GDT: Dallas visits Buffalo Sabres Oct. 14th, 3pm ET, MSG and WGR550

[Wyldnwoody44]

2 hours ago, steveoath said:

Watched via a rubbish stream in the middle of nowhere on holiday. Thought we were solid. The kind of dominating performance that'll see us win more than we lose. Go Sabres. Woop.

 

Ps - why does olofsson never smile when he scores? ?

I was wondering that too, it's kinda cool, like a calm cockiness

[Andrew Amerk]

9 minutes ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

I was wondering that too, it's kinda cool, like a calm cockiness

“When you score, act like you’ve done it before.”

maybe he ascribes to this mantra. 

[jsb]

I only caught the 2nd half of the game after work on Fox Sw, the Dallas feed. They were impressed with the Sabres, stating they're a different team than last year. They were also highly impressed with the power play and how well they moved the puck and how quickly they did it. They also thought that Miro Heiskanen  is a better all around defenseman than Dahlin, and that he was at this point in his career just an offensive DMan.

As for my takes on this team, the team defense is much better than last year, the power play is just outstanding especially the puck movement. Olofsson may not be a one trick pony but that one trick is pretty dang good. We have a pretty good 2nd line. MJ was an underrated pickup this offseason. I really liked his game with the Bruins in the playoffs last year but he's a better all around player than I gave him credit for also. He's blended in with Skinner pretty seamlessly.

Dallas may have not gotten off to a very good start this year but this is a disciplined, big and was expected to be a playoff team again this year, so this was another impressive win for the Sabres. Broke the Bishop jinx and was the first time of recent vintage we outplayed the Stars.

[French Collection]

I only watched the last two minutes live and then the highlights + post game interviews.

Just a solid effort within RK’s parameters for puck pressure and possession.

This streak is not sustainable but it is really good. Cardiac kids they are not.

Let’s go trash some west coasters!

[Stoner]

2 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

Puck luck has been with the new #90, for sure.

Olofsson can probably shoot a very high % over time, given his role and skill.

Eichel’s shooting a bit better than in the past, I believe.

Correct. He's been around 9-10% in his career. His worst season was last season, but recall that he had a horrendous start to the season, shooting %-wise.

[triumph_communes]

One of my favorite parts of the GLO line is that Larsson looked injured and slow today, but the line as a unit didn't slow down.  Hope it was just a sore spot and he feels better tomorrow.

[Pimlach]

3 hours ago, steveoath said:

Watched via a rubbish stream in the middle of nowhere on holiday. Thought we were solid. The kind of dominating performance that'll see us win more than we lose. Go Sabres. Woop.

 

Ps - why does olofsson never smile when he scores? ?

He practices the “act like you been there” Swedish celebration.  

[Doohicksie]

53 minutes ago, jsb said:

I only caught the 2nd half of the game after work on Fox Sw, the Dallas feed. They were impressed with the Sabres, stating they're a different team than last year. They were also highly impressed with the power play and how well they moved the puck and how quickly they did it. They also thought that Miro Heiskanen  is a better all around defenseman than Dahlin, and that he was at this point in his career just an offensive DMan.

As for my takes on this team, the team defense is much better than last year, the power play is just outstanding especially the puck movement. Olofsson may not be a one trick pony but that one trick is pretty dang good. We have a pretty good 2nd line. MJ was an underrated pickup this offseason. I really liked his game with the Bruins in the playoffs last year but he's a better all around player than I gave him credit for also. He's blended in with Skinner pretty seamlessly.

Dallas may have not gotten off to a very good start this year but this is a disciplined, big and was expected to be a playoff team again this year, so this was another impressive win for the Sabres. Broke the Bishop jinx and was the first time of recent vintage we outplayed the Stars.

FYI if you watch with a smart TV or online using the Fox Sports Go app, you can start a Fox Sports SW event from the beginning.  I watched the whole game, skipping through most of the commercials when I got home from work.

[WildCard]

Looks where Bishop is on this goal to when Dahlin has it and look how wide open Eichel's side is. The league is starting to cheat towards Oloffsson like Krueger has mentioned, and Jack is going to have himself a feast soon enough

 

https://www.nhl.com/video/olofssons-record-setting-ppg/t-277350912/c-69640403

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Looks like I missed a good one.

Watched the highlights just now.

[...]

3 hours ago, French Collection said:

This streak is not sustainable but it is really good. Cardiac kids they are not.

I haven't seen anything to validate this claim this time around. What numbers are you looking at?

[TheAud]

1 hour ago, ... said:

I haven't seen anything to validate this claim this time around. What numbers are you looking at?

They look a lot better this year for sure. However PDO is 1067 which is #1 in the league and will regress. Powerplay won't click at 43% forever either. 

Also if they kept this up they'd end up with 150 points which I don't think will happen. I am OK if they end up with 115-120 ?

[French Collection]

5 hours ago, ... said:

I haven't seen anything to validate this claim this time around. What numbers are you looking at?

Just saying I don’t anticipate 75 wins this season. The streak of 5 wins every 6 games.

I believe they are a playoff contender and will win a lot of games.

[That Aud Smell]

4 hours ago, Sakman said:

They look a lot better this year for sure. However PDO is 1067 which is #1 in the league and will regress. Powerplay won't click at 43% forever either. 

Also if they kept this up they'd end up with 150 points which I don't think will happen. I am OK if they end up with 115-120 ?

This is in line with what I’m seeing. They’re not winning with smoke and mirrors like they did last fall, but they have been rather fortunate. They’re improved. And maybe they’re good.

[...]

5 hours ago, Sakman said:

They look a lot better this year for sure. However PDO is 1067 which is #1 in the league and will regress. Powerplay won't click at 43% forever either. 

Also if they kept this up they'd end up with 150 points which I don't think will happen. I am OK if they end up with 115-120 ?

There were 16 teams last year with a PDO over 1 during the regular season. Through 12/31/18, 3 teams had a PDO over 1.030 and TB ended the season with a 1.022.   5 teams ended with a PP over 24%.   Obviously, the Sabres' metrics throughout the season will regress, but that is expected with a larger sample size.  

Neither of these metrics are strong indicators that the current play is "unsustainable".  

[dudacek]

1 hour ago, That Aud Smell said:

This is in line with what I’m seeing. They’re not winning with smoke and mirrors like they did last fall, but they have been rather fortunate. They’re improved. And maybe they’re good.

Eye test says they won 3 games they should have won, two games games that were up for grabs and salvaged a point from one they should have lost. There have been no smoke or mirrors in their record, just a small bit of luck. Teams that sustain a two wins every three games level of play are good.

We just have to find out how often they can sustain it.

Edited October 15, 2019 by dudacek

[TheAud]

56 minutes ago, ... said:

There were 16 teams last year with a PDO over 1 during the regular season. Through 12/31/18, 3 teams had a PDO over 1.030 and TB ended the season with a 1.022.   5 teams ended with a PP over 24%.   Obviously, the Sabres' metrics throughout the season will regress, but that is expected with a larger sample size.  

Neither of these metrics are strong indicators that the current play is "unsustainable".  

Yes, roughly half the league should end up with a PDO higher than 1. My point is simply that even if they regress to a season long and potentially league leading PDO of say 1.035, that means they roll the next 76 games at something like a PDO of 1.033 (I didn't do the math) which is clearly quite a bit lower than 1.067. Maybe that will happen. It would be awesome. But it still validates that a PDO of 1.067 and 11 out of every 12 possible points isn't really sustainable. 

I am very happy with how the team is playing. Not a naysayer. I'm smokin' whatever Ralph is dealin'.  

[Thorner]

There are definitely things happening in our favour that are sometimes pointed to as a potential avenue for regression to the mean, yet things remain encouraging due to the presence of likely culprits for why those things are working in our favour. Culprits that, if they have indeed been properly identified, appear to me to be sustainable. 

Our PP is lights out because of the talent it’s consisting of. It’s not always going to be firing at a 97% conversation rate, but I think we can confidently expect it to be top 5 in the league. I think it’s that good. Top 10 if playing it safe. 

The goaltending has been as big a reason for our early success as anything, and I’m less confident in both identifying what the variable here is and also it’s sustainability, but the new goaltending coach could be contributing sizeably to what we are seeing. 

[...]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

Eye test says they won 3 games they should have won, two games games that were up for grabs and salvaged a point from one they should have lost. There have been no smoke or mirrors in their record, just a small bit of luck. Teams that sustain a two wins every three games level of play are good.

We just have to find out how often they can sustain it.

 

1 hour ago, Sakman said:

Yes, roughly half the league should end up with a PDO higher than 1. My point is simply that even if they regress to a season long and potentially league leading PDO of say 1.035, that means they roll the next 76 games at something like a PDO of 1.033 (I didn't do the math) which is clearly quite a bit lower than 1.067. Maybe that will happen. It would be awesome. But it still validates that a PDO of 1.067 and 11 out of every 12 possible points isn't really sustainable. 

The challenge I'm having here, intellectually, is how "sustain" and its variants are being used.  

I'm not leaning into you, @Sakman, just having a conversation, so hopefully you dig that and don't get (too) riled, but obviously the PDO and SV% will regress, and so, obviously the numbers today are not sustainable over the course of a regular season.  Tampa Bay did not sustain numbers like that last season, and their regular season last year I would consider a modern benchmark for elite performance.  This is fundamental, though, to statistics.  

The word "sustainable" in this instance, I would argue, implies that the level of play, or the caliber of the Sabres' game, would drop as well.  In other words, by using the word "sustainable" (and I did it myself sometime around game 3), we're invoking the notion that @dudacek and @That Aud Smell explore above - that the Sabres are experiencing outcomes that exceed what they're putting into the games.  

Last year it was obvious to the eye and there were some metrics that told a dire story of impending reality.  This year, there really isn't anything whacky about the metrics other than they're based on such a small sample size.  Unless you measure player performance individually against last year (and, thus, in a near-vacuum), the better results and the causality of those results are in relative alignment.  But if you do want to measure player performance individually, you can't ignore the facts that Vlad, at more than one point in his career, was perfectly capable of registering numbers that befit his role now (albeit on the low side for a higher performing team), and that someone like KO and, egad, Sheary, have been able to hang with the level the team is playing at now.

PDO and SV% are the type of stats that, as they go down, might make someone believe the Sabres are regressing in play (and therefore their level of play is "unsustainable") when in reality the numbers are adjusting to the sample size.  Of course they're going to lose a game, but that doesn't mean the higher level of play suffers over the long term.

I guess I'm wary of suggesting that this is a blip along the season (which it is, but...) and that bad things are coming.  Not that I've dug into every hole there is or looked at each player's numerous charts, but the ones I have dug into look "sustainable" over a long period, and I simply can't buy that PDO and SV% this early in the season mean anything relative to how they're generating those numbers. 

 

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by ...
your mom

[...]

Evolving Hockey has screwed everything up by going pay for their charts. 

[triumph_communes]

14 minutes ago, ... said:

Evolving Hockey has screwed everything up by going pay for their charts. 

Thank god we don’t have to see those stupid things much anymore. 

[Stoner]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

There are definitely things happening in our favour that are sometimes pointed to as a potential avenue for regression to the mean, yet things remain encouraging due to the presence of likely culprits for why those things are working in our favour. Culprits that, if they have indeed been properly identified, appear to me to be sustainable. 

Our PP is lights out because of the talent it’s consisting of. It’s not always going to be firing at a 97% conversation rate, but I think we can confidently expect it to be top 5 in the league. I think it’s that good. Top 10 if playing it safe. 

The goaltending has been as big a reason for our early success as anything, and I’m less confident in both identifying what the variable here is and also it’s sustainability, but the new goaltending coach could be contributing sizeably to what we are seeing. 

The goaltending looks a lot like early last season, no?

[Brawndo]

28 minutes ago, ... said:

Evolving Hockey has screwed everything up by going pay for their charts. 

Let me know what you need. 

[...]

So, I think of the games played, "luck" played the largest role in this game:

Buffalo was "lucky" to win this one because the Panthers were out-playing them, statistically.  You can also draw up the Pittsburgh game and, by looking at it, assume the Sabres were playing above their potential, but if factor in Pittsburgh's performance, you have to describe it (if you're fair) as they playing below their potential.  Both being the case, then, it would be reasonable to conclude that, of course, the Sabres were likely to win that game.

[dudacek]

4 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

The goaltending looks a lot like early last season, no?

Numbers-wise yes, but it’s not been the same scenario.

Haven’t seen objectively bad goals, haven’t seen games being objectively stolen.

But they have both been very good and very reliable, better than I’ve expected.

Hutton has performed like this behind a structured defence, Ullmark in the minors.