It's January 2015 And The Sabres Are Hovering Around .500 .....

[Sabretooth]

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1499115

You kid yourself, and yourself only.

A roster littered with rookies, veterans with uncertain futures. Offensive inconsistencies still exist and a defense that is not yet known for it's blockbuster stopping power. Throw in the unknown quantum at goaltending and basically it's a foregone conclusion that the Sabres will not be a playoff contender. I'll go further and say they end up with a top 1 to 4 pick.

Interesting...

 

[TehDoak]

Better leadership, better coaching, a more concrete idea of where peoples roles are, what the expectations are.

The lineup is 'similar' to last year, overall.

More structure, a better attitude, and realistic expectations.

You ever under a boss who didn't know what he was doing and was worried about getting fired? Thats what the Sabres had last year.

4-15-1 when Nolan was hired. That's a .225 win %

18-35-8 when the trade deadline came.

That's 14-20-7, a .427 Winning %

After the Sabres jettisoned Ott, Moulson, McCormick, and Miller, We finished the season 21-51-10 with a huge injury list and a whole bunch of players with nothing to play for. That's a 3-16-2 record. a .190 winning % post trade deadline.

I think, realistically, we are going to see a bit closer to the 65-70 pt range, which is exactly where this team performed between Nolan's hiring and the Trade deadline. Still good enough for top 3.

 

[Jim Bob]

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1499115

Yeah, a few optimistic folks were shouted down by the masses.

But I'm talking about like 4 or 5+ years ago. I was always amused when it seemed like during this time of the year people in WNY were overly optimistic about the Bills and overly pessimistic about the Sabres. Even when the Sabres had made the playoffs in recent memory and the Bills hadn't.

 

[Jeremy2020]

Gorges = or > Get me out of here Ehrhoff
Gionta >> Ott
Moulson > Get me out of here Vanek
Girgensons >>>>> Never played in the NHL Girgensons
2RW Hodgson > 1C Hodgson
(anyone) >>>>>>> Leino

There is improvement everywhere just out of circumstance. It's not hard to find. Hell, Flynn, Mitchell and Larsson are on the outside looking in. How much more evidence do you need?

I think your assertion require far too much reaching to get close to reality. You also forgot Miller.

 

[stokes84]

Better leadership, better coaching, a more concrete idea of where peoples roles are, what the expectations are.

The lineup is 'similar' to last year, overall.

More structure, a better attitude, and realistic expectations.

You ever under a boss who didn't know what he was doing and was worried about getting fired? Thats what the Sabres had last year.

4-15-1 when Nolan was hired. That's a .225 win %

18-35-8 when the trade deadline came.

That's 14-20-7, a .427 Winning %

After the Sabres jettisoned Ott, Moulson, McCormick, and Miller, We finished the season 21-51-10 with a huge injury list and a whole bunch of players with nothing to play for. That's a 3-16-2 record. a .190 winning % post trade deadline.

I think, realistically, we are going to see a bit closer to the 65-70 pt range, which is exactly where this team performed between Nolan's hiring and the Trade deadline. Still good enough for top 3.

This is what I am trying to get at. They will be a bottom five team, but they are not the dumpster fire they were last year.

 

[ZeroPT*]

What stat tells me how often Ehrhoff quit on a play last year? Because it happened a lot.

There aren't any stats that show that.

But even when he supposedly checked out he was still our best possession D-man, he QB'd our PP and put up ~30 points.

Who's gonna replace that offense from the back-end?
Who'll QB our PP?
Who's going to replace our possession and transition that Ehrhoff did very well last season?

He was paired with complete scrubs and was still one of our top D-men, if not the best.

 

[haseoke39]

...the team may somehow be near .500 or somewhere other than the cellar in January, but it's likely not going to be attributed to Nolan getting more out of the team than other coaches would be able to.

Excellent explanations and marshaling of the stats. Very informative read. I didn't know you could track our opponent's Corsi like that and see the easing of the schedule visually like that once Nolan took over. Very helpful to the conversation.

 

[stokes84]

I think your assertion require far too much reaching to get close to reality. You also forgot Miller.

I don't think I reached for a thing.

 

[MayDay]

I was always amused when it seemed like during this time of the year people in WNY were overly optimistic about the Bills and overly pessimistic about the Sabres. Even when the Sabres had made the playoffs in recent memory and the Bills hadn't.

I never really got that either. People just love to put to put on their rose-colored glasses when it comes to the Bills, and every year loads of people predict 10-6 and playoffs, even though it never happens.

The Bills always get the benefit of the doubt. The Sabres rarely do. Don't know why that is.

 

[ZeroPT*]

Better leadership, better coaching, a more concrete idea of where peoples roles are, what the expectations are.

The lineup is 'similar' to last year, overall.

More structure, a better attitude, and realistic expectations.

You ever under a boss who didn't know what he was doing and was worried about getting fired? Thats what the Sabres had last year.

4-15-1 when Nolan was hired. That's a .225 win %

18-35-8 when the trade deadline came.

That's 14-20-7, a .427 Winning %

After the Sabres jettisoned Ott, Moulson, McCormick, and Miller, We finished the season 21-51-10 with a huge injury list and a whole bunch of players with nothing to play for. That's a 3-16-2 record. a .190 winning % post trade deadline.

I think, realistically, we are going to see a bit closer to the 65-70 pt range, which is exactly where this team performed between Nolan's hiring and the Trade deadline. Still good enough for top 3.

Overlooking the Goaltending Miller provided.

I think at times he played vezina caliber, and stole lots of points for us. Having 2 guys who've never played had a starters work load, one who is prone to injury (Neuvirth) and one who rarely played 20+ games (Enroth) offsets the positives you mentioned.

I see no team in the league that is worst than us. We may improve, but I think we're still the worst in the league.

 

[Jim Bob]

Better leadership, better coaching, a more concrete idea of where peoples roles are, what the expectations are.

The lineup is 'similar' to last year, overall.

More structure, a better attitude, and realistic expectations.

You ever under a boss who didn't know what he was doing and was worried about getting fired? Thats what the Sabres had last year.

4-15-1 when Nolan was hired. That's a .225 win %

18-35-8 when the trade deadline came.

That's 14-20-7, a .427 Winning %

After the Sabres jettisoned Ott, Moulson, McCormick, and Miller, We finished the season 21-51-10 with a huge injury list and a whole bunch of players with nothing to play for. That's a 3-16-2 record. a .190 winning % post trade deadline.

I think, realistically, we are going to see a bit closer to the 65-70 pt range, which is exactly where this team performed between Nolan's hiring and the Trade deadline. Still good enough for top 3.

There is one other big difference between last year and this year.

Last year the Sabres were 15-22-3 (.413 winning %) with Ryan Miller and 6-29-7 (0.226 winning %) without Miller.

I will be stunned if Neuvirth and Enroth can give the Sabres the type of goaltending that Miller did last year.

 

[Crazy Tasty]

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1499115

Thanks, re-reading that thread was amazing. Summer dreams...

 

[stokes84]

There aren't any stats that show that.

But even when he supposedly checked out he was still our best possession D-man, he QB'd our PP and put up ~30 points.

Who's gonna replace that offense from the back-end?
Who'll QB our PP?
Who's going to replace our possession and transition that Ehrhoff did very well last season?

He was paired with complete scrubs and was still one of our top D-men, if not the best.

There will absolutely be things from his game that we will miss. But how much did the good outweigh the bad? Hard to say. We will find out.

 

[ZeroPT*]

There will absolutely be things from his game that we will miss. But how much did the good outweigh the bad? Hard to say. We will find out.

I'd say it outweighs the bad.

I don't remember many games where he was flat our bad. He was solid most of the year

 

[Gabrielor]

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1499115

Leino was under consideration for a 20 goal season a couple times in this thread.

That.is.awesome.

 

[jvirk]

I'd say it outweighs the bad.

I don't remember many games where he was flat our bad. He was solid most of the year

I agree

And I also give him the benefit of the doubt. He's 32 yrs old (I think?) and has been on contenders most of his life. San jose and vancouver. Rebuilding is very foreign to him, and at this stage in his career I think that just doesn't sound attractive. I give him credit, I don't think he showed a bad attitude or anything, and if he did check out in games Im still impressed he put up over 30 points on that horrificcccc team.

 

[Bps21*]

If that was ehrhoff not trying and he was still at or near the top of every category that we measure success with...

don't worry about being .500 we have the worst team ever assembled

 

[joshjull]

……………………………...

So what can this tell us about Rolston vs. Nolan?

There is just nothing in the data that shows there is a Nolan effect. There is no statistical evidence that shows a Nolan coached team, all else being equal, will perform better just because Nolan. The improvement that most saw in the team after Nolan took over is just a coincidence that Nolan took over at a time when the schedule became easier.

………………………………………..

First of all great break down and research. Others have proposed this type of breakdown to settle a debate about Nolan before. I felt then it wouldn't tell us much and I still maintain that position. Other than telling us the obvious, we weren't very good last year under either coach.

But my issue with trying to compare the two coaches like this is and thinking it tells us much is due to the bolded. All things were not equal. Each had different rosters and different focuses. One could argue Nolan had 3 rosters or three phases to his roster.

The first phase/roster being from the time Nolan took over until about 4 weeks or so after. He along with Patty L. spent time evaluating what they had. Sending some players away and adding a waiver addition (Dags) and a little later a trade addition (Omark). Nolan also focused heavily on conditioning in practice since he felt the team was out of shape. Basically this phase was an on the fly training camp for the guys running the team (Patty L./Nolan).

The second phase/roster was from the end of the first until the deadline. Once the team was conditioned like he wanted them and the roster had shaken out a bit. We started to see better structure and an uptick in their overall team play. At this point Nolan was able to start focusing on getting specific young players back on their games. Plus at the end of this phase he was figuring out, along with Murray once he came on board, where some of the players would fit best. Like Girgs back at center and Hodgson on the wing. That was a collaboration with Murray IMO.

The last phase/roster was post deadline. This group was probably the worst performing of the season (worse than Rolston's group) due to taking hits to the lineup due to trade departures and injuries. They were also trying to keep Pysyk, Larsson and Risto down during this time. What a mess.


Nolan and the organization's focus after he was hired was not to improve the on ice performance of the team. It was to develop the proper culture within the organization, get young players into positions best for their development and work with the younger players on the roster to get their games on track. And Nolan did this with a coaching staff he inherited and obviously wasn't that fond of since they were all fired.


I guess my point is, Nolan wasn't brought in to take the group of players Rolston had and turn the season around. The primary focus was not to improve the team's on ice performance. With that in mind and understanding what the actual focus was after he was brought in. It doesn't make sense to draw conclusions one way or another about him as a coach based on a Corsi breakdown since he took over compared to Rolston's. If Nolan had been brought in specifically to improve the play of the team Rolston had on the ice. Then the Corsi comparison would make more sense.

 

[Yatzhee]

Interesting...

The date of that post says it all.
I for one did not anticipate the caliber of leadership and character signings prior to July 1 of this year.

But, I will not deflect from the fact that those signings most certainly changed my mindset in a 180 direction for this up coming season, though, only by 6 spots at the most.

What did it for me Sabretooth wasn't necessarily the Gionta signing, but the Gorges move and the reasoning he would agree to come here after speaking with Gionta. Those 2 played decent in Montreal, nothing spectacular I know. But hockey insiders across the board agree with the premise that these 2 players bring a heightened level of leadership and/or character that I would surmize it's going to have an impact on the young guys here as the season goes on.

If the team maintains a status quo on the roster at least until the deadline, my line of thought is they will have garnered enough chemistry combined with these players influence that they would climb just outside of the cellar. And mind you Sabretooth, I don't like that premise given the prize I'd like to have a crack at but I just cannot see these players not having some influence on the rest of the team with the intangibles they bring.
While I don't believe it happens in 1 season, I fear they bring enough to climb those few extra points out of that realm. Some one posted 65-70 points, I find that plausible as of now is all given these additions.

EDIT: Had to go back and look at your analytics from the previous page concerning Nolan.
Very good stat analysis, the only problem is, I'm not basing my "Nolan effect" on merely last season. As has been appropriately pointed out, Nolan had three distinct time frames with differing product to work with, that has a huge impact on those numbers, barring the deadline this season, I don't see that happening. I could be wrong, but I'm wagering the teams direction is about building the character of the on ice product combined with testing chemistry values of the youth while utilizing the leadership/character players brought in to play that role. Is that relying heavily on those players? To an extent yes, but they've been successful int he past at it so there is no reason to take that educated guess that Nolan will have some settled environment to work with in.
More to the point, the reason I call it the "Nolan effect" is what he did in his previous stint in Buffalo in the 90's. Taking a mediocre product and getting it to perform above it's level of what was then the norm for the roster, that did have to do with Nolan. He didn't win the Jack Adams award for just appearing behind the bench in 96/97, he was a force behind that increased level of play by that team and every insider in hockey agrees.

I haven't been crowing for Nolan to come to Buffalo for years mind you, but since he is here, I'm looking at what he has accomplished with subpar product in the past and combining that with what we just brought in to adjust from the 1 to 4 over all pick to the 5 to 10 over all pick. Of course, my comment on barring injuries comes in to play here, and then, we have to once again look at what moves are/will/may be made both during the season as well as at the deadline. It's actually a very plausible scenario that the Sabres find their pick in the 5 to 10 range.

 

[brian_griffin]

If the Sabres are hovering around 0.500 in January '15, I will cease my interest in Hockey in order to "get right with the Lord" as the end will be nigh.

 

[Der Jaeger]

If the Sabres are hovering around 0.500 in January '15, I will cease my interest in Hockey in order to "get right with the Lord" as the end will be nigh.

Lake Erie turning red accompanies a Sabres .500 record.

 

[ottsabrefan]

There is one other big difference between last year and this year.

Last year the Sabres were 15-22-3 (.413 winning %) with Ryan Miller and 6-29-7 (0.226 winning %) without Miller.

I will be stunned if Neuvirth and Enroth can give the Sabres the type of goaltending that Miller did last year.

Great post. I think we will definitely be better offensively, the same defensively, but we won't get that big save when we need it (or even when we don't need it). Obviously, the intangibles point in 'our favour' towards more wins, but at the end of the day I think we are about a 14 point improvement and literally fighting for dead last at the end of the season.

 

[TimMcClure*]

But really, this whole idea that the Sabres will be better because Nolan really just needs to go away. The team may somehow be near .500 or somewhere other than the cellar in January, but it's likely not going to be attributed to Nolan getting more out of the team than other coaches would be able to.

I'm not a hater of the advanced stats, they have their value as a tool but your analysis using Corsi shows the limitation of them. It seems pretty unanimous on this forum that people respect Tim Murray as a hockey mind. If Murray used your stats he'd arrive at the conclusion that Nolan was no better a coach than Ron Rolston YET Murray came to his own decision and gave Ted Nolan a 3 year contract. What he saw through his own eyes and experience were the things that don't show up in the stats right away, things that will have an effect on future performance.

None of us are blind, we saw those 20 games that began last season, regardless of the quality of the competition we saw players who literally couldn't make or receive a pass whether there was an opposing player within 10 feet of them or not.

 

[Bps21*]

The sabres won more games in the first 20 then the last 20. I guess nolan didn't get through to the guys that stayed.

Or maybe it's about talent not coaching. Bylsma has a cup and he may be the worst coach I've ever seen when he has to think harder than "play Crosby. Play Malkin".

 

[Paxon]

I'm not a hater of the advanced stats, they have their value as a tool but your analysis using Corsi shows the limitation of them. It seems pretty unanimous on this forum that people respect Tim Murray as a hockey mind. If Murray used your stats he'd arrive at the conclusion that Nolan was no better a coach than Ron Rolston YET Murray came to his own decision and gave Ted Nolan a 3 year contract. What he saw through his own eyes and experience were the things that don't show up in the stats right away, things that will have an effect on future performance.

None of us are blind, we saw those 20 games that began last season, regardless of the quality of the competition we saw players who literally couldn't make or receive a pass whether there was an opposing player within 10 feet of them or not.

You're missing the point. No one said Nolan isn't a better coach just because the advanced stats didn't show improvement. They're saying you can't expect the team to magically be better than it is just because Nolan's the coach. We have a track record last year to look upon and confirm that. The value of Nolan, if you believe he's a better coach in the ways that most people do, is that the team will develop better with him than it would have under Rolston. That won't make them a better puck possession team, nor will the leadership of players, as some have stated. Nolan's coaching is not going to make a dramatic difference in the standings.

Statistical analysis can be applied to indicate this better than it can be applied to indicate almost anything. The team was thoroughly dominated under either coach and with any of its various configurations of players. It showed on the scoreboard, the scoresheet, and in the advanced statistics. That isn't going to change this year just because of Nolan, just as it didn't change last year just because of Nolan. You're making a strawman argument here. The statistics were laid out as a counter-argument to the assertion that Nolan will get this team to play above the poor talent level, even though he failed to do so last year.