The Athletic Vogl - Who Stays, Who Goes

[Icicle]

Wut.

You must be watching someone else.

I’m watching the bottles of booze and the locker room interviews of him always being referred to as the locker room clown

May be a great person, but he isn’t who we want Eichel leaning on. Just like Moulson was an awful roommate for him

 

[Chainshot]

No, the fact his he maintained his .4 ppg after he returned while he was with St. Louis, but his production dropped by half with the Sabres.

This goes beyond raw point production -- Buffalo is as anemic as it comes and some of that is talent and some of it is coaching approach (low danger point shots as a stressed outcome) -- and into how he performs relative to others at shots generated while on the ice. He's not been good at shot generation for his career really, but he was once good at shot suppression. However, since coming back from the KHL, he's been pretty bad at both. They got the same sucky guy, he just didn't get some more points as Buffalo's mid-6 was so devoid of finish nightly that he didn't scratch up a few additional assists.

 

[Doohickie]

I'm not saying he's Connor McDavid, but Housley killed whatever production he had with St. Louis. Another coach might be able to get his production back up.

I've put too much effort into this whole line of discussion. I'm more than fine with getting rid of him, but I think his play this year was indicative of what Housley did as a coach. For players not named Eichel, Reinhart, Skinner or Dahlin, he was terrible in getting the best out of them.

 

[Chainshot]

I rest my case.

Ouch. Like... that makes my eyes bleed. Nolan was such a terrible player and even he was better at defending than the guy tasked to fill O'Reilly's skates by the last coach.

 

[Doohickie]

I’m watching the bottles of booze and the locker room interviews of him always being referred to as the locker room clown

May be a great person, but he isn’t who we want Eichel leaning on. Just like Moulson was an awful roommate for him

I'm watching what's on the ice and he leaves it all out there.

 

[Doohickie]

Ouch. Like... that makes my eyes bleed. Nolan was such a terrible player and even he was better at defending than the guy tasked to fill O'Reilly's skates by the last coach.

That's my point: Housley was AWFUL at player usage.

 

[Icicle]

I'm watching what's on the ice and he leaves it all out there.

It’s being happy go lucky while being the leader on an ass hockey team instead of serious about enacting change on others I’m referring to

 

[Doohickie]

It’s being happy go lucky while being the leader on an ass hockey team instead of serious about enacting change on others I’m referring to

I'd much rather seen happy go lucky than "I've lost my love for the game" Eeyore. There are different ways to lead and trying to be upbeat isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[GellMann]

I'm not saying he's Connor McDavid, but Housley killed whatever production he had with St. Louis. Another coach might be able to get his production back up.

I've put too much effort into this whole line of discussion. I'm more than fine with getting rid of him, but I think his play this year was indicative of what Housley did as a coach. For players not named Eichel, Reinhart, Skinner or Dahlin, he was terrible in getting the best out of them.

FWIW, he got more minutes with Stastny than with any other Blue forward that year, as well as over 200 ES minutes with Tarasenko. I watched a bunch of Blues games last year and he was awful, and they were worse for doing that (and inflating his point totals while doing so, despite continually dreadful underlying stuff) than if they had shoved him off to a role he belonged in, which would have made his production look more like it did this year.

He was not good last year. And while you're right that Housley didn't use Sobotka in the appropriate role, the appropriate role for Vlad would have been getting zero ice time all season.

 

[Chainshot]

For the shit Gus took... compared to Sobotka:

 

[Icicle]

I'd much rather seen happy go lucky than "I've lost my love for the game" Eeyore. There are different ways to lead and trying to be upbeat isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I’ve consistently pointed to both being a problem for years. Losing both players would’ve been addition by subtraction for Eichel, which is who this team really relies on.

Unfortunately Bogo wasn’t injured enough to be out of the locker room.

 

[Irving Zisman]

For the **** Gus took... compared to Sobotka:

View attachment 213783

Added to, “why we shouldn’t move on from cheap, effective 4th liners, Volume 12.”

Some weirdly obsessed Girgensons (and Larsson) haters round these parts.

 

[Aladyyn]

I’ve consistently pointed to both being a problem for years. Losing both players would’ve been addition by subtraction for Eichel, which is who this team really relies on.

Unfortunately Bogo wasn’t injured enough to be out of the locker room.

LMFAO

 

[Chainshot]

That's my point: Housley was AWFUL at player usage.

That aside, Sobotka was not good at hockey this year nor last year. The hope is that some old school GM thinks they can get the original Bruin or Blue Sobotka back, or that the disaster that was him in Buffalo is an aberration, which given the shot metrics year on year would be someone with their head buried in the sand. The only way to deploy Sobotka to get a better result would be to not deploy him at all.

 

[Irving Zisman]

I’ve consistently pointed to both being a problem for years. Losing both players would’ve been addition by subtraction for Eichel, which is who this team really relies on.

Unfortunately Bogo wasn’t injured enough to be out of the locker room.

... ? What?

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Do/Did Girg/Nolan face the same QoC as Sobotka? Either way I would prefer to see Sobotka play on a different team than the Sabres next year.

 

[GellMann]

For the **** Gus took... compared to Sobotka:

View attachment 213783

I do wonder what the standard deviation looks like here - can't 3 sigma be anywhere from like 85th percentile to 99th percentile depending on the data set? I'd be curious to know which is the case here. Is Sobotka merely a bottom 15% offensive chance generator, or is he a bottom 5 offensive player in the NHL this year, ya know?

 

[Chainshot]

Added to, “why we shouldn’t move on from cheap, effective 4th liners, Volume 12.”

Some weirdly obsessed Girgensons (and Larsson) haters round these parts.

The new line from the press is "they've been here too long". In the pantheon of reasons to trade a player, that's an interesting one that is not based in on-ice play. It's another flavor of culture trade. I also marvel at the commentary that those guys are the "4th line" when they were 3rd liners -- Johan was 7th in total ToI, Gus even with the semi-regular benchings was 9th. They actually are 2/3rds of a dull shot suppressing checking unit. Why would a team that can't replace these sort of players look to shed them?

I don't f***ing understand....

 

[Team Cozens]

Added to, “why we shouldn’t move on from cheap, effective 4th liners, Volume 12.”

Some weirdly obsessed Girgensons (and Larsson) haters round these parts.

Haters? No
Time to move on from them and or upgrade them if we can? Yes

 

[Chainshot]

I do wonder what the standard deviation looks like here - can't 3 sigma be anywhere from like 85th percentile to 99th percentile depending on the data set? I'd be curious to know which is the case here. Is Sobotka merely a bottom 15% offensive chance generator, or is he a bottom 5 offensive player in the NHL this year, ya know?

True - I don't have that handy. It's purely illustrative that a lot of players are a lot better at hockey than he is, but not finite.

 

[Aladyyn]

Haters? No
Time to move on from them and or upgrade them if we can? Yes

We might need to upgrade the GM first.

 

[Irving Zisman]

The new line from the press is "they've been here too long". In the pantheon of reasons to trade a player, that's an interesting one that is not based in on-ice play. It's another flavor of culture trade. I also marvel at the commentary that those guys are the "4th line" when they were 3rd liners -- Johan was 7th in total ToI, Gus even with the semi-regular benchings was 9th. They actually are 2/3rds of a dull shot suppressing checking unit. Why would a team that can't replace these sort of players look to shed them?

I don't ****ing understand....

Well said and QFT.

We’d had been fighting with Ottawa for the last spot without Gus and Larry’s shot suppression metrics and PK impact.

The lazy Buffalo press wants to throw the baby out with the bath water (at best), and is just completely incompetent at fundamentally trying to understand the root of the teams’ issues (at worst).

 

[Chainshot]

Do/Did Girg/Nolan face the same QoC as Sobotka? Either way I would prefer to see Sobotka play on a different team than the Sabres next year.

Corsica has the three of them all about the same for QoT and QoC.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Corsica has the three of them all about the same for QoT and QoC.

That's good for one trip to the sun.

 

[Chainshot]

We might need to upgrade the GM first.

That's the thing -- Botts has not shown the ability to identify, acquire and install... anything really, but in the process of discussing checking line guys to play dull hockey while the scoring lines is not on the ice... we see Nolan, Pouliot, Josefson, Wilson, Sobotka, and Berglund over two seasons. Mostly that is a lot of failure though I think Josefson's underlying metrics weren't bad, he was just made of crystal and shattered whenever jostled.