Around the NHL 2023-24 Season

[PerreaultForever]

11 hours ago, spndnchz said:

Benson reminds me so much of Reinhardt. 

This I do not see at all. Benson drives the net better than almost anybody on this team (which is ridiculous but true). idk how he's playing in Florida now, probably really good given th3e stats, but he was a very smart but also more cautious player here. 

 

6 hours ago, ska-T Chitown said:

I actually like Reino, but IIRC, he was sent down his draft +1 year for being essentially clueless at the NHL level. I'd wager at this stage in their careers, Benson is ahead. No clue how that pans out 6 or 7 years from now, tho.

Did they not use him as a center at first and he basically couldn't win a draw and just looked lost. Completely ineffective. Which was why they tried him as a wing the next year was it not?

[Wyldnwoody44]

I guess Samson will be fine eh

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

I guess Samson will be fine eh

hairplugs?

 

[LGR4GM]

5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Did they not use him as a center at first and he basically couldn't win a draw and just looked lost. Completely ineffective. Which was why they tried him as a wing the next year was it not?

No they didn't. He was stapled to Jack's wing almost from the get go. The centers were Eichel and ROR.

Reinhart was always good but because he didn't hit things hard enough ppl didn't like him. 

Edited January 13 by LGR4GM

[Getpucksdeep]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

No they didn't. He was stapled to Jack's wing almost from the get go. The centers were Eichel and ROR.

Reinhart was always good but because he didn't hit things hard enough ppl didn't like him. 

Can confirm dislike. Sorta like Pominvilles game.  Nice piece, but if you don't surround it with "hard to play against" it won't translate to Ws.  Also he gave off a smug vibe, opposite of Cozens.  

[SabreFinn]

It is hard to believe that we actually had Eichel and O'Reilly as centers...

[Quint]

In a bit of an eyebrow raiser, the Hockey Guy gave the Sabres an "F" at the halfway point of the season. 

The Sabres did have the 9th hardest schedule in the first half but they do have an easier second half.

Here's his rationale (6:35) 

 

[Archie Lee]

Reinhart is a lesson in patience.  It's a generalization (there isn't necessarily a lot of crossover), but today we have fans lamenting our lack of patience with Reinhart while wanting to move-on from players on the youngest team in the NHL.

In fairness, I think fans can be forgiven for wanting results and for not always being able to recognize the difference between a player who is not delivering due to their own shortcomings v. a player who is being held back by his environment (losing culture, poor talent around him, bad coaching). 

Reinhart was good here, but in his best season as a Sabre he put up numbers that almost exactly match what Mittelstadt is putting up this year.  Of course, the inflection point was probably when Botterill hired Housley.  A more-experienced, veteran coach with a winning track record at that moment likely changes the trajectory of the franchise and of the careers of many players.

[sabremike]

35 minutes ago, Quint said:

In a bit of an eyebrow raiser, the Hockey Guy gave the Sabres an "F" at the halfway point of the season. 

The Sabres did have the 9th hardest schedule in the first half but they do have an easier second half.

Here's his rationale (6:35) 

 

How could anyone in their right mind NOT give this team an F? This season has been a monumental catastrophe and if the organization had any standards whatsoever the entire coaching staff would've already been sacked.

[Weave]

43 minutes ago, Quint said:

In a bit of an eyebrow raiser, the Hockey Guy gave the Sabres an "F" at the halfway point of the season. 

The Sabres did have the 9th hardest schedule in the first half but they do have an easier second half.

Here's his rationale (6:35) 

 

???

I would raise an eyebrow if anything other than an F was given.  This team has thoroughly failed relative to expectations.

[DarthEbriate]

9 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Did they not use him as a center at first and he basically couldn't win a draw and just looked lost. Completely ineffective. Which was why they tried him as a wing the next year was it not?

Yes, in his first season, Reinhart was in the lineup as the 2C (Hodgson-Reinhart-Gionta) before slipping to 4C (Deslauriers-Reinhart-McCormick). And he just didn't have the strength or game speed to be effective, even when he was able to get to the correct locations. Then, back to juniors.

3 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

No they didn't. He was stapled to Jack's wing almost from the get go. The centers were Eichel and ROR.

Reinhart was always good but because he didn't hit things hard enough ppl didn't like him. 

Then, for his rookie season 2, he started with Eichel, bounced around a bit (a couple games at C [Moulson-Reinhart-McGinn] and random configurations [McGinn-Legwand-Reinhart], before settling in on ROR's wing on the top line for the bulk of the season.

And we haven't had a go-to-the-net and get deflection goals since Reinhart left. (And he's still doing it with FLA. Reinhart had a beautiful, effortless deflection in their recent dismantling of the Avs.)

[Weave]

I seem to recall that Reinhart was tried at C in year 2 but we did not have enough NHL caliber wingers for anyone at 3C to work.

Nonetheless, 4 of his coaches now have seen him better used as a W.  He’s a W.

He’s also a Panther, so F him.

[Quint]

1 hour ago, sabremike said:

How could anyone in their right mind NOT give this team an F? This season has been a monumental catastrophe and if the organization had any standards whatsoever the entire coaching staff would've already been sacked.

I think you're over-reacting a bit Mike. An F would be a 7-30 record. The Sabres are 18-20. The expectations were higher but but the GM did not address critical issues, in favor of "development." I didn't expect them to make the playoffs this year simply because of the unaddressed needs. Sure they're a disappointment but they have won 3 of 4 and hopefully they'll get some traction and have a good second half, like last year. I'm a bit optimistic with what I've been seeing lately.

Edited January 13 by Quint

[dudacek]

1 hour ago, sabremike said:

How could anyone in their right mind NOT give this team an F? This season has been a monumental catastrophe and if the organization had any standards whatsoever the entire coaching staff would've already been sacked.

They are 18-20-4 and 7 points out. Given the roster, what should their record be?

(Last year on Jan. 13, they were 20-18-2, 6 points out.)

 

[DarthEbriate]

21 minutes ago, dudacek said:

They are 18-20-4 and 7 points out. Given the roster, what should their record be?

(Last year on Jan. 13, they were 20-18-2, 6 points out.)

I think my contention would be, knowing the holes in the lineup going into the season, this shouldn't be the given roster. So my shakeup is simply that Comrie never makes a start for the Sabres and we divide his 1-5 record out to Levi 8-9 and UPL 9-10. Say... 2-3-1 in those games.

19-18-5,   43 points, 4 points out.

Alternately, they get playoff-experienced NHL bench assistants, get the 2nd line winger they needed to replace Quinn - which then makes the Cozens line a 3rd line for the 2nd half of the season, get the legit in-his-prime top-4 D-man they desperately needed*, and a tried-and-true 1B NHL goalie (like a Cam Talbot type) to be the bridge guy for UPL while Levi works a season in the AHL. But that's an alternate reality.

*Look what Colorado did when they got Devon Toews (for nothing!) and paired him with Makar. Much higher cost (perhaps too high), but look what Vancouver did to get Hronek last season from Detroit and paired him with Hughes (the Quinn one).

[sabremike]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

They are 18-20-4 and 7 points out. Given the roster, what should their record be?

(Last year on Jan. 13, they were 20-18-2, 6 points out.)

 

Last year at this time our record was worse than our play merited, this year it is better than it merits.

[mjd1001]

Just an observation about Toronto....

They have a MUCH better record (in general) against 'older' teams in the NHL than they do against younger teams.

The Leafs weakness seems to be playing younger teams WITH high end talent that hasn't matured yet. Toronto doesn't do well and gives up a lot of goals to Buffalo, Ottawa, Montreal, Chicago, Even Columbus and fair slightly better against the older teams.  

And its not a "they play down to their competition all the time. San Jose is bad, but they aren't that young..and Toronto smoked them both games. So its not a good-bad thing, but it really seems an older-younger thing.

They are 1-1 against the Canadians, allowing 10 goals in those 2 games.

0-2 vs the Sabres, allowing 15 goals in those 2 games.

1-2 vs Columbus, allowing 13 goals in those 3 games.

0-2 vs Chicago, allowing 8 goals in 2 games

1-2 vs Ottawa, allowing 13 goals in those 2 games.

Those are 5 of the youngest teams in the league. (Buffalo and C-bus being the 2 youngest by average age coming into the season)  Toronto is a combined 3-9 against them, allowing 54 goals in 12 games (4.50 gaa)

Vs the rest of the league...18-9 with 71 goals allowed in 27 games (2.63 gaa)

 

Edited January 13 by mjd1001

[mjd1001]

Something to consider as far as team defense goes:

Last year Vegas wins the cup, with a very veteran D-group on the blue line.  Seattle has surprised many with how good they have been since being in the league, and they did it with a very veteran D-group.

This year:

Winnipeg 1st in the NHL, average age of their top 4 d-men:   30 years (all of them 28 or older)

Vancouver 2nd in the league, average age of their top 4 d-men:    29 years old  (Hughes is the youngest at 24, everyone else a lot more experience)

Boston 3rd in the league,  Average age of top 4 d-men:   28 (no one under 26)

Florida 4th in the league:  Ave age of top 4:   27.5 (no one under 27)

 

Now how about Buffalo? Ave age of top 4:   22.75.  ALL of them 24 or under

 

Colorado might be the only team a bit on the younger side on the blue line that is doing well, but they STILL are older than Buffalo and they have a lot of veterans up front at forward to help out.

 

I personally think the problem with the Sabres is how bad their forwards are in their own end, but, experience on Defense can cover up for a lot of mistakes the forwards make. As good/talented as the Sabres D-men might be, and as good as they COULD be in the future, they simply do not have as much age/maturity/experience as the tops teams in the league do.

 

[Thorner]

12 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

This I do not see at all. Benson drives the net better than almost anybody on this team (which is ridiculous but true). idk how he's playing in Florida now, probably really good given th3e stats, but he was a very smart but also more cautious player here. 

 

Did they not use him as a center at first and he basically couldn't win a draw and just looked lost. Completely ineffective. Which was why they tried him as a wing the next year was it not?

Reinhart frequently stood in front of the net and took a pounding 

he would frequently get some nice deflections doing just this in front, remember?

There’s no ifs ands or buts with Reinhart.

He’s just a studt. (if we really need to keep that d, even now, after all this time.)

[Thorner]

5 hours ago, SabreFinn said:

It is hard to believe that we actually had Eichel and O'Reilly as centers...

Because we never did have the “Eichel” suggested by uttering “Eichel” today rostered while ROR was also on the team. We only ever had the Eichel that started the season at 20 years old, and younger, while ROR was on the team. We always talk about giving players time to develop, Jack wasn’t close to rounding out his full game in his first few years and wasn’t close to the player he is now, that he started to become in 19-20 as a Sabre. By the time Eichel started actually becoming Eichel we had Mojo at 2C

personally I would have loved to see what we’d have looked like with something closer to current Eichel and a ROR was that was winning Smythes, but we never got that chance because Botterill dealt ROR and willingly took a step back when we were supposed to be trying to win

great trade 

Edited January 13 by Thorny

[Thorner]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

They are 18-20-4 and 7 points out. Given the roster, what should their record be?

(Last year on Jan. 13, they were 20-18-2, 6 points out.)

 

What do you think the record should be? Surely if we can’t reasonably expect the roster to amount to significantly more, there’s an issue. Isn’t that what the grade represents? The state of team overall up to and including the way it was constructed resulting in such a record?

The Sabres are in 26th place out of 32. If it’s not an F it’s close. Let’s say 5 designations: A, B, C, D, F. 32 teams, that’s 6 or 7 in each tier. We are 7th from the bottom 

Ok, let’s give ‘em a D-

 

[Thorner]

1 hour ago, sabremike said:

Last year at this time our record was worse than our play merited, this year it is better than it merits.

It’s also not relevant. It’s not golf: we aren’t heading into a stretch we know we are better at. That we performed better over the second half last year isn’t an indication that’s the course we are headed for this year 

Last year’s good finish should have been the way we played the first half this year, if that is who we truly had become 

If we play better then, great. Our record will be reflective. And it’s accurately reflective right now. We are a 26th place team. Not a 26th place team on the inside track scheduled to make up ground 

Again, it’s not to say we won’t: but there’s no “comparative pace” because the 2 seasons are completely independent and different 

Edited January 13 by Thorny

[Weave]

5 minutes ago, Thorny said:

What do you think the record should be? Surely if we can’t reasonably expect the roster to amount to significantly more, there’s an issue. Isn’t that what the grade represents? The state of team overall up to and including the way it was constructed resulting in such a record?

The Sabres are in 26th place out of 32. If it’s not an F it’s close. Let’s say 5 designations: A, B, C, D, F. 32 teams, that’s 6 or 7 in each tier. We are 7th from the bottom 

Ok, let’s give ‘em a D-

 

A D- moves them on to the next grade.

No bueno.

[Thorner]

2 minutes ago, Weave said:

A D- moves them on to the next grade.

No bueno.

Fine. 

F+

[Sabres Fan in NS]

4 hours ago, sabremike said:

How could anyone in their right mind NOT give this team an F? This season has been a monumental catastrophe and if the organization had any standards whatsoever the entire coaching staff would've already been sacked.

 

4 hours ago, Weave said:

???

I would raise an eyebrow if anything other than an F was given.  This team has thoroughly failed relative to expectations.

In the  video he explains that F is for 'fine'.  That's the eyebrow raising thing.