News Article: Did Buffalo kill its chances of winning the Connor McDavid sweepstakes?

[Jim Bob]

Bovada sets Sabres over/under point total at 65.5. Isles at 83.5.

What about the other 28 teams? Or at least the teams in the bottom 5 to 10?

 

[haseoke39]

What about the other 28 teams? Or at least the teams in the bottom 5 to 10?

http://sabres.buffalonews.com/2014/09/09/sabres-given-best-odds-finishing-last/

Isles tied for 9th.

 

[brian_griffin]

http://sabres.buffalonews.com/2014/09/09/sabres-given-best-odds-finishing-last/

Isles tied for 9th.

Not gonna comment on all teams, but quick glance I feel he's inflating San Jose's, St. Louis', Toronto's, and Carolina's prospects, and underestimating Tampa Bay. His bottom-of-the league looks pretty reasonable.

 

[Paxon]

http://sabres.buffalonews.com/2014/09/09/sabres-given-best-odds-finishing-last/

Isles tied for 9th.

I'd say they set the over/under for the Sabres just about perfectly. It's really tough to pick. They did a good job setting all of them at the bottom.

 

[Jim Bob]

I wonder how accurate they were last season, for example?

 

[Zip15]

I wonder how accurate they were last season, for example?

I'll let you crunch the numbers, JB:

http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on...nder-point-totals-have-pens-first-flames-last

Let's just say they overestimated a touch with Buffalo's O/U of 83.5.

 

[JThorne]

Florida can't be that bad again, can they?

 

[JRiz13]

Florida can't be that bad again, can they?

I don't think so. I think they start putting it together this year... finally. I don't think they make the playoffs but definitely not bottom feeders.

 

[jBuds]

I don't think so. I think they start putting it together this year... finally. I don't think they make the playoffs but definitely not bottom feeders.

Lu is an upgrade to Thomas... team defense should improve...the #1 overall pick makes the team, and if someone like Seth Jones is any indication of what a top rookie dman of potentially elite caliber can mean to a unit right away, it should be a quantifiable plus for them.

Who scores goals for them besides Hubie? Sounds pretty similar...

 

[Jim Bob]

I'll let you crunch the numbers, JB:

http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on...nder-point-totals-have-pens-first-flames-last

Let's just say they overestimated a touch with Buffalo's O/U of 83.5.

I care more about projected and actual rankings than the actual pts.

In general, the spread from the worst to the best team is a lot wider in reality than the projections. But, some of that is because these numbers are also there to generate action. I think that is part of the reason why the Leafs were so much worse than projection. Their fanbase probably still bet a lot on the over....

They did have four teams on the nose in their projected ranking and where the team landed (St Louis, Minnesota, Carolina, and Florida). They had four more teams within three spots of where they would land (Boston, Montreal, Philadelphia, and Calgary).

And even though the Sabres projected points was way off, they did only project them to be 26th. So, them landing in 30th wasn't too far off.

Off the teams to finish in the bottom 4 last season, only Edmonton was projected to be better than a bottom 4 team.

 

[Zman5778]

Lu is an upgrade to Thomas... team defense should improve...the #1 overall pick makes the team, and if someone like Seth Jones is any indication of what a top rookie dman of potentially elite caliber can mean to a unit right away, it should be a quantifiable plus for them.

Who scores goals for them besides Hubie? Sounds pretty similar...

They've got Barkov, Boyes in a top-6 role, Jokinen, Hubie and maybe Bjugstad. I don't think they'll be as hard up for goals as we are (or Calgary is).


The more I look at Calgary's roster, the more concerned I get about their chances of usurping us.

They might be worse offensively than we are. Defensively, they have Smid/Gio/Brodie.....but that's about it. Wideman is a slight improvement on McBain in his own end and Engelland is absolute trash.

Their goaltending should be better than ours....but that might be negated by their D.....

 

[start winnin]

I'm worried about how bad Calgary will suck. I hope we out suck them but I really think they will be the worst team in the NHL this year. I guess the one good thing will be that we will be able to tell those dumb Flame fans who were complaining about the Sabres trying to tank as if they weren't. WHO'S TANKING NOW *****???

 

[Zip15]

I posted this in another thread, but it's probably more relevant here. The Isles have been bet up to 86.5. A lot of money going down on the over.

 

[Jim Bob]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-p...onnor-mcdavid--trending-topics-135236156.html

The first thing to keep in mind about the Sabres of last season is that they were, in addition to being the worst team in the league, almost hopelessly unlucky. They only got to 52 points last season, which is pathetic (literally 40 points below league-average), despite the fact that Ryan Miller and the rest of the goalies stopped 5 percent more shots than the average NHL goaltending (.918); if they'd kept Miller the whole season, instead of wisely trading him, they'd have probably gotten closer to 60. He was that good for them.

But even 60 would have been bad, and the fact that they shed Miller and will instead rely upon Michal Neuvirth to push things along. Things will not go quite so well for them in the goaltending department as a consequence, but Neuvirth isn't bad or anything, and the rest of the team has improved. They brought in Brian Gionta and Andrej Meszaros among other NHL veterans, and re-signed Matt Moulson after trading him to Minnesota. Now that's asset management. The team's biggest problem was scoring, and it's not really been addressed, but the likelihood that an entire team shoots just 7 percent again (almost two points below league average) next season seems quite low.

So the question becomes whether that increase will square up with a potentially big drop in save percentage, and how adding some better players in front of Neuvirth will affect their shots-against total. One assumes that the answer is “not enough to make a differenceâ€, and so this will still be an almost-incredibly bad team, all things considered. I feel pretty confident saying that they weren't really as bad as a 52-point team last year, and they won't be that bad again this time around. They are, however, clearly still downright awful.

It'll be interesting to see if the luck actually goes their way this season, too, and effectively screws them into a race with some other teams for dead last. It's not probable, but it's certainly possible, that such a thing could happen, especially if one of the other deeply bad teams ends up getting the same kind of tough bounces Buffalo did last year.

But because the rules for the draft lottery have been changed to take away some of the advantage of finishing 30th — a hearty screw-you to the tanking crowd from the league — it's also fair to examine the group of teams that might come next, and I'd say there are probably only two or three who have a legit shot at finishing 29th. And by the way, it goes without saying that even if you're picking second in the draft come June, you're still walking away with a very good player in Jack Eichel, whom most scouts said would have been No. 1 overall in this past draft, had he been eligible.

 

[RecycledEichel]

I don't think this team will finish last.. With Nolan as the coach and pieces that fit together better, I think we might have even screwed over a top 5.. Let's bring back Leino and John Scott

 

[26CornerBlitz]

Well???

 

[haseoke39]

Was waiting for this to get bumped.

There was that poll that had us overwhelmingly predicting last place, too.

 

[yahhockey]

FWIW the article was written referencing the additions of Gorges, Gionta, Moulson, Meszaros and McCormick and I wouldn't say that these players are the cause of our (unfortunate?) surge up the standings.

 

[Jame]

Darcy Regier and Ted Nolan ruined our chances. Boo hoo they've combined to acquire and develop the talent in a near perfect way.

 

[Ralonzo]

Darcy at least had the good sense to bring in Appletini Rolston when he decided to finish dead last.

 

[haseoke39]

I think this idea that the young guys are forcing our hands here is kind of disingenuous. Didn't we all want and foresee these players developing well? Nobody's having a star campaign here, girgensons is having a 50 point pace right now and ristolainen and zadorov are playing reliable top 4 minutes. It was always pretty obvious that if you wanted to stay in the basement while having 3-4 players develop smartly, you needed to add a bevy of liabilities to the roster to offset their talent. We just haven't done that. I think it was firmly in our power. For better or worse, Tim Murray owns the outcome of this process.

 

[Jacob582]

Definitely Darcy's fault. He underestimated the ability of Pegula to stomach the tank.

Hindsight he would have signed vets and tried to win last season, and then thoroughly blow it up for this season.

 

[LaFontaineToMogilny]

I think this idea that the young guys are forcing our hands here is kind of disingenuous. Didn't we all want and foresee these players developing well? Nobody's having a star campaign here, girgensons is having a 50 point pace right now and ristolainen and zadorov are playing reliable top 4 minutes. It was always pretty obvious that if you wanted to stay in the basement while having 3-4 players develop smartly, you needed to add a bevy of liabilities to the roster to offset their talent. We just haven't done that. I think it was firmly in our power. For better or worse, Tim Murray owns the outcome of this process.

Not at all. I am thrilled and blown away by what Risto and Zads are doing. I didn't even expect Zadorov to play 10 games this year, but he is now a legit 2nd pair guy. Risto is playing well above the level I was hoping for.

And that is before I mention Girgensons who is centering an NHL level 1st line and doing it very well. That is way above my expectation. I'd be pretty surprised if there are many people who honestly foresaw this level of performance from our youngest players.

 

[Jame]

I think this idea that the young guys are forcing our hands here is kind of disingenuous. Didn't we all want and foresee these players developing well?

Talk about disingenuous

 

[struckbyaparkedcar]

Talk about disingenuous

What are you talking about, the development blueprint headed into this season was always Girgensons at first line center and breaking Z/R in as 20+ minute all situations players. On a team coachdd by Ted(s) Nolan (s).