Are the 24/25 Sabres a better team today then before the draft? Is this a playoff caliber roster?

[Gatorman0519]

Better bottom 6. Worse top 6.  Not really progress enough for my liking. We will see what Lindy can do with them. 

[nfreeman]

18 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

Well Rico  I think my thoughts on getting a 2C, or a strong 3C for that matter, were quite realistic given the resources on hand, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that good teams do.  

Buffalo seems to discard legit centers like ROR and Mitts with no problem.  But even if we can get a decent a 3C, it makes Krebs and Lafferty bust hump for ice at either center or wing,  that would help create a competitive atmosphere on the team.  Having a 13th forward that is low cost and can actually play is what good teams do.  My recollection is that Lindy likes versatile players and options at center.  

Hoping to see Cozens bounce back as I do like the kid.  

Also hoping that Lindy can convince Opie to take a few risks, spend a few more dollars, and stop rushing the younger players. 
 

I’m convinced we have become conditioned by the Pegula era to accept less, lower our expectations, and to believe things are harder than they have to be. 

I'd like a 2C or strong 3C too!  I just think real 2Cs change teams very rarely.  Were there any that changed teams in the last week that you wanted for the Sabres?

[Thorny]

44 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

Well Rico  I think my thoughts on getting a 2C, or a strong 3C for that matter, were quite realistic given the resources on hand, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that good teams do.  

Buffalo seems to discard legit centers like ROR and Mitts with no problem.  But even if we can get a decent a 3C, it makes Krebs and Lafferty bust hump for ice at either center or wing,  that would help create a competitive atmosphere on the team.  Having a 13th forward that is low cost and can actually play is what good teams do.  My recollection is that Lindy likes versatile players and options at center.  

Hoping to see Cozens bounce back as I do like the kid.  

Also hoping that Lindy can convince Opie to take a few risks, spend a few more dollars, and stop rushing the younger players. 
 

I’m convinced we have become conditioned by the Pegula era to accept less, lower our expectations, and to believe things are harder than they have to be. 

There’s just no viable excuse for not bringing in a competent 3C. Because we traded a good C we had when we didn’t have to. It doesn’t matter if there’s literally no one available: we shouldn’t have made the trade, then 

[Pimlach]

24 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

I'd like a 2C or strong 3C too!  I just think real 2Cs change teams very rarely.  Were there any that changed teams in the last week that you wanted for the Sabres?

I am not going to review every UFA transaction but I would have loved Guentzel.  Wouldn’t you?   Tampa moved on from Stamkos  and signed him.  Real team do these things.  Ok, so next you will say he won’t go to Buffalo , which is fair only because Buffalo did this to themselves.   On the way lesser end of the spectrum I would be ok with Henrique for a short term at 3C to buy time for our prospects to mature.  Isn’t that reasonable?   But even that didn’t happen.  

The Preds signed both Stamkos and Marchessault !!!  They are re-tooling, not rebuilding.  

And yes, there were other centers in between these extremes, plus potential trades that the GM should be dreaming up, not me.  

I will not buy into the “it’s too hard and nobody else did this or that” Adams narrative.   I want a guy that sets the tone and the market, not excuses like Adams gave on draft day.  Pathetic lame excuses.  

[WhenWillItEnd66]

Not a chance in hell this team is better. Lost, traded,  gave away,  2 of our top scorers, replaced them with a better 4th line.  100% gamble on kids playing better under Lindy. It is an inexperienced gm move. 

[Thorny]

I don’t really get the “I’m 100 percent confident we make it this year” or the “we absolutely won’t be better” statements.

there’s a wide spectrum of potential results. Missing the playoffs is so frustrating because we all know it doesn’t take much to randomly go off one year to the tune of making it. The Caps didn’t so much “go off” as implode slowly and THAT was enough. We obviously COULD make it, and it would also absolutely not be surprising if we didn’t, considering past precedent.

I struggle to see why there’d be confidence, other than a gut feeling, in predicting either to a certainty

At least with the type of slow play offseason we’ve seen again so far 

[Taro T]

6 minutes ago, Thorny said:

I don’t really get the “I’m 100 percent confident we make it this year” or the “we absolutely won’t be better” statements.

there’s a wide spectrum of potential results. Missing the playoffs is so frustrating because we all know it doesn’t take much to randomly go off one year to the tune of making it. The Caps didn’t so much “go off” as implode slowly and THAT was enough. We obviously COULD make it, and it would also absolutely not be surprising if we didn’t, considering past precedent.

I struggle to see why there’d be confidence, other than a gut feeling, in predicting either to a certainty

At least with the type of slow play offseason we’ve seen again so far 

Have there been more than 1 or 2 100% confident the Sabres make the post-season posts?

[Thorny]

10 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Have there been more than 1 or 2 100% confident the Sabres make the post-season posts?

I don’t really think the scarcity of a take is necessarily a commentary on its validity and therefore easily cast aside 

I’ve been on an island a bunch and I can’t say it’s always lead to me being mistaken 

[Pimlach]

32 minutes ago, WhenWillItEnd66 said:

Not a chance in hell this team is better. Lost, traded,  gave away,  2 of our top scorers, replaced them with a better 4th line.  100% gamble on kids playing better under Lindy. It is an inexperienced gm move. 

If they do nothing else major they  might be better than last year and make the playoffs if: Tage, Dahlin, Tuch, Cozens, and Quinn all return to form in production.  That is critical for picking up goals from Mitts and Skinner.  

In addition Byram adds something significant 

And they get steady contributions by Benson, JJP, Greenway, Clifton, Zucker 

And improvement by Power is required 

And they get solid and steady goaltending of course 

And the updated bottom 6 makes a real difference - this will actually be fun to follow.  
 

All or most of this happening, plus Lindy, and we should be better.  How much the play of the bottom 6 changes things will be interesting for me to see. Lindy talked about face offs, and shut down lines, and better special teams.  He knows if they can get a lead and learn to hold it they will improve.  It’s possible they are better. 
 

Edited Wednesday at 07:52 PM by Pimlach

[Taro T]

39 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

If they do nothing else major they  might be better than last year and make the playoffs if: Tage, Dahlin, Tuch, Cozens, and Quinn all return to form in production.  That is critical for picking up goals from Mitts and Skinner.  

In addition Byram adds something significant 

And they get steady contributions by Benson, JJP, Greenway, Clifton, Zucker 

And improvement by Power is required 

And they get solid and steady goaltending of course 

And the updated bottom 6 makes a real difference - this will actually be fun to follow.  
 

All or most of this happening, plus Lindy, and we should be better.  How much the play of the bottom 6 changes things will be interesting for me to see. Lindy talked about face offs, and shut down lines, and better special teams.  He knows if they can get a lead and learn to hold it they will improve.  It’s possible they are better. 
 

Personally, expect that simply from the coaching change the team is better than last season's team.  But last season's team finished w/ 84 points.  Being better is a low bar.

The question we all are discussing though is: is it good enough to make the playoffs?  And the answer is: maybe.  But with the team they have now, they need to have more than a few things break their way for that to be the case.  IF they stay healthy and they don't have much (or effectively any) regression from any of the kids and the 4 new guys don't have a huge adjustment period; would even go so far as to say YES this IS a playoff team.  But if any of them don't happen then it goes to back to maybe they are.  And if none of them happen, the only way they are is if several other EC teams are also imploding.

Which is why adding that 2/3C is so important.  (Gee, no Schlitz, Sherlock.)  Adding that piece ups the expectation for points this year from mid-90's to upper 90's and also skews the tails of the expected distribution from fairly normal (could honestly see the team as currently constructed getting anywhere from 88-102 points) to something further to the right.

Personally still expect Adams to make 1 (and hope for 2 or 3, but am not hopeful of that) more move to help the big club before this off-season ends.  (Full disclosure - fully expected him to do that last year as well and it ended up a very poor expectation.)  The rationale for believing that it will happen this year when it didn't last year is 3 fold.  1. Several credible posters have indicated that this truly very likely is a make or break year for Adams - and that should spur a bit more desperation than he's had in years past.  And 2.  Whoever he brings in today to legitimately HELP this team (unless it is an Ehlers on a discount deal because he wouldn't sign an extension type of deal; which personally expect would come at a fairly low price) now would have a pretty good likelihood to also help the team in the targeted contention window as it's opening in 1 - 2 years from now rather than 2-3 years from now.  And 3.  It makes too d*mn much sense to do it, can't see how it doesn't happen.  (Though that last one has caused far more than one person's prediction that the Sabres will finally become relevant to be horribly tragically wrong.)

Points 2 and 3 aren't ALL that strong.  But if the rumors about point 1 are correct, that is a REALLY strong reason to expect that late summer move.

[TRIP65]

12 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I don't get into the whole Bills/Sabres comparisons really. Too apples and oranges. I think the big difference is Pegula meddles and stays too involved in the hockey team. He knows nothing about hockey but thinks he does and he has a vision for what he wants to see and results be damned, he will make it happen is his mindset. He is more of an owner just watching with football, and that's why they have had more success.

The other big difference is due to the nature of the game itself. Where would the Bills be without the stud QB? A star NHL player doesn't impact the game the same way as a QB does football (especially in this modern era where you can't hit the QB nearly as much as you could way back in the day). You see even with a McJesus on your team, he still needs the supporting cast and others have to carry the load when he's shutdown. The team dynamics of the game are very different, so an Eichel draft pick is a good one, but he needs the team around him more. 

NO,  why the Bills have success is Josh Allen. Dished Diggs and we shall see what the Bills do this year. I think Josh gets better.

Why Sabres will be better is Ruff and Dahlin/Power. Ruff knew what to do with Briere and Drury, then Hasek. You can see Ruff wants both Grinding type players and scorers. Said, in todays Hockey world you have to play fast and you have to know when to slow things down. That means, get a Lead and Hold it.

 

Pegula signs Paychecks for BOTH Clubs, you see his Vision, Granto blew it

[Thorny]

19 minutes ago, TRIP65 said:

NO,  why the Bills have success is Josh Allen. Dished Diggs and we shall see what the Bills do this year. I think Josh gets better.

Why Sabres will be better is Ruff and Dahlin/Power. Ruff knew what to do with Briere and Drury, then Hasek. You can see Ruff wants both Grinding type players and scorers. Said, in todays Hockey world you have to play fast and you have to know when to slow things down. That means, get a Lead and Hold it.

 

Pegula signs Paychecks for BOTH Clubs, you see his Vision, Granto blew it

Who envisioned retaining Granato for 3.5 seasons? 

[IKnowPhysics]

According to the stizzats, we didn't just improve the 4th line, we got a hell of a lot faster.

 

Dom Luscnyznynybzsdzazzzbfds on skating speed:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5033376/2023/11/07/nhl-skating-speed-distance/

 

Quote

Skating speed

Is skating speed repeatable?

Yes, extremely so. We already know this because JFresh did the work with individual skaters, but the same is true for teams as well.

While the relationship for 18 mph bursts is strong (R2 of 0.44), it’s even stronger for 20 mph bursts (R2 of 0.79) and 22 mph bursts (R2 of 0.73). To measure team speed for the remainder of this article, I used any speed burst above 20 mph (R2 of 0.8).

Are faster teams better?

It’s not a hard and fast rule and depends on what you’re looking at. There isn’t a crystal clear relationship between speed and performance, but there is some signal here and there.

Unsurprisingly, speed is more important when it comes to offense (R2 of 0.13) compared to defense (0.02). A lot of strong offensive teams are also fast ones, but there are exceptions to the rule. There are strong offenses that are slow (Florida, St. Louis, Minnesota in 2021-22; Boston in 2022-23) and there are fast teams that are weak offensively (Columbus and Montreal).

In a general sense, it’s much less clear, but better teams do tend to be faster. The fastest teams over the last two seasons (two bursts per 60 above average) had an average goal differential of plus-5. The slowest teams (two bursts per 60 below average) were at minus-15. 

That gets worse the slower a team is where they may not need to be fast, but they can’t be super slow. Minnesota is the only team to find success at four bursts per 60 below average. It’s also telling that the worst team each year has also been among the very slowest.

Turns out "harder to play against" isn't only physical play.  It's outrunning the opponent.

[dudacek]

24 minutes ago, IKnowPhysics said:

According to the stizzats, we didn't just improve the 4th line, we got a hell of a lot faster.

 

Dom Luscnyznynybzsdzazzzbfds on skating speed:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5033376/2023/11/07/nhl-skating-speed-distance/

 

Turns out "harder to play against" isn't only physical play.  It's outrunning the opponent.

Good find. Thanks for posting.

It felt like that’s what was going on, but seeing it like that really drives it home.

[dudacek]

I like how they followed through on the philosophical decisions of: faster, harder, more accountable.

I struggle to see how the roster on paper is better because the talent level appears worse and the profiles of the new additions are low.

That said Skinner, Girgensons, Olofsson and Okposo combined for 51 goals last year, Zucker, Lafferty, Malenstyn and Aube-Kubel had 39, so maybe it’s not as bad as it feels?

I also fully expect more productive seasons from the vast majority of holdover players given the track records of some and the youth of most.

Yet I struggle mightily to reconcile management’s inability to use the considerable resources still at their disposal to improve their roster.

I believe another shoe should drop, it almost has to. Yet it’s hard shake the feeling that it won’t.

Probably time to step out of armchair GM mode and just watch the next 2 months until prospects camp unfold.

Edited Wednesday at 10:51 PM by dudacek

[TRIP65]

2 hours ago, Thorny said:

Who envisioned retaining Granato for 3.5 seasons? 

Well, 2022-2023 went Ok. But why the Hell would you change what you did and not build on it the next year?

 

He deserved to get fired and so did Adams for not changing the team and getting better at scoring, not regressing

He didn't even shore up the Goaltending. It just kind of happened on its own

Adams finely beefed up Defense after botching it with Eric Johnson

Problem is he got another Left handed Dman. That now forces Dahlin and Power together.

[Thorny]

5 minutes ago, TRIP65 said:

That now forces Dahlin and Power together.

I don’t like it. Strenuously against this idea.

Someone will have to let me know, but I feel like I date myself in the sense all my practical hockey knowledge is from like..the mid 2010s, because that’s when I last paid thorough attention, and these things may not hold true anymore, BUT

..you only play Crosby and Malkin together down/tied late. Dahlin and Power should be our two best players. 

Even more so with D, the concept of playing, at least one of them, for around 66% of the game is…alluring and formidable 

[TRIP65]

5 hours ago, Gatorman0519 said:

Better bottom 6. Worse top 6.  Not really progress enough for my liking. We will see what Lindy can do with them. 

Nothing wrong with Tuch Tage Peterka 2nd half of season

Quinn getting hurt and poor Skinner play destroyed Second Line. Add to that losing Middlestat

 

I see nothing wrong with going with

Tuch  Tage  Peterka    or Tuch  Tage Benson

Quinn  Kulich  Cozens  or Quinn Cozens Peterka

 

Of course it would be great to get a Nick Foligno or Sam Bennett

 

Granto and Adms ruined Top 6 by emphazing Defense and then Quinn going down. Didn't help Tage/Tuch missed games

 

More likely Tage gets 40+  Peterka gets 30+  Tuch gets 30+  Quinn 20+  Cozens 25+ Benson 20+

[TRIP65]

5 hours ago, Thorny said:

There’s just no viable excuse for not bringing in a competent 3C. Because we traded a good C we had when we didn’t have to. It doesn’t matter if there’s literally no one available: we shouldn’t have made the trade, then 

Have to rely on Amerks players coming up or why do we have them??????   Can't keep waiting or make the Trade. Kulich and/or Savoie need to get traded with next years picks

[Thorny]

Just now, TRIP65 said:

Have to rely on Amerks players coming up or why do we have them??????   Can't keep waiting or make the Trade. Kulich and/or Savoie need to get traded with next years picks

At least the Amerks have been reaping the rewards amirite 

[TRIP65]

4 hours ago, Pimlach said:

I am not going to review every UFA transaction but I would have loved Guentzel.  Wouldn’t you?   Tampa moved on from Stamkos  and signed him.  Real team do these things.  Ok, so next you will say he won’t go to Buffalo , which is fair only because Buffalo did this to themselves.   On the way lesser end of the spectrum I would be ok with Henrique for a short term at 3C to buy time for our prospects to mature.  Isn’t that reasonable?   But even that didn’t happen.  

The Preds signed both Stamkos and Marchessault !!!  They are re-tooling, not rebuilding.  

And yes, there were other centers in between these extremes, plus potential trades that the GM should be dreaming up, not me.  

I will not buy into the “it’s too hard and nobody else did this or that” Adams narrative.   I want a guy that sets the tone and the market, not excuses like Adams gave on draft day.  Pathetic lame excuses.  

Blew that last year staying put and adding Clifton and Eric Johnson. Lost all Collateral we built doing that and Regressing.

 

Have to live with that and Build Collateral again. That means using Kulich and Savoie at Center or giving in on a Trade using them. Guarantee Adams said NO when their names were brought up

[TRIP65]

4 hours ago, Thorny said:

I don’t really get the “I’m 100 percent confident we make it this year” or the “we absolutely won’t be better” statements.

there’s a wide spectrum of potential results. Missing the playoffs is so frustrating because we all know it doesn’t take much to randomly go off one year to the tune of making it. The Caps didn’t so much “go off” as implode slowly and THAT was enough. We obviously COULD make it, and it would also absolutely not be surprising if we didn’t, considering past precedent.

I struggle to see why there’d be confidence, other than a gut feeling, in predicting either to a certainty

At least with the type of slow play offseason we’ve seen again so far 

Ruff is 3x the Coach Granto was and we have Appert too who knows the players from Amerks to use a few!

Completely Retooled bottom 6 and it will be tougher. Got nothing from the Bottom 6 last year

Ruff will play fast and situational Defense. Best D is a puck carrying Offense, expect it

We will start the year with 2 starting Goalies in UPL/Levi. Levi got hurt last year then sent down.

4 hours ago, Thorny said:

I don’t really think the scarcity of a take is necessarily a commentary on its validity and therefore easily cast aside 

I’ve been on an island a bunch and I can’t say it’s always lead to me being mistaken 

I am 100% sure Sabres make the Playoffs barring Ruff being fired or trading our Top 5 players we built up for 3 years

[Thorny]

2 minutes ago, TRIP65 said:

Ruff is 3x the Coach Granto was and we have Appert too who knows the players from Amerks to use a few!

Completely Retooled bottom 6 and it will be tougher. Got nothing from the Bottom 6 last year

Ruff will play fast and situational Defense. Best D is a puck carrying Offense, expect it

We will start the year with 2 starting Goalies in UPL/Levi. Levi got hurt last year then sent down.

I am 100% sure Sabres make the Playoffs barring Ruff being fired or trading our Top 5 players we built up for 3 years

So you are 100% certain the Sabres make it. I thought I was the guy selling the time share @dudacek

[TRIP65]

16 minutes ago, Thorny said:

I don’t like it. Strenuously against this idea.

Someone will have to let me know, but I feel like I date myself in the sense all my practical hockey knowledge is from like..the mid 2010s, because that’s when I last paid thorough attention, and these things may not hold true anymore, BUT

..you only play Crosby and Malkin together down/tied late. Dahlin and Power should be our two best players. 

Even more so with D, the concept of playing, at least one of them, for around 66% of the game is…alluring and formidable 

Problem, Dahlin, Power, Bo Byram and Samuelson are all L handed

[Thorny]

Just now, TRIP65 said:

Problem, Dahlin, Power, Bo Byram and Samuelson are all L handed

And?