huff said:

I definitely get it, but nothing will be sweeter than winning the cup....

Agree, but baby steps.

[bob_sauve28]

A very good right winger at trade deadline to play with Jack and Jeff. Move Sam to play with Tage and Casey and have two really good lines for playoffs.

[Stoner]

All the lost leads — is the answer scoring more goals to extend leads or maybe adding a defensive specialist or two? The Sabres don't have a reliable faceoff man, especially shorthanded, where Larsson is poor. Of the top five in total draws taken, only Rodrigues, Larsson and Sobotka are threatening 50%. Jack as a dominant guy kind of fizzled out, although he's pretty money on the power play. Buffalo is 26th in faceoff winning percentage, so it's a bit of a sore point. Now, I might be living in the past where protecting leads and winning draws mattered.

[bg17]

2 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

All the lost leads — is the answer scoring more goals to extend leads or maybe adding a defensive specialist or two? The Sabres don't have a reliable faceoff man, especially shorthanded, where Larsson is poor. Of the top five in total draws taken, only Rodrigues, Larsson and Sobotka are threatening 50%. Jack as a dominant guy kind of fizzled out, although he's pretty money on the power play. Buffalo is 26th in faceoff winning percentage, so it's a bit of a sore point. Now, I might be living in the past where protecting leads and winning draws mattered.

Tied for fourth most points in the while being 26th in faceoffs. Would be nice to have an ace when you need one but maybe they aren’t all that important. 

[Norcal]

Sign Skinner

Sign Skinner

Healthy team

[French Collection]

Dahlin's continued upward trajectory.

Casey finding some O.

Tage finding some space for his shot.

KO finding his hands.

Healthy 2019 for all.

[GASabresIUFAN]

On the Twelve Days of Christmas the Sabres gave to me

And the use of our 2019 1st Rd at No. 31.

2. More wins against the Pacific Div (we are 9-2-1 so far)

at least  3 NHL Awards -(Calder - Dahlin, MVP Jack, Jack Adams Housley and GM Jbots)

4. Playoff Series Wins

5. Sabres ALL-stars (Skinner, Jack, Risto, Hutton and Dahlin)

6. More Wins Against the Central (Sabres currently 2-2-1)

A 7 year extension for Skinner.

8. More wins against the Atlantic (Sabres currently 7-4-2)

9. More wins against the Metro (Sabres currently 3-3-2)

10. Top 10 Special Teams

11. Players with 10 or more goals for the Season (Jack, Skinner, Sam, Risto, Dahlin, KO, Mitts, Tage, Sheary, Pommers and one surprise - Olofsson)

12. Game Winning Streak.

Edited December 27, 2018 by GASabresIUFAN
I made some changes to reflect bigger goals

[Rox11]

Just a healthy team; they are pretty damn good when the set lineup plays.

[Stoner]

20 hours ago, bg17 said:

Tied for fourth most points in the while being 26th in faceoffs. Would be nice to have an ace when you need one but maybe they aren’t all that important. 

And they were top 10 last season in faceoffs, so yeah... "When you need one" is the operative term. They're not important until they are.

I started looking around for evidence that faceoff wins can be correlated to winning. I thought there might be (should be?) a correlation between winning faceoffs while shorthanded and having penalty killing success. Disappointingly, nhl.com doesn't break down shorthanded faceoffs by winning percentage, just the raw wins and losses, so I gave up — too much work.

What I noticed is that almost no team last season won more shorthanded faceoffs than it lost. In fact, Buffalo was the only team above 50%, and barely. Boston was exactly 50% and the rest were underwater. Why's it harder to win a faceoff when you're shorthanded?

Edited December 26, 2018 by PASabreFan

[SwampD]

14 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

And they were top 10 last season in faceoffs, so yeah... "When you need one" is the operative term. They're not important until they are.

I started looking around for evidence that faceoff wins can be correlated to winning. I thought there might be (should be?) a correlation between winning faceoffs while shorthanded and having penalty killing success. Disappointingly, nhl.com doesn't break down shorthanded faceoffs by winning percentage, just the raw wins and losses, so I gave up — too much work.

What I noticed is that almost no team last season won more shorthanded faceoffs than it lost. In fact, Buffalo was the only team above 50%, and barely. Boston was exactly 50% and the rest were underwater. Why's it harder to win a faceoff when you're shorthanded?

Winning faceoffs is a five man endeavor. I'm guessing it's harder when you only have four.

[Eleven]

On 12/25/2018 at 12:05 AM, StuckinFL said:

If nothing else, beating the leafs in a playoff series would be magical. I think that might be even sweeter than winning the SC. 

No.  The Sabres beat the Leaves to get to the Final once, and it was NOT sweeter than winning the Cup would have been.

[Taro T]

40 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

And they were top 10 last season in faceoffs, so yeah... "When you need one" is the operative term. They're not important until they are.

I started looking around for evidence that faceoff wins can be correlated to winning. I thought there might be (should be?) a correlation between winning faceoffs while shorthanded and having penalty killing success. Disappointingly, nhl.com doesn't break down shorthanded faceoffs by winning percentage, just the raw wins and losses, so I gave up — too much work.

What I noticed is that almost no team last season won more shorthanded faceoffs than it lost. In fact, Buffalo was the only team above 50%, and barely. Boston was exactly 50% and the rest were underwater. Why's it harder to win a faceoff when you're shorthanded?

2 reasons for it being tougher to win the faceoff when SH.  1, as mentioned already, the SH team has 1 less skater than the PP team & 1 less body to win a scrum when the FO doesn't get won cleanly.  And 2, the C in his own defensive zone has to line up 1st so the PP C has an edge from the get go.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Taro T

[Kruppstahl]

LOL; I thought this thread was going to be about Saber-related gift ideas.

Like tickets, a 2019 Sabres calendar, a t-shirt, or a sweater.

You know, something you might buy here:

 

 

[Pimlach]

Sabres list:

1.  Secondary scoring

2.  Goaltending continues to play well 

3.  Line 1 stays hot 

4.  Defense continues to play well and develop  

5.  Leaves and Bruins play bad. 

[Formerly Allan in MD]

1.  Secondary scoring - a must.

2.  Don't mess with Pilut.

3.  A breakout by Casey.