Do the Sabres make the playoffs this season (second edition)

[CallawaySabres]

I am pretty sure this organization is broken and there really is no answer. The hiring of Ruff was just wow, a total failure of a publicity stunt aimed to make people feel something again. I see this team as being in the bottom 5 league-wide. Maybe with good goaltending they get to 10th worst in the league. 

There is nothing left, I mean, there is really nothing left to be hopeful for if you are a Sabres fan. The fan-base is more broken than the team and I really don't see it coming back for years. That building on Thursday is going to be a hornets nest if they are losing after the 1st period.

[mjd1001]

39 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

They were 23rd in the league in scoring WITH Skinner and Mittelstadt.

I also appreciate it's still early, but how in the hell does this team get playoff level scoring without two of their best producers from last year?!?!

Short answer: I really don't now.

Longer answer:  You start by playing the way this team played after Jan 1 of last year, for more than half the season. The team turned a corner in some ways almost literally after Jan 1.  Skinner played less.  UPL took over as your #1 goalie. Part of that was after trading Mitts for Byram. You moved on from Okposo. Cozens actually started playing better in his own zone (although he seems to have regressed this year again.)  All those things happened (primarily) after Jan 1 and the team went 24-18-2 and were a postive 24 in goal differential.

That is your starting point

-In that time after Jan 1 where the team played better, Skinner had his ice time reduced (the last 2 months of the season he was down to the 13-14 minute mark per game). He played 39 games, had 9 goals (less than a 19 goal pace per 82). He also didn't score in the last 13 games in a row.  So, when this team played its best, for more than 1/2 the season, it was when Skinner had his ice time reduced and was scoring at a 19 goal per season pace.

How do you replace that production? Have a winger on your roster score 10-15 and actually play defense so they prevent 4-9 goals vs Skinner over the rest of the year.

-Mitts. Since the team starting playing better Jan 1 until he was traded, he played in 24 games, and scored 4 goals. He did have 12 assists, but that puts him at 13.5 goal, 54 point pace. Easy to replace with what the Sabres have no? No, but not a monumental lift. They also were 10-8-2 in the 20 games after he traded, so not a huge drop moving him out and Byram in. 

How do you replace his production? Simple, Tage and Cozens need to pick up what they did last year. Tage actually DID the 2nd half of the season, Cozens needs to lift up the rest.

So the medium length (and best) answer to your question:  Line #1 (Tage, Tuch, Peterka)..you need to get 90-95 + goals out of them.  Line #2 (Cozens, Benson, Quinn)..you need to get 65-70+ goals out of them.  For me thats it.  IF we want to say the Bottom 2 lines are the same (or SLIGHTLY improved from last years team), then have the first 2 produce at that level, and you are there. 

Forget about 'just' career years, lets look at the last 3 years (ups AND downs combined). Tuch averaged about 29 goals per 82 games and is now in his prime. Tage averaged 41.5 goals per 82 over the last 3 seasons.  JJ in his 2 full seasons averages about 21, almost had 30 last year and is still not in his prime yet.  On the first line he will get more ice time and more chances. Again, is it a guarantee to happen? Nope, but that is HOW this team plays well, those players have it in them.

You are paying Cozens over $7m per season, hes still a train wreck in his own zone so for him to 'earn' his money he should be able to give you close to 30 (he needs to).  The above gets you there.

Now, if they DON'T do that, you have a big problem. But they are capable of doing it, now its just those players, and the coaching staff, getting them to that point.  I'm not 100% sure its going to happen, but after 2 games I certainly am not at the sky-is-falling, doom and gloom, this team will never ever win again point....that many others appear to be at.

Edited 4 hours ago by mjd1001

[Thorner]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmoe said:

They were 23rd in the league in scoring WITH Skinner and Mittelstadt.

I also appreciate it's still early, but how in the hell does this team get playoff level scoring without two of their best producers from last year?!?!

Revamped “4th line”, didn’t you hear??

[Thorner]

1 hour ago, Weave said:

It isn’t a plan. As Thorny likes to mention with some frequency, every team in the league gets 7 new opportunities to add new young talent to their team every year.

When noone wants to come to your organization, there is little alternative, so you roll with those 7 league granted chances and see if snake eyes doesn’t come up this time.  And you try to sell them to the fanbase as a plan.

Exactly. You can’t draft your way out of it in any reasonable, earthly timeline. It’s hard to make up ground there at all when other teams are also getting free draft picks every year. It’s a crapshoot draft. We can make up a little with great drafting aptitude that’ll bear fruit in half a decade but it is not *close* to the size of the gap between all the rest of the talent, organization wide considered.

You can’t draft your way out of it. You can’t spend your way out of it. You have to do both. That “balance” is some sort of revelation to some, including those in charge, is absurd. They figured out how to draft well, and for one reason or any other, none of which there are excuses for, they essentially abandoned the other aspects of team building. Right when you finally had the drafting acumen to achieve balance.

Insulting to the fanbase? A function of pure stupidity? Take your pick 

[Thorner]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmoe said:

We bought out Skinner and Mittelstadt was an RFA. In a world where no one wants to come to our team, we got rid of two of the best guys we had.

No wonder nobody wants to come here.

They didn’t want to pay him. Either because we don’t want to spend money, or because of an overconfidence in the players we did give long contracts to, or a prioritization of a timeline further down the road when we presumably see our RFAs replacing his production. 

Choose your own adventure 

[Thorner]

2 hours ago, mjd1001 said:

Short answer: I really don't now.

Longer answer:  You start by playing the way this team played after Jan 1 of last year, for more than half the season. The team turned a corner in some ways almost literally after Jan 1.  Skinner played less.  UPL took over as your #1 goalie. Part of that was after trading Mitts for Byram. You moved on from Okposo. Cozens actually started playing better in his own zone (although he seems to have regressed this year again.)  All those things happened (primarily) after Jan 1 and the team went 24-18-2 and were a postive 24 in goal differential.

That is your starting point

-In that time after Jan 1 where the team played better, Skinner had his ice time reduced (the last 2 months of the season he was down to the 13-14 minute mark per game). He played 39 games, had 9 goals (less than a 19 goal pace per 82). He also didn't score in the last 13 games in a row.  So, when this team played its best, for more than 1/2 the season, it was when Skinner had his ice time reduced and was scoring at a 19 goal per season pace.

How do you replace that production? Have a winger on your roster score 10-15 and actually play defense so they prevent 4-9 goals vs Skinner over the rest of the year.

-Mitts. Since the team starting playing better Jan 1 until he was traded, he played in 24 games, and scored 4 goals. He did have 12 assists, but that puts him at 13.5 goal, 54 point pace. Easy to replace with what the Sabres have no? No, but not a monumental lift. They also were 10-8-2 in the 20 games after he traded, so not a huge drop moving him out and Byram in. 

How do you replace his production? Simple, Tage and Cozens need to pick up what they did last year. Tage actually DID the 2nd half of the season, Cozens needs to lift up the rest.

So the medium length (and best) answer to your question:  Line #1 (Tage, Tuch, Peterka)..you need to get 90-95 + goals out of them.  Line #2 (Cozens, Benson, Quinn)..you need to get 65-70+ goals out of them.  For me thats it.  IF we want to say the Bottom 2 lines are the same (or SLIGHTLY improved from last years team), then have the first 2 produce at that level, and you are there. 

Forget about 'just' career years, lets look at the last 3 years (ups AND downs combined). Tuch averaged about 29 goals per 82 games and is now in his prime. Tage averaged 41.5 goals per 82 over the last 3 seasons.  JJ in his 2 full seasons averages about 21, almost had 30 last year and is still not in his prime yet.  On the first line he will get more ice time and more chances. Again, is it a guarantee to happen? Nope, but that is HOW this team plays well, those players have it in them.

You are paying Cozens over $7m per season, hes still a train wreck in his own zone so for him to 'earn' his money he should be able to give you close to 30 (he needs to).  The above gets you there.

Now, if they DON'T do that, you have a big problem. But they are capable of doing it, now its just those players, and the coaching staff, getting them to that point.  I'm not 100% sure its going to happen, but after 2 games I certainly am not at the sky-is-falling, doom and gloom, this team will never ever win again point....that many others appear to be at.

Have you ever heard that thing about how human beings generally pick the answer they want in advance, and then find the reasons to support it, after the fact? I wouldn’t be surprised at all of Adams and co pieced together a plan exactly like the one you laid out: and it’s the reason we keep failing. When you skewer and cherry pick the numbers so throughly, time and time again (a 20 game sample size here, a 25 game sample size there, a 13 game sample size over here, let’s focus on goals and not assists, let’s focus on our overall team record over a stretch of season demonstrably unreflective time and time again because wins when you are essentially out of it aren’t the same, ignoring of Skinner’s actually very good production to lion’s share of his time here in favour of a short stretch where he was benched…etc etc) what you end up with is a bunch of “well, maybes” that when compounded on eachother functionally make the result you want a shot in the dark

Which doesn’t even break the surface of the most important ignored variable: the amount the presence of Mittelstadt, who often performed as our best F, buoyed the totals of the other forwards you keep mentioning. Not only through actual aid to production, but in terms of players being properly slotted in roles. It’s ridiculously hard for Cozens and Tage to *make up* what we lost in Casey because you are counting on improvement upon something they did WITH Casey!

We’d be asking a lot of them to return to 22-23 form WITH the complementary roster they had, to ask them to return to form, WITHOUT the guy who was as good or better than they were when they were doing it, and THEN also find a way to *replace* the outright production of that facilitator without the facilitator is not really a hope, it’s a last resort. An unlikely shot in the dark.

You *need* to adequately supplement the forward ranks, which brings us back to “waiting on the kids” if the best they can and will do is Jason Zucker and Beck freaking Malenstyn, a player we had literally never heard of before we acquired him.

- - - 

If we cut to the chase, realistically the answer to almost every “when, how can we be good” question, as long as we are operating the way we are, is simply, and only “if the kids excel we’ll be good.”

Maybe we’ve just said it so many times we forget the fact it’s really the only prevalent factor, here: the dna of this team is measured in “future” currency. If the youth ever surprises, we’ll be good. I don’t see much strategy beyond assemble young talent and hope for the best  

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Thorner

[Mr Peabody]

We all read how we got tougher and harder to play against. Dillon never got the message I guess. That is not on the players, it’s on the team construction.  If I’ve got young kids like JK, Quinn, Benson, Cozens, Power, Bryam in the line-up I’d want a deterrent to someone who wants to knock them into the cheap seats.  Tampa got pounded by Columbus (?)In the playoffs and went out and got Maroon.  We’ve needed that to give our kids a safety blanket.  Eichel asked for it before he said he wanted out. 

[Ravenking32]

With the response to the Dillon hit I’m sure that will not happen again this season. Sigh 

[zow2]

What does history tell us about starting 0-2.

[Weave]

18 minutes ago, zow2 said:

What does history tell us about starting 0-2.

It tells us we have the rest of the season to try and get 4 more points than the teams that started 2-0.

[mjd1001]

1 hour ago, Thorner said:

Have you ever heard that thing about how human beings generally pick the answer they want in advance, and then find the reasons to support it, after the fact? I wouldn’t be surprised at all of Adams and co pieced together a plan exactly like the one you laid out: and it’s the reason we keep failing. 

 

 

I get it, I said in my post a few times it might not work out, but I was simply answering the question of how do you replace the production of Mitts and Skinner, I gave the best 'possible' answer based on the current roster.  It may not work, as I said, but with what we have, what I said is the 'best chance'.

[Thorner]

4 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

I get it, I said in my post a few times it might not work out, but I was simply answering the question of how do you replace the production of Mitts and Skinner, I gave the best 'possible' answer based on the current roster.  It may not work, as I said, but with what we have, what I said is the 'best chance'.

It’s a good post. I just despise the incorporated logic of choice