To still make the playoffs TODAY

[Doohicksie]

3 hours ago, Second Line Center said:

Then if we beat Tampa Thursday we will be just 7 points behind them with 2 games in hand. 

Sure, we'll pass Tampa.  But what about Wash, NJ, NYI, Pitt?  We don't have games in hand on any of them, and in fact the Pens are two points ahead of us and have three games in hand.

[Archie Lee]

We aren’t making the playoffs.  But we can make it interesting if we can get to real or DeLuca .500. We are four games below now.  All of the current non-playoff teams ahead of us, are also below real .500. Detroit or Tampa would need to dip a bit.  We don’t need to get there in a week. Just  get there by game 70-72 and there still might be time. I don’t think it’s happening, but it could. 

The most Sabres-like ending to the year would be we finish strong and pass all the non-playoff teams ahead of us and Philly, only to miss the playoffs because we are 6th in the Atlantic. 

[GoPuckYourself]

It would take a monumental finish, another year of no playoffs, it's getting old!

[Weave]

6 hours ago, Doohickie said:

Sure, we'll pass Tampa.  But what about Wash, NJ, NYI, Pitt?  We don't have games in hand on any of them, and in fact the Pens are two points ahead of us and have three games in hand.

I’ve preached this since Thanksgiving.  Its not just points back from 8.  Its all the teams you need to leapfrog as well.

The season was lost by December.

[French Collection]

38 minutes ago, Weave said:

I’ve preached this since Thanksgiving.  Its not just points back from 8.  Its all the teams you need to leapfrog as well.

The season was lost by December.

So a win in October is important?

[Marvin]

1 hour ago, French Collection said:

So a win in October is important?

Who knew?

[DarthEbriate]

1 hour ago, French Collection said:

So a win in October is important?

And that was something that Coach RK knew.

October record: 9-2-2. All other months: 27-47-10

Note: His second season started in January, which is probably why they were terrible that season. He was already in January mode.

[MattPie]

I didn't care enough to run the numbers, but I'm sure we're in "need to be the best team in hockey for the rest of the season to get to mid-90s points" neighborhood. It doesn't matter how many points back of team X, but there are like 6 teams all in the same boat and it only takes one other team to make a run too.

OK, can't resist: 58 points in 58 games today. Let's say 94 points (although 96 is more sure). Getting 36 points in the remaining 24 games, a nice even 1.5 points per game, or 0.750 point%, is 94 points. That's very close to the 2005-2006 Red Wings, which had the 7th best NHL season in history. No team in the league is over 0.700 right now.

 

[Buffalonill]

10 hours ago, Archie Lee said:

We aren’t making the playoffs.  But we can make it interesting if we can get to real or DeLuca .500. We are four games below now.  All of the current non-playoff teams ahead of us, are also below real .500. Detroit or Tampa would need to dip a bit.  We don’t need to get there in a week. Just  get there by game 70-72 and there still might be time. I don’t think it’s happening, but it could. 

The most Sabres-like ending to the year would be we finish strong and pass all the non-playoff teams ahead of us and Philly, only to miss the playoffs because we are 6th in the Atlantic. 

I hope none of this happens because then they're just gonna run it back again.

With the same idiotic coach 

 

[DarthEbriate]

29 minutes ago, MattPie said:

I didn't care enough to run the numbers, but I'm sure we're in "need to be the best team in hockey for the rest of the season to get to mid-90s points" neighborhood. It doesn't matter how many points back of team X, but there are like 6 teams all in the same boat and it only takes one other team to make a run too.

OK, can't resist: 58 points in 58 games today. Let's say 94 points (although 96 is more sure). Getting 36 points in the remaining 24 games, a nice even 1.5 points per game, or 0.750 point%, is 94 points. That's very close to the 2005-2006 Red Wings, which had the 7th best NHL season in history. No team in the league is over 0.700 right now.

I ran the exact same numbers this morning to get to Docking Bay 94. Ninety-four. But it was too depressing to post, so I looked up RaKru's October numbers instead. Because sometimes it's better to have a laugh than to dwell too much on this team.

[Thorner]

14 hours ago, Second Line Center said:

 

Yea but we’re not chasing Philly bc someone has to be the 3rd team in that division.  
 

Even if they slid it doesn’t really matter they’d just be out of the playoffs if they dropped to 4th in their division bc WC teams Detroit and Tampa have more points than them.  
 

To me we’re chasing Tampa.  We have 2 games in hand on them 11 points back.  
 

Basically any hope of this happening - we need to beat them in regulation Thursday.   
 

Beat Florida tomorrow and root for Philly to beat Tampa.

Then if we beat Tampa Thursday we will be just 7 points behind them with 2 games in hand.  
 

 

Moneypuck has us at ~ 3 percent, the above is a good illustration as to why (but imo when you break down what you need it seems at least a little less scary)

if we win today (50:50), Tampa loses (50:50), we beat Tampa (50:50), then win our two games in hand (50:50, 50:50) we will be a mere 3 points back from Tampa. Odds of that happening just in a ballpark sense is 1/2 x 5. So about 1/32 or ~ 3%. Seems tough, but it’s not unheard of to have 5 results break your way in a row

Edited February 27 by Thorny

[Doohicksie]

54 minutes ago, MattPie said:

Getting 36 points in the remaining 24 games, a nice even 1.5 points per game, or 0.750 point%, is 94 points. That's very close to the 2005-2006 Red Wings, which had the 7th best NHL season in history. No team in the league is over 0.700 right now.

But no one is talking about doing this for a full season.  I think everyone here sees that this is only possible if, say, the do a 10 game streak (or 9-1 or similar), follow it up with maybe stretch with a couple of losses, then go on another run.  It's unlikely; we all know that, but to a large extent their fate is in their own hands. 

From the Sabres standpoint, what does this mean? 

• UPL remains the hottest goalie in the league
• One or two of the sleeping giants in the forward ranks needs to wake up and start scoring.  We've had the scoring in the past, most of the players are the same.  They need to live up to expecations
• With the increase in scoring, they need to continue to support defense and keep goals against down
• They need to win by multiple goals because hanging on by the skin of their teeth late in the game is not sustainable
• They need to keep games close if they're losing so they can grab as many loser points as possible

Unlikely but possible.

And really, Bullet 2 (and related Bullet 4) are the items that aren't happening right now.

[Thorner]

36 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

But no one is talking about doing this for a full season.  I think everyone here sees that this is only possible if, say, the do a 10 game streak (or 9-1 or similar), follow it up with maybe stretch with a couple of losses, then go on another run.  It's unlikely; we all know that, but to a large extent their fate is in their own hands. 

From the Sabres standpoint, what does this mean? 

• UPL remains the hottest goalie in the league
• One or two of the sleeping giants in the forward ranks needs to wake up and start scoring.  We've had the scoring in the past, most of the players are the same.  They need to live up to expecations
• With the increase in scoring, they need to continue to support defense and keep goals against down
• They need to win by multiple goals because hanging on by the skin of their teeth late in the game is not sustainable
• They need to keep games close if they're losing so they can grab as many loser points as possible

Unlikely but possible.

And really, Bullet 2 (and related Bullet 4) are the items that aren't happening right now.

The math is bad but it becomes “realistically overcomable bad”, rather than us needing a historic pace bad, reasonably quickly if, to your point, we get an extravagant mathematical result over a small (therefore: doable) sample size beforehand.

I understand it doesn’t all happen in this order but if we win our next 2 games, (one vs T-Bay) and the 2 we have in hand on Tampa, and Tampa mixes in a loss today (so, 5 results breaking our way), Tampa’s pace would actually be, after the two losses I spoke of, 69 points through 62 games and therefore 91 over 82.

Washington the next best is only pacing for 90-91 currently, so Tampa losing their next 2 and the pace shifting to 91 is actually rather reasonably possible. If we march our current 3 gamer to a 7 game win streak, and are at 66 in 62 after, to get to 92 points we only need about a 107 point pace the remaining 20 games

working in our favour there is that 20 games isn’t super extravagant and that sort of pace, while good, was something 9 teams in the nhl did last year over 82 games 

It’s strictly possible 

Edited February 27 by Thorny

[Marvin]

The farthest back teams have been from the playoffs at the All Star Break were St. Louis in their Cup year at 8 points and the Buffalo Sabres in 2010-1 at 6 points, so I wrote the Sabres off then.  I am looking for younger players to step up, older players to expand their games, tighter defencive zone coverage, and forwards to start crashing the net -- positive changes that could carry over into next season.  A coaching change is needed to help the power play.

[Thorner]

2 minutes ago, Marvin said:

The farthest back teams have been from the playoffs at the All Star Break were St. Louis in their Cup year at 8 points and the Buffalo Sabres in 2010-1 at 6 points, so I wrote the Sabres off then.  I am looking for younger players to step up, older players to expand their games, tighter defencive zone coverage, and forwards to start crashing the net -- positive changes that could carry over into next season.  A coaching change is needed to help the power play.

But what if you fly? 

[MattPie]

31 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

But no one is talking about doing this for a full season.  I think everyone here sees that this is only possible if, say, the do a 10 game streak (or 9-1 or similar), follow it up with maybe stretch with a couple of losses, then go on another run.  It's unlikely; we all know that, but to a large extent their fate is in their own hands. 

From the Sabres standpoint, what does this mean? 

• UPL remains the hottest goalie in the league
• One or two of the sleeping giants in the forward ranks needs to wake up and start scoring.  We've had the scoring in the past, most of the players are the same.  They need to live up to expecations
• With the increase in scoring, they need to continue to support defense and keep goals against down
• They need to win by multiple goals because hanging on by the skin of their teeth late in the game is not sustainable
• They need to keep games close if they're losing so they can grab as many loser points as possible

Unlikely but possible.

And really, Bullet 2 (and related Bullet 4) are the items that aren't happening right now.

Oh, it's possible they go 7-2-1 per 20 for 1/4 of a season. But just so unlikely it's not worth having hope.

Re "WSH is on a 91 point pace, etc.". Every year people say this, and yet, every year the cut-off is higher than that. Every team in the hunt is going to pick things up in the last few weeks of the season, especially against teams that sold off at the trade deadline and are just playing out the season. 0.750 might get us it, nothing less unless it's an odd year.

Edited February 27 by MattPie

[Thorner]

6 minutes ago, MattPie said:

Oh, it's possible they go 7-2-1 per 20 for 1/4 of a season. But just so unlikely it's not worth having hope.

Re "WSH is on a 91 point pace, etc.". Every year people say this, and yet, every year the cut-off is higher than that. Every team in the hunt is going to pick things up in the last few weeks of the season, especially against teams that sold off at the trade deadline and are just playing out the season. 0.750 might get us it, nothing less unless it's an odd year.

Very possible, but 92 made it last year. It could be the same this year 

[MattPie]

45 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Very possible, but 92 made it last year. It could be the same this year 

True. They can go 7-2-1, 7-2-1, and then 2-2-0 instead of 3-1-0 and hit 92. 🙂

[Thorner]

2 minutes ago, MattPie said:

True. They can go 7-2-1, 7-2-1, and then 2-2-0 instead of 3-1-0 and hit 92. 🙂

[erickompositör72]

I'm still using 93pts as the benchmark:

 

As things stand (before playing Winnipeg tonight), they need to go:

15 - 5 - 1

14 - 4 - 3

13 - 3 - 5

12 - 2 - 7

11 - 1 - 9

10 - 0 - 11

 

They could go 10 - 11 (if they lose all 11 games in overtime) and possibly get in!

 

Something tells me UPL could have a say...

Edited March 4 by erickompositör72

[Thorner]

17 games left. If we want to get to 93 points, gotta go about 14-3. Three losses to give. Gotta win the other 14 games, no way really around it. If we lose 4 more, it would be incredibly unlikely for the mark to come it at below 93, looking at the pacing of the other teams: but still technically possible 

[erickompositör72]

19 minutes ago, Thorny said:

17 games left. If we want to get to 93 points, gotta go about 14-3. Three losses to give. Gotta win the other 14 games, no way really around it. If we lose 4 more, it would be incredibly unlikely for the mark to come it at below 93, looking at the pacing of the other teams: but still technically possible 

Yes, I'm also currently tracking it as how many more regulation losses we can sustain (3 being that number).

If we lose a couple in OT, that reduces the total wins we need by 1 (13), but also reduces the total # of regulation losses we can sustain by 1.

Edited March 10 by erickompositör72
edit because bad at math

[Thorner]

2 minutes ago, erickompositör72 said:

Yes, I'm also currently tracking it as how many more regulation losses we can sustain (3 being that number).

If we lose a couple in OT, that reduces the total wins we need by 1 (13), but also reduces the total # of regulation losses we can sustain to 1.

Right. We can’t afford to give up 7 points of the remaining 34. Only 6

[Thorner]

We can go 14-3 or

13–2-2 or

12-1-4 or

11-0-6

those are really the only options 

Edited March 10 by Thorny
took me a minute lol

[OverPowerYou]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

We can go 14-3 or

13–2-2 or

12-1-4 or

11-0-6

those are really the only options 

More likely is that the Sabres go 3-14 and still somehow don’t make it into the lottery drawing