Miscellaneous NHL Talk XLIII - April showers

[JojoTheWhale]

You stink, this opinion stinks, but your dogs are awesome. That's it. Thats the post.

Great post. Is this better?

 

[Striiker]

I'm going to regret making this post for a million reasons, none related to you, as I'm sure you'll understand.

Niskanen may have been their best Defenseman this year. He also may not have, but I can't say that he definitively wasn't. They got downright excellent outcomes out of both D acquisitions on the scale of reasonability. As we discussed before the year, the talent was there but both would require bouncing back. We both expressed concern over betting on two of those rather than just one.

So setting aside all of the bullshit drama, is there anything to learn here? Did they just get lucky? Do they think they found an edge in defensive play evaluation? Is there anything quantitative we can point toward that strikes a commonality between the two? I haven't found one, but I haven't looked too hard yet either. It was going to be a summer project, but I guess it's appropriate to move that timeline up.

Hopefully it wasn't actually a trio of players all being added with the same mentality, Niskanen, Braun, and Stewart. Adding older guys who used to be good, counting on at least adding some experienced vet presence, blindly hoping they'd perform like they used to, and getting very lucky with two of them in the end.

Probably not, but nothing would surprise me when it comes to pro hockey staff.

In the end, I think we just got pretty lucky. It worked out great this time, but I don't like the idea of taking the risk again. We've seen what happens when you get the other outcome and there's no bounce back.

 

[Starat327]

Great post. Is this better?

This is impressive, yes. All is forgiven.

 

[TCTC]

With Braun we got exactly the player Sharks fans said we'd be getting. And I saw no reason for not believing them.
Niskanen last season was hurt and overplayed. There was always a good chance for a bounce back year.

 

[TheKingPin]

I think we overplayed for Braun but he’s done perfectly well now that he’s here. Niskanen has been absolutely amazing. It’s treat to watch guys like him play the game. It’s great to even have him here late in his career to help Provy and sanheim be as good as I think they will be. Like Jagr for Jake.

 

[Curufinwe]

At least Buffalo deferred the draft pick compensation until 2021 for such a bad player.

View attachment 347872

That’s a nice consolation for a team so bad it couldn’t make the playoffs even when they were expanded to 24 teams.

None of that’s Miller’s fault, though. He clearly excelled in his 190 tracked minutes. And that doesn’t even include the whopping 3 PPP he contributed.

 

[Curufinwe]

I missed this news from Tuesday. I remembered Buffalo had traded for Simmonds, but had forgotten they also went out and got Frolik.

Jason Botterill will be back for the 2020-21 season

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

I missed this news from Tuesday. I remembered Buffalo had traded for Simmonds, but had forgotten they also went out and got Frolik.

Jason Botterill will be back for the 2020-21 season

That team is in desperate f***ing need of a true bottom 6 because good f***ing lord it's bad. I have no f***ing idea why they are bringing him back.

 

[TCTC]

I missed this news from Tuesday. I remembered Buffalo had traded for Simmonds, but had forgotten they also went out and got Frolik.

Jason Botterill will be back for the 2020-21 season

I heard somewhere that they wanted to bring in veteran character guys because their locker room was so toxic. They have Eichel and Dahlin, two players other teams would kill for to build their team around and they still can't even challenge for the playoffs.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

 

[Curufinwe]

Uh oh. He's giving the ROR speech.

 

[TCTC]

Eichel doesn't get any sympathy from me. They were the worst team in the league when he signed for 8 years. He knew what he was getting himself into. Just like McDavid.

 

[TB87]

Eichel signed that deal because he thought they’d be a lot further along in their rebuild within at least three seasons of signing that deal. He’s an extremely competitive player. I have zero issue with him being upset that his front office has surrounded him with slop. That is in no way his fault.


“He knew his GM and front office staff (that had turnover BTW) would continue to be terrible when he signed that deal.”

=

“This hockey player didn’t have a working crystal ball. What a bum.”

 

[FLYguy3911]

So setting aside all of the bullshit drama, is there anything to learn here? Did they just get lucky? Do they think they found an edge in defensive play evaluation? Is there anything quantitative we can point toward that strikes a commonality between the two? I haven't found one, but I haven't looked too hard yet either. It was going to be a summer project, but I guess it's appropriate to move that timeline up.

Not to cop out here, but yes. It's a combination of everything imo. It's certainly not all luck, but some is at play. Much like the draft, you can't expect to be so much better at talent evaluation than the rest of the league and expect that to win out over the long haul. You have to play the odds, but there is a skill to it. Now, betting on defensemen in their mid-30s to bounce back is not the side I want to be on because you're probably going to lose that one more often than you win, but if you think you have a legitimate edge, by all means try to exploit it. On Braun, Fletcher alluded to bringing him in to 'prevent goals'. Fast forward to the conclusion of the 69 game season, Justin Braun had the worst goal differential for defensemen and it was in large part to the team bleeding GA when he was on the ice. I would argue they failed the process but still got the evaluation right (price aside). That could be classified as luck.

I've never thought Fletcher was a dope. I knew he was one of the few GMs in the league that openly embraced analytics. I didn't like his NHL personnel moves this offseason (I gave him big props for the draft) but I did concede, maybe a bit tongue in cheek, that he and his team thought they discovered some inefficiency in the market. He had a good first year, no matter what happens in the playoffs. However while we are taking victory laps, it's still important to remember that it is just one year, if I can be a pessimist for a second. He had a ton of flexibility to put his stamp on the team - cap space, no crippling contracts, stacked prospect pool, draft picks, etc. Not to mention a talented young core of players already in place. A lot (not all) of GMs can succeed under those conditions. The true test of his ability will be how he manages a tighter and possibly shrinking cap, with expansion on the horizon, and young core players in need of extensions, all while keeping an eye on the market. To his credit he always had competitive teams in Minnesota which counts for something although you could argue that team never evolved into a true contender. Hopefully that is not the case here.

I think where these discussions get messy is when people begin to speak in absolutes and insist that players X, Y, and Z acquired by Fletcher were superior moves to alternative players A, B, and C and imply that the season shakes out completely differently if he doesn't acquire X, Y, and Z. Unless a player has star qualities (and even then), his performance is often going to be tied directly to the talent that surrounds him. This isn't the NBA. Look at Buffalo and NJ. Teams that are always fighting for lottery balls, year after year. We all know the players who went there. Start to flip the offseason acquisitions. Are the Flyers suddenly a lottery team and BUF/NJ in the top 4? Or does the core of a team matter a hell of a lot more than a couple of complementary pieces in a given offseason? That NJ core is Hischier and 18 year old Jack Hughes and a bunch of shit after that. Buffalo is Eichel and Dahlin and a bunch of nothing. Has been for years. No matter if you want to credit Homer, Hextall, or Fletcher, this Flyers core is ridiculously talented and in their prime for the most part. They are going to elevate the play of others around them.

Remember all of those years of people down talking the D prospects and how "they all aren't going to pan out"? Guess what? They all did for the most part and it's probably played out even better than anyone could have realistically imagined. You mean to tell me acquiring Colin Miller instead of Justin Braun would have ruined it all? FOH.

I know this is all over the place and maybe not a direct answer to your questions, but those are my feelings in a nutshell.

That’s a nice consolation for a team so bad it couldn’t make the playoffs even when they were expanded to 24 teams.

None of that’s Miller’s fault, though. He clearly excelled in his 190 tracked minutes. And that doesn’t even include the whopping 3 PPP he contributed.

It's great to hear that lack of team success in Buffalo can be directly tied to an individual player. I guess all of the posters that got ridiculed for two years about their ROR opinions while he was in Buffalo are now vindicated. I'm sure Buffalo is sitting in a playoff spot if they traded for Braun instead.

1 Year of Justin Braun at age 32 = 2019 Equivalent of a 2nd + a 4th round pick.

3 years of Colin Miller at age 27 = 2019 equivalent of a 4th + a 7th round pick.

You do realize how much better Justin Braun would have to be than Miller to justify preferring the Braun deal, right? I would love to hear your evaluation of the deal, but I can probably guess what direction it'll go.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Buffalo has drafted like shit all these years outside of their top 3 picks. That’s still having a massive effect on that team to this day. They’ve overvalued players at the pro level in guys like Ristolainen, Skinner, etc. Goaltending has stunk. Bad long term signings like Okposo still there.

Buffalo Sabres Draft History at hockeydb.com

 

[Striiker]

Not to cop out here, but yes. It's a combination of everything imo. It's certainly not all luck, but some is at play. Much like the draft, you can't expect to be so much better at talent evaluation than the rest of the league and expect that to win out over the long haul. You have to play the odds, but there is a skill to it. Now, betting on defensemen in their mid-30s to bounce back is not the side I want to be on because you're probably going to lose that one more often than you win, but if you think you have a legitimate edge, by all means try to exploit it. On Braun, Fletcher alluded to bringing him in to 'prevent goals'. Fast forward to the conclusion of the 69 game season, Justin Braun had the worst goal differential for defensemen and it was in large part to the team bleeding GA when he was on the ice. I would argue they failed the process but still got the evaluation right (price aside). That could be classified as luck.

I've never thought Fletcher was a dope. I knew he was one of the few GMs in the league that openly embraced analytics. I didn't like his NHL personnel moves this offseason (I gave him big props for the draft) but I did concede, maybe a bit tongue in cheek, that he and his team thought they discovered some inefficiency in the market. He had a good first year, no matter what happens in the playoffs. However while we are taking victory laps, it's still important to remember that it is just one year, if I can be a pessimist for a second. He had a ton of flexibility to put his stamp on the team - cap space, no crippling contracts, stacked prospect pool, draft picks, etc. Not to mention a talented young core of players already in place. A lot (not all) of GMs can succeed under those conditions. The true test of his ability will be how he manages a tighter and possibly shrinking cap, with expansion on the horizon, and young core players in need of extensions, all while keeping an eye on the market. To his credit he always had competitive teams in Minnesota which counts for something although you could argue that team never evolved into a true contender. Hopefully that is not the case here.

I think where these discussions get messy is when people begin to speak in absolutes and insist that players X, Y, and Z acquired by Fletcher were superior moves to alternative players A, B, and C and imply that the season shakes out completely differently if he doesn't acquire X, Y, and Z. Unless a player has star qualities (and even then), his performance is often going to be tied directly to the talent that surrounds him. This isn't the NBA. Look at Buffalo and NJ. Teams that are always fighting for lottery balls, year after year. We all know the players who went there. Start to flip the offseason acquisitions. Are the Flyers suddenly a lottery team and BUF/NJ in the top 4? Or does the core of a team matter a hell of a lot more than a couple of complementary pieces in a given offseason? That NJ core is Hischier and 18 year old Jack Hughes and a bunch of shit after that. Buffalo is Eichel and Dahlin and a bunch of nothing. Has been for years. No matter if you want to credit Homer, Hextall, or Fletcher, this Flyers core is ridiculously talented and in their prime for the most part. They are going to elevate the play of others around them.

Remember all of those years of people down talking the D prospects and how "they all aren't going to pan out"? Guess what? They all did for the most part and it's probably played out even better than anyone could have realistically imagined. You mean to tell me acquiring Colin Miller instead of Justin Braun would have ruined it all? FOH.

I know this is all over the place and maybe not a direct answer to your questions, but those are my feelings in a nutshell.


It's great to hear that lack of team success in Buffalo can be directly tied to an individual player. I guess all of the posters that got ridiculed for two years about their ROR opinions while he was in Buffalo are now vindicated. I'm sure Buffalo is sitting in a playoff spot if they traded for Braun instead.

1 Year of Justin Braun at age 32 = 2019 Equivalent of a 2nd + a 4th round pick.

3 years of Colin Miller at age 27 = 2019 equivalent of a 4th + a 7th round pick.

You do realize how much better Justin Braun would have to be than Miller to justify preferring the Braun deal, right? I would love to hear your evaluation of the deal, but I can probably guess what direction it'll go.

Non-sarcastically: great post.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Buffalo has drafted like shit all these years outside of their top 3 picks. That’s still having a massive effect on that team to this day. They’ve overvalued players at the pro level in guys like Ristolainen, Skinner, etc. Goaltending has stunk. Bad long term signings like Okposo still there.

Buffalo Sabres Draft History at hockeydb.com

And it looks like they're about to lose Pilut to the KHL because they never gave him a real shot. He may have panned out or he may be someone who couldn't carry it over to the grind, but I don't know what more he could have done to show that finding that out was worthwhile.

 

[FLYguy3911]

And it looks like they're about to lose Pilut to the KHL because they never gave him a real shot. He may have panned out or he may be someone who couldn't carry it over to the grind, but I don't know what more he could have done to show that finding that out was worthwhile.

I want to say Pilut was leading Rochester in scoring when he originally got called up. That is unusual production from a defenseman of any age.

They really went overboard with acquiring RHDs within a 6 month period. Montour, Miller, Jokiharju, on top of Ristolainen and whatever was left of Bogosian. Acquired Spencer for depth in November. It got really messy with RH guys playing on the left. Most LHD have at least some experience playing their off-side. Very few if any RHD do. You almost have to assume a Ristolainen deal fell through.

 

[Curufinwe]

31 Thoughts: Fun week, but high hurdles remain for NHL resumption - Sportsnet.ca

At times, it’s been suggested by not only players, but team executives, that we wait until the end of the summer before returning to training camps and playing games. I can understand why the players would want that. They are creatures of habit, and it is what they are used to.

The fear there is the second wave during flu season. According to multiple sources, the epidemiologists advising both the NHL and NHLPA have advised against waiting, and Bettman, in particular, sees it as a major reason to target late-July/August/September as prime playing time.

 

[Curufinwe]

I like this a lot.

5. Nothing is certain, but I do think there’s a decent chance re-seeding becomes the playoff setup as opposed to bracketing.

 

[Magua]

I love when people get their HockeyGuy™ narratives all twisted up. If Eichel had signed for a Matthews-type contract, he would've been torn to shreds by the same self-appointed honor guards of hockey culture. Instead, a 90-100 point superstar signed max term a year from RFA for below market rate almost immediately. He chose to be a major part of Buffalo, the organization and city. Isn't that what HockeyGuys™ want?

That Sabres organization reeks of malaise and incompetence. As a hockey fan, I'm actually pissed FOR Eichel. Every single ounce of blame should be directed at the GM that will be back, and the moron GM before him, and the owner sanctioning it all for the pleasure of lighting his money on fire. But sure, "toxic locker room."

 

[Starat327]

I love when people get their HockeyGuy™ narratives all twisted up. If Eichel had signed for a Matthews-type contract, he would've been torn to shreds by the same self-appointed honor guards of hockey culture. Instead, a 90-100 point superstar signed max term a year from RFA for below market rate almost immediately. He chose to be a major part of Buffalo, the organization and city. Isn't that what HockeyGuys™ want?

That Sabres organization reeks of malaise and incompetence. As a hockey fan, I'm actually pissed FOR Eichel. Every single ounce of blame should be directed at the GM that will be back, and the moron GM before him, and the owner sanctioning it all for the pleasure of lighting his money on fire. But sure, "toxic locker room."

You have people in Philadelphia saying Giroux is a bum because he hasnt won a cup. HockeyGuy narratives are all too familiar for us.

 

[TheKingPin]

I see both sides. No reason for the player to think things would be any different than they have been. Can’t make good deals. Can’t draft. Good on him for sticking around in a great hockey market and trying. He’s an amazing player. I hope it works out there but it’s hard to see that happening. Who knows what I would have done in that amazing position but I’m sure it was a choice he thought about it a lot.

 

[TheKingPin]

Saw something that players are not to expect a training camp until July 10. So prob no play until August or so. Nice to have more of a timeline but that’s going to be a long two months. Going to be on page XXX of the Toronto vs Jackers play in by then.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

I think the problem was that the players and coaches swear non-stop.

To be able to hear TK talk shit all the time? That may be worth it alone lol