GDT:Penguins at Buffalo 10/1/21 7pm Streaming on Sabres.com, WGR550

[dudacek]

2 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

I guess if you ignore any player last year on a 40+ point pace and Dahlin... sure. What a strange post and statement. 

I don't think it's strange at all, I think it's highly relevant.

Career years by current Sabres:

• Okposo 69
• Skinner 53
• Butcher 44
• Dahlin 44
• Olofsson 42
• Miller 41
• Eakin 41
• Hinostroza 39
• Girgensons 30
• Mittelstadt 25
• Caggiula 20
• Bjork 19
• Jokiharju 15
• Thompson 14
• Cozens 13
• Hayden 13
• Asplund 11

The entire roster could have career years and we could still end up with the worst offence in the NHL.

And even that's misleading, because there's no way Okposo, Skinner, Eakin, Butcher and Miller are going come close to their career years. Without Jack and Sam on the PP, it should shock no one if Dahlin leads this team in scoring with less 50 points. He and Mittelstadt are the only two of the above, in my opinion, who have any chance of even hitting 40. I'm squinting real hard and hoping for a rookie of the year type campaign for R2.

How is this team going to score goals?

 

[thewookie1]

I’d say there’s a far better chance of his one ankle being screwed up. (My ankles are bad but one actually will randomly go loose upon walking on some sort of uneven land causing me to fall.) If the ankle that was hurt all those years ago has never fully recovered; it could explain his trouble staying on his feet when pushed with the puck.

[SwampD]

10 hours ago, Buffalonill said:

After last night I don't know how anybody could be excited for this season .

Do you actually know someone who is?

[Randall Flagg]

6 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

I guess if you ignore any player last year on a 40+ point pace and Dahlin... sure. What a strange post and statement. 

Dahlin is not a forward

What forwards did that last year in any sort of realistic fashion? Mitts and who else? Olofsson is most likely to save us from this fate, and I'm fairly confident in Mitts as well. But I don't recall any team ever setting itself up to have no forwards you can put easy money on scoring half a point per game, with no slam dunk forward prospects.

There's a small chance this team needs to build an entire top 9 from pieces it doesn't have yet

I happen to believe in Casey and Dylan and JJP, but any of them struggling/flaming out is farrrrr from inconceivable Sabres are in an ugly and dangerous spot and there will be many bleak winter nights in which we grapple with this possibility. I've only ever seen fewer "sure things" on one team, the most disgraceful team in sabres history

There are no in-their-prime reliable offensive forwards on this team or in this prospect pool or anywhere else attached to the name "Buffalo Sabres", this is more or less unheard of

Hoping that Casey and co. can step up because boy do we need them to 

[Archie Lee]

5 hours ago, dudacek said:

I don't think it's strange at all, I think it's highly relevant.

Career years by current Sabres:

• Okposo 69
• Skinner 53
• Butcher 44
• Dahlin 44
• Olofsson 42
• Miller 41
• Eakin 41
• Hinostroza 39
• Girgensons 30
• Mittelstadt 25
• Caggiula 20
• Bjork 19
• Jokiharju 15
• Thompson 14
• Cozens 13
• Hayden 13
• Asplund 11

The entire roster could have career years and we could still end up with the worst offence in the NHL.

And even that's misleading, because there's no way Okposo, Skinner, Eakin, Butcher and Miller are going come close to their career years. Without Jack and Sam on the PP, it should shock no one if Dahlin leads this team in scoring with less 50 points. He and Mittelstadt are the only two of the above, in my opinion, who have any chance of even hitting 40. I'm squinting real hard and hoping for a rookie of the year type campaign for R2.

How is this team going to score goals?

 

Realistically, the Sabres will not be a high-scoring team this year.  But I'm not sure that the career year analysis supports your conclusion.   

First, you use points instead of goals.  If you take the players listed and add in Hagg, Pysyk and Bryson to round out the defence, and you add up their career years for goals, you get 240.  The last time the NHL played an 82 game season, 240 goals would have been good for 19th in the league.  The Sabres haven't scored 240 goals in a season since 2010-2011.  They won't likely do it this year, but if they do they will be far from the worst offence in the NHL.

Second, while you correctly point out that certain veteran players won't come close to reaching their career highs in points (or goals), I believe you overlook that around 1/2 of the players listed could conceivably exceed their career highs.  Dahlin, Olofsson, Hinostroza,  Mitts, Bjork, Joker, Thompson, Cozens, Asplund and Bryson could all realistically exceed their career highs; for those on the bottom end of the list it would not be a stretch that they do so by a wide margin.

Lastly, while I don't think that Skinner will come close to his career high of 63 points I do think it is possible he rebounds and has a 20-25 goal and 40-45 point season. 

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Archie Lee

[sabremike]

2 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

Dahlin is not a forward

What forwards did that last year in any sort of realistic fashion? Mitts and who else? Olofsson is most likely to save us from this fate, and I'm fairly confident in Mitts as well. But I don't recall any team ever setting itself up to have no forwards you can put easy money on scoring half a point per game, with no slam dunk forward prospects.

There's a small chance this team needs to build an entire top 9 from pieces it doesn't have yet

I happen to believe in Casey and Dylan and JJP, but any of them struggling/flaming out is farrrrr from inconceivable Sabres are in an ugly and dangerous spot and there will be many bleak winter nights in which we grapple with this possibility. I've only ever seen fewer "sure things" on one team, the most disgraceful team in sabres history

There are no in-their-prime reliable offensive forwards on this team or in this prospect pool or anywhere else attached to the name "Buffalo Sabres", this is more or less unheard of

Hoping that Casey and co. can step up because boy do we need them to 

I still am pissing myself with laughter over that guy in The Athletic proclaiming us as having the best prospect pool in hockey. How high on ludes did he have to be to reach that conclusion?

BUT DON'T YOU WORRY: If we finish dead last we get a whopping 15% chance of landing "our savior" Shane Wright and if we don't we get a 15% crack at 2023 "savior" we can parade in front of the 3,000 fans at that rotting dilapidated shithole KBC (only more than that when the 18k Leafs fans come to town). Seriously how bad do you have to suck at math to do ***** like this, and what type of low IQ morons would see how disastrous this was the last time AND DO IT AGAIN???. But they hired the single least qualified man to be given a GM job with the possible exception of Wang making Garth Snow Isles GM so really why should anyone expect anything different. Seriously do you think Lou Lamoriello would do ***** like try to lose games for draft picks in a million years? That's why he's a Hall Of Famer and Adams is nothing more an unqualified sycophant whose only qualification is his ability to kiss Terry' rosy red ass. The idea that RJ will never call another meaningful game in his life makes me hate this entire ratbag organization with the heat of a million suns.

[sabremike]

And not for nothing but you realize that right now the two biggest losers of the 2015 draft were the two teams trying to lose (yeah, Boston. They messed up but didn't Hiroshima their entire franchise in the process).

[gilbert11]

On 10/1/2021 at 9:01 PM, LGR4GM said:

No, Levi is already at college. 

So, it’s like this:

Owen Power, you’ve just been selected first in the draft by the Buffalo Sabres.  What do you have to say? “I’m going to college.”

Devon Levi, you’ve just been traded to the Buffalo Sabres.  What do you have to say?  “I’m going to college.”

Will we have a player quit in the middle of the season to go to college instead?

 

[Buffalonill]

23 hours ago, SwampD said:

Do you actually know someone who is?

Yeah.