Defense is good, Scoring is atrocious, Goalies questionable (Advanced Stats Warning)

[triumph_communes]

Ullmark started the season letting in stinkers, but has mostly shored that up.  Hutton has been absolutely terrible this season.  Ullmark is getting a lion's share of games because of Hutton's play.

 

The defense isn't a problem.  The lack of talent on forwards is holding us back, but even then, we aren't that bad on 5v5.  Special teams has killed us this year.

[miles]

6 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Yet both teams have basically the same record. I do wish the Sabres played with more defensive urgency.

I wasnt trying to say either was better, but i was saying they play so differently, that watching a team that is really defensively minded, makes me see that the sabres dont play great defense

i suspect if the wild had someone in goal equivalent to ullmark, they would be worlds better. Also, the wild have played more than half of their road games by december and were like 2 and 9 or something to start the season.

on the opposite side, if the sabres had 1 more consistent scorer and 1 better backup goalie, i think they would be worlds better. Both teams are just like 2 or 3 players away from being really competitive.

[Taro T]

51 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Henrique is 29

Really thought he was older than that.  Maybe he could be that stop gap.  What do you think it would take to land him?

[GASabresIUFAN]

3 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Really thought he was older than that.  Maybe he could be that stop gap.  What do you think it would take to land him?

I don’t know.  I suspect that Ana is going to sell at the deadline, but given his age and contract size and term he’d probably only cost a 2nd and a middle prospect like a Borgen for example.  They may have to take a contract back to make the money work so Sheary, A 2nd and Borgen?

[Taro T]

8 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

I don’t know.  I suspect that Ana is going to sell at the deadline, but given his age and contract size and term he’d probably only cost a 2nd and a middle prospect like a Borgen for example.  They may have to take a contract back to make the money work so Sheary, A 2nd and Borgen?

Considering how badly the Sabres need that 2C today, would be ok with that realizing they very likely either have ~$4MM in worthless cap hit in 4 years or ~$1.5MM in worthless cap hit in 4 & 5 years.

[GASabresIUFAN]

25 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Considering how badly the Sabres need that 2C today, would be ok with that realizing they very likely either have ~$4MM in worthless cap hit in 4 years or ~$1.5MM in worthless cap hit in 4 & 5 years.

I don’t see year 4 as a problem.  1st the cap goes up and second he’ll be a very solid 3C at that point and a good vet to have around. Who knows he might still be producing at a 40 pt clip.

[PerreaultForever]

These sort of stats never tell the whole picture. You have to compare what happens at different times of games, what happens when ahead, when trailing, etc. Also, biggest of all how the team plays when other teams play more physical. That's where the eyes come in. How many times have you seen us play fairly even, maybe even get ahead, but then the other team bears down and dominates the front of our net, goalies get multiple shots/rebounds and they bang a few in and we lose as they coast to a victory.  Now in that game the advanced stats show us playing even, maybe even better for most of the game, it's totally deceptive.

Our D is better than last year, but we are dreadful in front of our net.

Offensively we are still all too often one and done on shots. We don't dig down, screen, tip, get dirty, and turn chances into goals liek the Bostons, Washingtons, St. Louis's do. That is totally missing.

[Taro T]

24 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

I don’t see year 4 as a problem.  1st the cap goes up and second he’ll be a very solid 3C at that point and a good vet to have around. Who knows he might still be producing at a 40 pt clip.

Hoping you're right.  But until they make a signing / trade for an older guy that doesn't bite them on the back end, will assume/ expect that a trade like that will bite them at the end.  And again, if they can get him for as little as you've proposed am both willing to make that trade and FULLY expect the final piece of the trade to be wasted cap room in 4 years.

[LGR4GM]

13 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

These sort of stats never tell the whole picture. You have to compare what happens at different times of games, what happens when ahead, when trailing, etc. Also, biggest of all how the team plays when other teams play more physical. That's where the eyes come in. How many times have you seen us play fairly even, maybe even get ahead, but then the other team bears down and dominates the front of our net, goalies get multiple shots/rebounds and they bang a few in and we lose as they coast to a victory.  Now in that game the advanced stats show us playing even, maybe even better for most of the game, it's totally deceptive.

Our D is better than last year, but we are dreadful in front of our net.

Offensively we are still all too often one and done on shots. We don't dig down, screen, tip, get dirty, and turn chances into goals liek the Bostons, Washingtons, St. Louis's do. That is totally missing.

That is accounted for in shot location tracking metrics and shot types. There are advanced stats that track where and how goals are scored. 

[darksabre]

Thanks for putting this together Liger. Looks like the data confirm everything we already knew in September. Ullmark is functional, Hutton fell apart again, the defense is good, and the offense is terrible. Shocking.

Incredible that nothing has been done to fix these predictable results.

Either Botterill is an idiot, or he simply elected to punt this entire season before it even started...

[etiennep99]

Rochester doesn't have anything to offer.   CJ Smith & Oglevie have limited upside. Borgen, Bryson, and Fitzgerald could be depth NHL d-men.

I like what I see in Bryson, but he's no Gostibehere nor Krug.  He's just a smart player with good positioning, but size will always be an issue.

After a  quick eye-test Mittelstadt reminds me a bit too much of Nylander.  Granted, Mittelstadt has a LOT more drive than Nylander.

But I don't ever see him as a mature driver of play like Eichel.  (But of course, I said the same thing about Quinn Hughes; mea culpa)

And his defence doesn't make him a 3C/4C.

I afraid that Mittelstadt will be more of a 2C like Sam Gagner if Casey reaches that ceiling.

 

This year, it's "Dernière pour Lafrenière".

Edited January 14, 2020 by etiennep99

[tom webster]

5 hours ago, miles said:

i watch the minnesota wild play a lot. they are probably my favorite team along with the sabres. it is a completely different style of play when watching the wild vs watching the sabres. 

the wild are so defensive minded, they are constantly clearing people out in front of the goaltender, they fore check like crazy making it difficult for the opposing team to get into the zone cleanly. However, devan dubnyk is having a horrendous year with a save percentage at probably less than 90%. (in fact when he was out for his sick wife, the wild did much better)

when i watch the sabres, they rarely seem to clear the people in front, and i dont see a ton of forechecking, at least compared to the wild. 

again, watching these two teams play, i dont really see the sabres as having good defense. the wild dont score like the sabres, but the sabres dont defend like the wild. 

 

i mentioned it once before, the sabres play like a high scoring team, i just dont think they score enough to account for the terrible hutton and other mistakes made

OK, we keep having posters striving to be the first ever. I would wager $100 that no one has ever said a Bruce Boudreau team was defensive minded before this post.

[In The Buff]

Adam Henrique gets mentioned here a lot by some posters. Why i'm not quite sure, maybe its a perceived lack of options. I've said this before but I just don't see Anaheim even wanting to trade him in the 1st place. Not to mention he has a 10 team no trade clause. But he just signed a 5 year extension in 2018. Thats not something a team usually does when they're considering moving him.

He's also their 2nd highest scorer in terms of goals, 1 behind the leader at 14. He's now on their top scoring line playing alongside Getzlaf & Sprong. But he also takes lots of important draws for them, as he has the best Faceoff percentage on the team. All this for making a hair under $6mil a year til 2023-2024.

Anaheim is on the outside looking in on making a wildcard spot, so come the deadline i could see them willing to shed a contract or 2 of an under performing player to get younger or out of a bad contract to build for the future. But moving Henrique wouldn't really fit that idea. He's 1 of their top scorers who can play anywhere in the lineup on a decent deal.

What would it take from us to get the deal done? I don't think we'd be willing to overpay & we don't have much cap space to take any cap back in a cap dump. I guess anythings possible but it takes 2 to tango & i don't see either side wanting to make a trade here & have yet to hear a plausible scenario for one either.

Rumors out of Pittsburgh are that Galchenyuk is on the block again. I'd say a trade with them would be more likely than Henrique & even with Galchenyuk i don't see that happening either. But i'd be more likely to believe that as a possibility than Henrique. As sad as it sounds i think maybe Botts makes a move for futures at the deadline but he waits til the offseason to do anything substantial.

[miles]

15 minutes ago, tom webster said:

OK, we keep having posters striving to be the first ever. I would wager $100 that no one has ever said a Bruce Boudreau team was defensive minded before this post.

watch them play

[darksabre]

21 minutes ago, tom webster said:

OK, we keep having posters striving to be the first ever. I would wager $100 that no one has ever said a Bruce Boudreau team was defensive minded before this post.

What about Bruce Boudreau? 

 

https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/washington-capitals/boudreau-offense-great-defense-wins

[miles]

48 minutes ago, tom webster said:

OK, we keep having posters striving to be the first ever. I would wager $100 that no one has ever said a Bruce Boudreau team was defensive minded before this post.

i accept paypal ? 

26 minutes ago, darksabre said:

What about Bruce Boudreau? 

 

https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/washington-capitals/boudreau-offense-great-defense-wins

thanks ?

[Curt]

51 minutes ago, tom webster said:

OK, we keep having posters striving to be the first ever. I would wager $100 that no one has ever said a Bruce Boudreau team was defensive minded before this post.

He has, at different times, successfully coached teams that excelled both offensively and defensively.  He has had teams lead the league in goals against, and finish top 5 a couple times.

It’s one of the reasons I think he is maybe the most underrated coach in the league.  He seems to be able to work with what he has, instead of doing the square peg/ round hole.

[Randall Flagg]

Boudreau's Wild are notoriously stingy defensively. At least they were up to last season, I haven't been keeping close tabs.

[miles]

3 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Boudreau's Wild are notoriously stingy defensively. At least they were up to last season, I haven't been keeping close tabs.

last season was weird because they looked like they were going to try to rebuild to get younger. this season dubnyk is so horrible, like hutton horrible, its pretty sad that when he was out for his sick wife, they were top notch. he comes back, and they are back in the toilet

[tom webster]

30 minutes ago, Curt said:

He has, at different times, successfully coached teams that excelled both offensively and defensively.  He has had teams lead the league in goals against, and finish top 5 a couple times.

It’s one of the reasons I think he is maybe the most underrated coach in the league.  He seems to be able to work with what he has, instead of doing the square peg/ round hole.

Not this year. 150 goals against and a -15 differential is among worst in the league. His theory, no matter how painted, is possessing the puck is the best defense which has been the reason for two dismissals with another one pending.

[Curt]

23 minutes ago, tom webster said:

Not this year. 150 goals against and a -15 differential is among worst in the league. His theory, no matter how painted, is possessing the puck is the best defense which has been the reason for two dismissals with another one pending.

How many NHL coaches have 13 years of experience and have only been fired twice or less.  I bet I could count them on one hand.

[tom webster]

13 minutes ago, Curt said:

How many NHL coaches have 13 years of experience and have only been fired twice or less.  I bet I could count them on one hand.

I love Boudreau because of what he isn’t but the fact is he hasn’t translated his regular season success Into the postseason.

For the record, I was wrong to think that you were the only one that thought he was defensive. I do, however, believe that article was written because it was different then what people associated with him.

[Curt]

1 minute ago, tom webster said:

I love Boudreau because of what he isn’t but the fact is he hasn’t translated his regular season success Into the postseason.

For the record, I was wrong to think that you were the only one that thought he was defensive. I do, however, believe that article was written because it was different then what people associated with him.

I wasn’t the one who started the convo.  Never said he was defensive. I think he is flexible, style wise, not physically.

[rakish]

Warning: Advanced Skepticism

Look at Tierney's first chart called called 'Offense'. The X axis is labeled Quality, the Y axis is results. For me, this ought to produce, more or less, a straight line from bottom left to top right, because there ought to be a relationship between the quality of your chances and your results. Since xGf/60 doesn't relate to your results, it means that it's not the xGf/60 that is creating the results, it's something else, which I'll come back to.

Now let's look at the second chart called 'Defense'. It produces, more or less, a straight line. Demonstrating that xGf does relate to your results in the defensive zone. I'll save the discussion of how the first chart relates to the second chart for another day.

I believe that 'something else' is what happens right before the distance and type of shot are taken. If the puck moves horizontal through the zone, it creates a higher scoring chance than if a player takes the shot himself. If you've been listening to my podcast, I've been talking about how poorly the Sabres move the puck through the offensive zone. In Buffalo, it's mostly Eichel that moves the puck horizontal. I grade Vegas highlights as a comparison, where the entire team moves the puck horizontal (Though no one passes the puck to Carrier, like no one in Buffalo passes the puck to Girgenssons). I believe this horizontal puck movement creates higher quality scoring chances.

NHL.com forces me to listen to the opposing announcers half the time, and that's been interesting as how the different announcers talk about their team (and how they talk about the Sabres, but that's another discussion). The St Louis Blues are very good at moving the puck horizontal in the offensive zone. The announcers talked about this during the last Sabre St Louis game, talking about how the coach of St Louis preaches being patient in the offensive zone. That the Blues' players are taught not to take the low percentage shot, but to wait for the high percentage shot. For me, the Blues dominated both Sabre games, that Ullmark stole one because the St Louis back up goaltender was bad in the first meeting. Similarly, (it was a while ago now, so my details will be off) I think it was the Washington announcers were talking about how the Cap's coach preaches getting high percentage shots. Contrasting that is Buffalo, where Rob Ray, every game, talks about the need to 'Put pucks to the net', or as I translate to 'Take low quality shots'. I believe this belief system is rampant in the Buffalo organization.

Kreuger gives me hope despite my lack of confidence. Reinhart is moving the puck more in the offensive zone than he had been. The power play goal of Risto passing to Reinhart last night (while not horizontal, gave Reinhart and open look) gives me hope that the Sabres are working on getting higher percentage shots. 

 

[SwampD]

Bump.

You don't need analytics to know that we just don't score enough. 

Our D is fine. The goalies are fine,… enough.

We just don't score.

It's maddening.