Lines at practice today 12/08/24---if anyone cares

[mjd1001]

5 hours ago, Pimlach said:

Not true.  He was playing poorly before the fight and the team was losing.  He got frustrated and picked the wrong dance partner.  Losing a fight is not his problem.  Playing 2C minutes and PP minutes when he is a 3rd liner is his problem. 

3rd line WINGER at best.

Back to one of the few things I'm decent at on this board, bashing Cozen's play.

But seriously, when you look at his play, for the past year and a half, is he really even a GOOD 3rd liner?  I think he gets slotted on the 2nd line because he has the 'raw' talent (skating speed, agility, size) and pedigree (top 10 pick).  The kind of 'talent' a coach looks at and may think "I'll be the one to get him out of it"

But in reality...for his career (Even INCLUDING his career year), he is a 19 goal per 82 game guy. A minus player and a deeper minus guy than the average of the other forward on your team.  Under 50% at faceoffs.  Ineffective on the PP (currently leads Sabres forwards in PP time this year, split time last year on the first and 2nd PP unit, and has a total of 3 PP goals total between this year and all of last year). He is a 10% shooter (8.5% over the last 2 years and 8.3% every other year if you exclude his 'career year'.)  He hits less than he gets credit for by many...3.37 hits per 60 for his career, which is average-to-slightly-below-average among forwards on the team. He's the antithesis of clutch....Never had more than 1 game winning goal in an entire season across his whole career, and it seems like he is much, much more likely to take a dumb penalty late in a close game than make a play to win it.  We know the numbers.

All of that above paragraph would lead me to think he is possibly a 3rd line winger. Not 1st line, not 2nd line, not even a 3rd line center.  But to be GOOD as a 3rd line winger with those numbers, you have to be at least decent without the puck.  I think there are very few people left who believe he is actually good defensively. Some of us, including myself, think he is BAD. Like worst-player-on-the-team-bad positionally.  

To me, he has to change, he has to improve immediately.  His offensive production justifies nothing higher than a 3rd line winger at the moment, and when you includes his defensive lapses and tendency to wander and 'do his own thing' out there (I like to think of his play without the puck as the forward version of Ristolainen), I think he's a slight negative even as a 3rd liner.

Oh, and those offensive production numbers? IF they played him 3rd line minutes and less on the PP, with less ice time his production would likely be even a bit lower than it is.

Cozens may have more of that 'raw talent', but in terms of actually being a hockey player, the Sabres are a better team day in and day out with another guy the level Zucker, or Mcleod, instead of Cozens on the ice.

He has a good game on occasion. I'm not rooting against him. I want him to be a 20-25 goal per year guy and be a factor on the PP and to think 'defense first' in close games. When its a tie game with 5 minutes left, I want him to make the move on the D-man and put the puck over the goalies shoulder for the game winner. But he just doesn't do it.  Like, 4 out of 5 games he does none of that.  He's has to start soon, 'young and inexerienced' as a reason is running out for him. That is become less of a 'reason' and more of an 'excuse' at this point.

Edited December 9 by mjd1001

[Pimlach]

52 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

3rd line WINGER at best.

I know you don't care for him, and you have data to back up your case.   

I just don't think we are dealing with a mature hockey player yet.  Yes he has 300 games, but everyone matures and develops differently.   He will be better at some point.   (See Sam Bennett, drafted at 4OA.  Not much scoring production for 6-7 years).  

Honestly I think the 3rd line is his floor, but a place were he could perform better right now.  I still believe he can play up on a 2nd line at some point in the future.  Would like to see him play without kids even younger than him for a change.  

So many of these younger players, the "Sabres only" ones, are going through a big learning process.   

[ska-T Palmtown]

8 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

I know you don't care for him, and you have data to back up your case.   

I just don't think we are dealing with a mature hockey player yet.  Yes he has 300 games, but everyone matures and develops differently.   He will be better at some point.   (See Sam Bennett, drafted at 4OA.  Not much scoring production for 6-7 years).  

Honestly I think the 3rd line is his floor, but a place were he could perform better right now.  I still believe he can play up on a 2nd line at some point in the future.  Would like to see him play without kids even younger than him for a change.  

So many of these younger players, the "Sabres only" ones, are going through a big learning process.   

I want to agree, because I love the Buffalo Sabres and want them to win soooooo effing bad. But ... sports are littered with high draft choices oozing raw physical skills that could just never piece it together at the pro level. Their abundance of natural skills usually gets them by quite easily at the lower levels, but in the pros they seem to lack the mental acumen to make the quick decisions/reactions to allow them to really apply their skill.

I think a big thing working for him is that he does have 300 NHL games under his belt at such a young age. If it does not break him, perhaps that extra experience can prove useful for upping his "hockey IQ". What frustrates me the most, whether with or without the puck, I see him turn the wrong way too many times. With the puck, he will try a tight turn into the defender and without he will spin the wrong way and the guy gets away clean.

[Pimlach]

21 minutes ago, ska-T Palmtown said:

I want to agree, because I love the Buffalo Sabres and want them to win soooooo effing bad. But ... sports are littered with high draft choices oozing raw physical skills that could just never piece it together at the pro level. Their abundance of natural skills usually gets them by quite easily at the lower levels, but in the pros they seem to lack the mental acumen to make the quick decisions/reactions to allow them to really apply their skill.

I think a big thing working for him is that he does have 300 NHL games under his belt at such a young age. If it does not break him, perhaps that extra experience can prove useful for upping his "hockey IQ". What frustrates me the most, whether with or without the puck, I see him turn the wrong way too many times. With the puck, he will try a tight turn into the defender and without he will spin the wrong way and the guy gets away clean.

He was a star in Canada. He was on their National Team, one of the best team junior teams in the world.  He is better than what we are seeing right now, its there.  

[ska-T Palmtown]

2 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

He was a star in Canada. He was on their National Team, one of the best team junior teams in the world.  He is better than what we are seeing right now, its there.  

Son of a biscuit - I wanted to put something about that in there; he showed against the best of his peers that he could do it. Too busy making memes for the the game day thread!

[PerreaultForever]

14 hours ago, mjd1001 said:

Cozens last year before the fight:  10gp, 3g, 4a, -1 (82 game pace of 24.6 goals, 33 assists, 57.4 points -8.2)

Last year from the fight game on: 69gp, 15g, 25a -3 (82 game pace of 18 goals, 30 assists, 47.5 points -3.5)

Statistically not a huge difference. 

As far as his play away from the puck, I remember he was pretty bad and made mistakes early in the year before the fight, and he just kept on making the same dumb mistakes after the fight.

For me personally, that fight I can use as a turning point as a kind of 'mental crutch'.  Meaning, he came off of a 31 goal year, so the 3 goals in 10 games was only 'slightly' off that pace and not signficant enough for me to think he was anything other than a 30 goal scorer. 

Did the fight actually impact his play? Or has his play since the beginning of last year actually been who he is, before and after the fight, as he came off of a one-time career year?  Do we simply use the fight as a MacGuffin for the narrative that it was a turning point?  His stats weren't that much different after the fight as they were before...and the team as a whole statistically played almost the same, and actually slightly better after he came back from the fight with him in the lineup....with him playing more minutes.....than the team played before he got in the fight with him playing less minutes per game.

Even hitting. A little obscure of a stat but before the fight, he was averaging 1.20 hits per game. After the fight game 1.35 hits per game.  So hardly any difference of note. But he didn't shy away from the physical game, he had slightly, SLIGHTLY more hits per game after he got in the fight than before it.

Had the fight not happened and he continued to score at that lower pace, by the end of the year I would have thought....last year was a mirage I guess.  The fight just happens to be conveniently at a time (with the subsequent games missed after) to allow us, and myself included, to put significance to it meaning something. When in reality, the whole season last year, before and after the fight, may have been him just reverting to the norm after a career year.

Well if it's not that then I guess you'd have to say once he got the contract he said F it, now I can coast until they trade me to a contender. 

[Mango]

With all the talk of Tage/Cozens going to the wing because they can't figure out center/refuse to play the game the right way, you know who would give us the freedom to shuffle the lines around? Casey forking Mittelstadt!

But hey, we have the third iteration of the same defensemen. It is kind of like Multiplicity, where every time Michael Keaton clones himself they get more and more broken. That is our defensive core....

[HumanSlinky39]

Adams keeps preaching "process, process, process." We keep hearing we're the youngest team in the league. Sorry, but the youth excuse expires when guys are entering their 4th, 5th, 6th season in the NHL. This current core has been together several years now:

Cozens - 5th NHL season

Tage - 7th NHL season

Power - 3rd NHL season

Dahlin - 7th NHL season

Krebs - 4th NHL season

Tuch - 8th NHL season

Peterka - 3rd NHL season

Quinn - 3rd NHL season

Byram - 5th NFL season

 

This ain't a bunch of rookies and second year players. These guys have played together for 3-5 years. If you peg 2020-21 as the jump off point of this "current" rebuild (one of how many now since 2011?), this is year 5. Half of this frickin' league makes the playoffs any given season. Right now, we appear nowhere near being a playoff team. So my question of Adams would be - "how many years is this expected to take?" This current core has been playing together for a few years now, how are they not better than this?

And I'll admit, that while they have been playing for years together, development has been stunted by the front office's utter failure to pepper the lineup with good veteran hockey players. Yeah, they've brought in a guy here and there, but most of these players they've been trying to develop have done it together vice with good, experienced hockey players.

There's potential throughout this group, but Adams and company have bungled it severely.