GDT: St.Louis Blues @ Buffalo Sabres 7:30 PM ESPN+/Hulu, WGR550

[Weave]

22 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

I waxed my 1970 Pontiac so often that my neighbor said I was going to rub the paint off of it.  

Nah.  Pretty sure your mom said that, and Pontiac was a euphemism.

[French Collection]

1 hour ago, Doohicksie said:

Simple math:

6-on-5 (end of game with goalie pulled):  1.2 times the manpower
5-on-4:  1.25 times the manpower
4-on-3:  1.33 times the panpower
3-on-2:  1.5 times the manpower (doesn't happen in the NHL but just to show the trend)
2-on-1:  2 times the manpower (ditto)

Thanks for the math lesson, different perspective.

Another math angle is the square footage of the zone and how much more room there is to maneuver, pass and shoot for 4vs3 as opposed to 6vs5.
 

18 minutes ago, Weave said:

Nah.  Pretty sure your mom said that, and Pontiac was a euphemism.

Plus, you can go blind and never see your car again.

[pi2000]

Loved the 3rd period effort and mental toughness after the disallowed goal. 

They were the better team in final frame and got rewarded.

Keep it going.

[msw2112]

1 hour ago, DarthEbriate said:

It's his hockey nickname. https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/f/ferrara01.html  

And he's had that nickname for decades.

[triumph_communes]

1 hour ago, Doohicksie said:

You know, Krebs had a good game too.  Set up the Benson goal- took the pass at the point skated down the boards to the half wall, drawing Suter over to him so that when he passed to Benson there was space for him to walk in on the goal.  He made several other smart plays durhing the night.  He's maxed out at 3C but he's not in over his head at that level.

Krebs isn’t bad under Ruff. I think he leaves some to be desired but he isn’t a problem like he was for years. Credit where it’s due. But he’s replaceable don’t get me wrong. 

[msw2112]

1 hour ago, Getpucksdeep said:

nicely done!

Lindy's presser from last night.  I love the end where he talks about the A word without saying the A word.  Relative to Dahlin and his bad elbowing penalty in critical moments of the Montreal game.

 

I really like Lindy's honest approach and I think the players like it too.  I liked Granato, but I don't think he had the gravitas to fully speak his mind and comment honestly, for fear of losing the room.  Lindy does not have that problem.

[JohnC]

4 hours ago, mjd1001 said:

I have come to accept that Cozens is not going to be a consistent 30+ goal guy.  When you look back at his stats over his career, he has wild swings, and I mean WILD swings in his shooting percentage. Yes, all goal scorers are hot and cold, but they may fluctuate a few percentage points year to year or month to month within a year. Cozens will go from 15% for one month, then he'll shoot 3-4% for 2 full months, before being back up to above 10%.

I think when you accept that is who he is, it becomes easier to deal with.  Personally I'm pretty sure we are going to see stretches of him this year where people will think and say "he's back!" and "he is well worth his contract!", only to be followed by a month or two, or maybe a future full season where he gives off vibes like he did for the first month.

He has no consistency at all to his game. The hope is he gets 'hot' when the Sabres are entering the playoffs.

Assuming Cozens gets PP time, I believe that he should consistently be in the 25-30 goal range. 

[Jorcus]

2 hours ago, mjd1001 said:

Agreed.

Those 3 guys are potentially very good/great puck movers, which is an under-rated aspect of defensive zone play.

When the puck is in your own zone, get to the puck quickly (skating), control the puck (hands) make carry the puck out of the zone (Skating) or make a good break-out pass (passing).....well needless to say getting the puck out of your zone effectively is good defense in itself. They all have that ability, I am thinking/hoping they will get better with the above and make less mistakes with continued experience.

 

Byram has been the best tape to tape passer coming out of the D Zone.  He can pass it out our skate it out fast. Power does not have his speed but passes well and is crafty with the puck on his stick. Dahlin is very good at skating out of the D zone but sometimes his long passes are too reckless. How many icings did he take last night because he was going heavy on a stretch pass that missed the mark? He is much better in the O zone where his quick passes are shorter in length.  

[mjd1001]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

Assuming Cozens gets PP time, I believe that he should consistently be in the 25-30 goal range. 

He doesn't function well on the powerplay though, that isn't his game.

He gets plenty of PP time, but even in his 30 goal year, he had only 5 PP goals.  Every other year of his career, he has only had 1 or 2 for the entire season.

[JohnC]

19 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

He doesn't function well on the powerplay though, that isn't his game.

He gets plenty of PP time, but even in his 30 goal year, he had only 5 PP goals.  Every other year of his career, he has only had 1 or 2 for the entire season.

The difference between this year and prior years is the coach. Lindy stresses net presence. He does have the ability to get in the tough areas and mix it up. We'll see. I didn't watch last night's game but from the highlights it seemed to me that he was around the net more. We'll see. 

Just a general observation not specific to Cozens is that this year under Lindy there is a greater effort by our players to hover around the net in our offensive zone and on the power play. Benson, one of our smaller players, and Greenway, one of our bigger players, are adept at it. And so is Zucker. 

[LGR4GM]

4 hours ago, ska-T Chitown said:

Granted I was watching on my phone on a plane - but I thought Quinn was noticeable for neutral to good reasons for a large portion of his ice time yesterday. He get powerplay time and was out there for the 4-on-3 OT, so obviously Lindy still likes what he sees. I feel like Quinner (Quinny? Quinser? Quinsie?) has really cut down on the slow plays and error plays the last few games. He seems to be "going with the flow" a lot more lately and I think once he pops, we'll see the Quinn we saw last year.

His feet are moving more. There was a shift in the 3rd he won battles and got the puck to the center of the ice. He needs to do that always and hopefully by December, he's back up to full bore.

[mjd1001]

19 minutes ago, JohnC said:

The difference between this year and prior years is the coach. Lindy stresses net presence. He does have the ability to get in the tough areas and mix it up. We'll see. I didn't watch last night's game but from the highlights it seemed to me that he was around the net more. We'll see. 

Just a general observation not specific to Cozens is that this year under Lindy there is a greater effort by our players to hover around the net in our offensive zone and on the power play. Benson, one of our smaller players, and Greenway, one of our bigger players, are adept at it. And so is Zucker. 

I'm hoping that might be true.  I have said that I think Cozens could function well as the 'net front presense' (along with Greenway) on the PP.

Just have those 2 guys stand there, make the opposing team worry about them, have them provide a screen, and when there are rebounds have them knock the puck in the net.  You don't need a super accurate shot for that, just decent hands and tenacity.  I'd like to see them use Cozens more that way.

Like you said, new coach, new ideas.  Between who he has coached and coached against, there probably isn't much Lindy hasn't seen.

[LGR4GM]

2 hours ago, JohnC said:

Assuming Cozens gets PP time, I believe that he should consistently be in the 25-30 goal range. 

 

1 hour ago, mjd1001 said:

He doesn't function well on the powerplay though, that isn't his game.

He gets plenty of PP time, but even in his 30 goal year, he had only 5 PP goals.  Every other year of his career, he has only had 1 or 2 for the entire season.

 

44 minutes ago, JohnC said:

The difference between this year and prior years is the coach. Lindy stresses net presence. He does have the ability to get in the tough areas and mix it up. We'll see. I didn't watch last night's game but from the highlights it seemed to me that he was around the net more. We'll see. 

Just a general observation not specific to Cozens is that this year under Lindy there is a greater effort by our players to hover around the net in our offensive zone and on the power play. Benson, one of our smaller players, and Greenway, one of our bigger players, are adept at it. And so is Zucker. 

That's not the issue. Cozens isn't good on the pp. His shot isn't much of a threat and he's pretty straight forward with his passing. So unless you're parking him in front, he doesn't add anything that interesting. Quinn is better at the bumper spot and Peterka is a better shooter. 

There's almost no evidence that Cozens can be a steady 30g scorer with his shot. 

[Doohicksie]

3 hours ago, triumph_communes said:

Krebs isn’t bad under Ruff. I think he leaves some to be desired but he isn’t a problem like he was for years. Credit where it’s due. But he’s replaceable don’t get me wrong. 

Totally replaceable and yet he's been carving out a role under Lindy.  I thought with all the bottom sixers brought in it would push Krebs out to 13th man, but he really fits well with the new guys.  They're more than just toughness and defense, there's also a bit of scoring potential when they're out there.

[mjd1001]

25 minutes ago, Doohicksie said:

Totally replaceable and yet he's been carving out a role under Lindy.  I thought with all the bottom sixers brought in it would push Krebs out to 13th man, but he really fits well with the new guys.  They're more than just toughness and defense, there's also a bit of scoring potential when they're out there.

Not that anyone follows my posts, but if you look back at the last year, I was really hard on both Krebs and Cozens, Krebs in particular. I thought he was a bad player, not useless as a 'person but useless as an NHL hockey player, I said over and over he brought nothing of value to the team and I wouldn't have even brought him back for the league minimum.

This year I actually LIKE his game.  He makes a bad mistake once or twice a week, but almost every other aspect of his game he is much better. He seems to be skating 'harder' and he is by far the best faceoff guy on this team. Its not a small sample size either, he's taken over 100 and he is at over 56%.

Now that doesn't mean he is a crucial piece to this team winning a ton more games. Its not lost on me that he is only getting 12 minutes of ice time per game, if he took a huge leap forward the coaches would see that and give him more ice time. But we talked on this forum before the season started, with Lindy Ruff here, would there be any players that just play better because they respond to him or players that for no reason other than him don't respond well? I think Krebs is one who is responding well.

[ska-T Chitown]

51 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

Not that anyone follows my posts, but if you look back at the last year, I was really hard on both Krebs and Cozens, Krebs in particular. I thought he was a bad player, not useless as a 'person but useless as an NHL hockey player, I said over and over he brought nothing of value to the team and I wouldn't have even brought him back for the league minimum.

This year I actually LIKE his game.  He makes a bad mistake once or twice a week, but almost every other aspect of his game he is much better. He seems to be skating 'harder' and he is by far the best faceoff guy on this team. Its not a small sample size either, he's taken over 100 and he is at over 56%.

Now that doesn't mean he is a crucial piece to this team winning a ton more games. Its not lost on me that he is only getting 12 minutes of ice time per game, if he took a huge leap forward the coaches would see that and give him more ice time. But we talked on this forum before the season started, with Lindy Ruff here, would there be any players that just play better because they respond to him or players that for no reason other than him don't respond well? I think Krebs is one who is responding well.

Not just for you - just jumping in here on the topic.

Every team - even Cup champs have "replaceable" players - no team has 12 indispensable forwards. The proof is in any of the teams that won multiple Cups over a short period of time - their top 6, let alone their bottom 6 are rarely the same. It seems to me that Krebs is the kind of player that a really good team picks up in FA for cheap, sticks him at wing on their 3rd or 4th line and they look brilliant for "plugging a hole".

Sometimes you just need some players that can go out and play an even +/- game for 12 mins a game while your top lines catch their breath. 

I won't go so far as to say it is the SAME thing ... but I have caught myself a few times wondering "who is that player zipping around and skating hella hard?" with Krebsie the same way it hit towards the end of the season two seasons ago with Mitts. Maybe something has clicked with Krebs and he is now a 3rd or 4th line "effort" guy on a very reasonable contract (on a team with oodles of cap space - sigh) - he is never going to be your 'go to' center, but if he can attain and maintain 'serviceable', he moves way down on my list of worries. 

[JohnC]

4 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

 

 

That's not the issue. Cozens isn't good on the pp. His shot isn't much of a threat and he's pretty straight forward with his passing. So unless you're parking him in front, he doesn't add anything that interesting. Quinn is better at the bumper spot and Peterka is a better shooter. 

There's almost no evidence that Cozens can be a steady 30g scorer with his shot. 

That's exactly where I want Cozens located on the second PP unit. I agree with you that he's not much of a threat shooing from the perimeter. However, he has more utility when he mucks it up around the net.