Winning in garbage time

[North Buffalo]

50 minutes ago, Weave said:

He damned near died.  It was a couple of seasons, and a couple more concussions before his game started to match the effort he was putting into it.

hence why my response was what it was...

[Kruppstahl]

On 4/30/2022 at 3:28 PM, triumph_communes said:

They beat a bunch of teams who needed points. Wasn’t garbage time. 

That's true.  

I've been saying for quite a long time now that we would be ready to make the playoffs in the 2023-2024 season, so still 1 more missed playoff season to go.  

I still think that's probably how it will work out, but if we can put together a full season the way we played March/April, we'll make the playoffs next year instead.

It's nice going into a season thinking we might have a shot at playing right now--in the post season.

I also hope the fans of WNY go back to filling the building next year.

The group currently on the team deserve it.

 

 

 

[matter2003]

On 4/30/2022 at 11:24 AM, Taro T said:

It probably will be a significant portion of this summer's conversation 'round here.

Where is this team REALLY right now?  Is it the worst in the league that it showed from November to March, the playoff level team it was after the calendar flipped to March, or something in between?  Pretty sure most would say in between.

They took a strange road to get there, but the standings say they're in the same class as teams like San Jose and Ottawa and that seems about right all things considered.  Would like to think they should be w/ the Aisles & Jets right now, but if this EXACT same team came back expect the goaltending would doom them to be a step back from that.

On paper this team'll need to find 21-25 points to reach the playoffs next year, but their skaters probably are good enough that they should be an Aisles level team today, so simply getting league average goaltending gets them  9 or 10 of them.  (We can hope, right?)

Would also agree with Okposo that they did seem to be preparing different down the stretch.  The coach started to match lines regularly.  When things weren't working, lines & pairings changed in game, and when Bjork & Hayden were in the lineup the bench shortened significantly in the 3rd.  Didn't see the 4th line out at all in the 3rd.  (Maybe Krebs caught a shift somewhere, but didn't notice him and had been looking.)  Earlier in the year, except for the rare experimentation, e.g. playing Cozens vs McDavid, there was little line matching & almost no shortening of the bench nor situational deployment adjustment.  So, they probably could've won a few more games early in the year w/ a more standard coaching philosophy.  Though the question remains, though the Sabres did seem focused & not necessarily loose, did their playoff caliber opponents take them seriously?  Even if Kyle is right & their results shouldn't be discounted because they were focused & preparing as professionals, were their opponents able to bring their A games against what the standings said were significantly inferior opponents.

 Will be interesting to see if Adams can bring in those 3-4 pieces many here expect (1G, 2RD, 4C, maybe another F) to see him get.  Will also be interesting to see how much another full off-season will benefit the kids.  And it likely can't be understated how much an off-season w/out drama will help them in staying focused.

Somewhat unrelated note.  Will also be interesting to see how many teams seem to want to challenge the Yotes for 32nd next year.  If there's more than 1 or 2, that might skew next year's standings some.  If there's a bunch, that'll help them get more points in the RS.   And not sure if that'll make it easier or harder to claw into the playoffs.  

So here is why I think with their current lineup they are much closer to the team from end of February onward:

1) Ridiculous amounts of injuries, especially to goalies killed us for quite some time. Having to trade for a goalie because you have 5 injured and have no backups left in the entire organization?  Are you freaking kidding me? Middlestadt and Samuelsson were out for much of the early part of the year as well.

2) The additions of Tuch and Krebs as well as the return of the injured players around the same time made a huge difference.  Team went from scoring 2.67 goals per game to 3.2+ goals per game since the end of February. The more they played together, the better they gelled with each other.  

3) Owen Power is going to be an absolute man child for us next year.

4) Additions of Quinn and likely Peterka further bolster the scoring on this team, which is already showing signs of being at minimum league average in that department, if not above average during this timeframe.

5) Assumption is they will find a goalie to help out since all current options save for UPL are terrible(yes, Anderson actually sucked...he just got a lot of goal support most nights). This will by default make them better than they were at anytime this year.

6) Tons of cap space(40.3 million is the most in the NHL) allow them to find one or two quality FAs to further bolster the team and accelerate their development.

I fully expect this team to be in the playoff race going into the last few weeks of the season next year.  I don't think they will quite get there but they should be very close.

Edited May 3, 2022 by matter2003