No offense Bill Hoppe/Olean Times Herald, but do you know what offense is?

[Stoner]

[Cityo'Rasmii]

Lol

[Stoner]

It boggles my mind.

The larger point is the gaslighting that Hoppe and Lykowski do. Even Mike has fallen ill with a touch of it.

As newspapers struggle to make it, what's the calculation here? That the only people still interested in the team are the fanbois and they only want to hear good news?

I don't watch Buffalo TV anymore, but does this syndrome affect them as well?

[TageMVP]

Well, to be fair, offense doesn't mean goals. 45 shots on goal is offense 

Guy said nothing about goals, either. I'd give him a pass on this one at least  

 

[Stoner]

10 minutes ago, TageMVP said:

Well, to be fair, offense doesn't mean goals. 45 shots on goal is offense 

Guy said nothing about goals, either. I'd give him a pass on this one at least  

 

Thank you. Now we can dig into this. I don't think shots on goal is offense. Are missed shots in basketball offense?

Yardage in football might be offense, but yards are means to an end. If Allen makes 10 throws into the end zone in a game and none are touchdowns, did he create offense?

[#freejame]

2 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Thank you. Now we can dig into this. I don't think shots on goal is offense. Are missed shots in basketball offense?

Yardage in football might be offense, but yards are means to an end. If Allen makes 10 throws into the end zone in a game and none are touchdowns, did he create offense?

Shots create offensive opportunities. Since not all shots are created equal, they can’t blanket statement be considered offense. 

[Marvin]

1 minute ago, PASabreFan said:

Thank you. Now we can dig into this. I don't think shots on goal is offense. Are missed shots in basketball offense?

Yardage in football might be offense, but yards are means to an end. If Allen makes 10 throws into the end zone in a game and none are touchdowns, did he create offense?

This is more of a philosophical discussion.  I assume shots, zone time, and possession that advanced the puck as "offence".  So possessions with organised plat that lead to missed shots fall under my definition of offence.

It is certainly reasonable to talk about offence only as productive offence; i.e., leads to actual scoring.

[Stoner]

9 minutes ago, Marvin said:

This is more of a philosophical discussion.  I assume shots, zone time, and possession that advanced the puck as "offence".  So possessions with organised plat that lead to missed shots fall under my definition of offence.

It is certainly reasonable to talk about offence only as productive offence; i.e., leads to actual scoring.

Let's have some tea. Great Value or fancy schmancy?

I guess my issue is really with having a headline that says the Sabres generated offense while being shut out.

[Marvin]

3 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Let's have some tea. Great Value or fancy schmancy?

I guess my issue is really with having a headline that says the Sabres generated offense while being shut out.

I am a tea snob.  Great Value is fine.  😉

I understand your point: offence does not truly exist in a vacuum; it exists to score goals.  I think most fans are conditioned to view offence as chances.  I think virtually all of the hockey talking heads view offence as being reflected by chances.

Looked at another way, when the Sabres routinely won games with few shots and amazing goaltending (say, Game 2 of the Ottawa series in 2006 or any random game of 1995-6), I always said that the opposition generated a lot of offence in spite of Hasek or Miller.

[tom webster]

The fact of the matter is Buffalo is twelfth in even strength goals and last time I checked, top ten in five on five. 
 

The bigger problem has been consistency and special teams.

 

The real problem is more about perception and the fact that has been twelve years and counting. We are all just tired of waiting 

[That Aud Smell]

26 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

I guess my issue is really with having a headline that says the Sabres generated offense while being shut out.

I think your definition of “offence” is too narrow. But the point above is well-taken. 

[TageMVP]

54 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Thank you. Now we can dig into this. I don't think shots on goal is offense. Are missed shots in basketball offense?

Yardage in football might be offense, but yards are means to an end. If Allen makes 10 throws into the end zone in a game and none are touchdowns, did he create offense?

Short answer, yes 

[TageMVP]

Because you could argue that even getting shots/shot attempts would fall under the category of offense. 

The Sabres with Eichel had countless games where they had less than 20 shots all game. Now THAT is no offense, to me 

[PerreaultForever]

I would suggest the idea that modern day "journalists" are afraid that they will be denied access unless they write favourable content. This certainly appears to be the case anyway and there's no question media around Buffalo goes super easy on the Sabres with the exception of the very occasional Harrington tirade. 

As for generating offense, they always generate tons of offense, from the outside. Tips, rebounds, and dirty goals? Not so much. 

 

[TageMVP]

Aw man where'd PA go? This is an interesting topic 

[Thorner]

5 hours ago, tom webster said:

The fact of the matter is Buffalo is twelfth in even strength goals and last time I checked, top ten in five on five. 
 

The bigger problem has been consistency and special teams.

 

The real problem is more about perception and the fact that has been twelve years and counting. We are all just tired of waiting 

The real problem is sitting in 27th place, after 12 poor years. It’s not perception: we are the 27th ranked team when all factors that go in to measuring a hockey team are included. “5 V 5 offence” is the skewed perspective. It’s really a great example of how muddied and unreflective things get when people get to dial in on one variable.

Maybe if we were FIRST in even strength goals it would be something to write home about. 12th is nothing, when that’s your highest rank and you haven’t yet gotten to:

- even strength defence

- special teams

- goaltending (half the goaltending output this year has been provided by 2 non-NHL goalies)

I don’t know exactly how to fix this but I can say with a great degree of certainty that the more management tries to pigeonhole the issues onto one solitary aspect, the less likely we will succeed. We saw what happened with the team when we ran it back an attempted to simply fix what we needed internally without any expected drop off 

Not to mention the fact differential is barely reflective as we are vibes based, “we back?” Front Runners.

*inarguably* the most reflective stat is our record. Tale as old as sports time. It’s so much easier to understand the drop off this year when one accepts that. We finished 20th last year. We weren’t that good. Adams hasn’t fielded a good team in 4 years. This is a fact. 

Edited February 16 by Thorny

[Thorner]

Dead last, 24th, 20th, 27th. Those are our outputs.

objectively ass 

[xzy89c1]

it is sickening. watch Granato press conferences. He kisses their butts. Says their names back to them when they ask question. They do not challenge him when he says BS. 

[Stoner]

34 minutes ago, xzy89c1 said:

it is sickening. watch Granato press conferences. He kisses their butts. Says their names back to them when they ask question. They do not challenge him when he says BS. 

They teach that kind of stuff in media relations 101. It works.

[Marvin]

The problem with the Sabres is probably "crucial scoring" (again, courtesy of The Klein-Reif Hockey Compendium) - they don't get either tying or lead-giving goals in 1 goal games and yield them on a consistent basis.  Indeed, given their first period statistics, the frequency with which they pull the goalkeeper, and the lack of overtimes, I would not be surprised if they were dead last in the league.  Some of that comes from the obvious: injuries, the multitude of down years, and power play problems, but they could create some more luck by crashing the net more consistently.