What if the Sabres are done for the immediate future with roster upgrades? Will the streak be 15 or 1?<\/p>\n
The Sabres off season roster moves make a lot of sense and have improved the team. Maybe improved the team to the point where we could make the playoffs for the first time in many years. But maybe not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The pluses \u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n
Improved defense \u2013 losing Clifton, saving ~$1 million in salary \u2013 adding Kesselring and Timmins is an improvement in physicality, blocked shots and overall defense. It also gives some clarity to quality pairings for Power and Samuelsson. Signing Byram to a two year deal gives him a chance to show the world what he can do, a positive for him, and gives the Sabres a chance to show him what the Sabres can do should he sign here long term.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It also gives Sabres a further chance to decide (if it is an option) do they keep Byram and trade Power (my current preference), or move Byram part way through his 2 year deal, or try and continue to keep both (between Byram\u2019s new deal needed after the 2 years, Power, and Dahlin that\u2019s a lot of $ on defense). It\u2019s also a lot of offense on defense, which may not be an effective way to win long term and compete for a Cup. But it gives options.<\/p>\n
The only spot I think defense could have been improved more would have been to not sign a guy I love \u2013 Bryson. $2 million for a 7th defender who is steady, but not highly skilled offensively and not physical seems like an overpay and we could have spent that money on a way more physical guy. Dennis Gilbert at under $1 million comes to mind \u2013 less offense and puck moving, more defense and hitting. Bryson is an overpay for a guy who might be sitting the in the press box a lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maintain offense \u2013 I know many will say we downgraded our offense significantly by losing Peterka and not replacing him. We needed a top 6 winger last year, and still do, and we lost Peterka\u2019s 77 points (27 goals)? That\u2019s going to hurt. But 5v5 scoring was not an issue last year, and likely will not be this year. Losing offense to improve defense is viable, and the Sabres needed to improve defensively. If Norris chips in his same 53 (20 goals) points as last year for Utah, the loss of Peterka\u2019s points are somewhat mitigated. Doan can also add some points if he maintains his former total. Kesselring and Timmins are also an upgrade of points on defense from Clifton if they stay in form. So the net loss of points may be negligible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Goalie \u2013 A solid year from UPL will make a huge difference, and Lyon is an upgrade as a backup or a temporary #1. Levi marinating and playing in the AHL is a positive, and undoubtedly he will have a chance to both show his improvements in the NHL due to callups, and lead the Amerks in the playoffs \u2013 valuable down the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The unknowns \u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n
All the youngsters need to improve, which will really determine our success.<\/p>\n
Benson \u2013 10 goals last year \u2013 let\u2019s bump that to 20, as he should be getting minutes with some solid players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quinn \u2013 Was horrible to start last year, and finishing strong when games don\u2019t matter don\u2019t impress me much. A 25-30 goal season would.<\/p>\n
Doan \u2013 I think there is untapped scoring potential above the 11 goals from last year \u2013 maybe 15 a season, maybe 20. The work ethic, energy and desire say there is more there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kulich \u2013 He is still finding his way \u2013 an improvement from 24 points should be expected, I don\u2019t have a prediction, but he held his own in a spot he should not have been in, so maybe not this year but I expect him to break out and be a 40 point player minimum soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Special teams must get better. An improvement to the middle of the NHL standings in both power play and penalty kill would almost guarantee a playoff spot. The issue \u2013 this has been said for years, and I am not sure if it is something our personnel can resolve. Is it coaching? Is it our players? The penalty kill might\/should be improved through the improvements made on defense. The power play reminds me of my son\u2019s time in Mites \u2013 our power play was poor at best, and parents wanted it to be like the NFL \u2013 where coaches could decline the penalty and man \u201cadvantage\u201d. Since this is unlikely to be an NHL rule change for this year, a new strategy with the right\u00a0 players who can handle the puck cleanly while making quick decisions is a must.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the end \u2013 I am not confident there has been enough roster upgrades to stop the streak of 15 and start the streak of 1. The Sabres are relying a lot on health (always chancy in the NHL), depth (there is not a lot of top end depth- imagine losing Thompson, or Tuck, or Dahlin or more than 1 of them for an extended period), and improved youth (that was relied on for the last 2 years, and has not gotten the team far.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Without further changes I worry the streak will extend to 15 years of missing the playoffs instead of starting a streak of 1 year of making the playoffs. I will explore what the Sabres might do about that in Part 2.<\/p>\n
*I chose this title based on the 1997 movie of the same, which I enjoyed watching (although I barely recall it) and also brought some quotes into my life which I consider to be well written and incredibly illustrative and insightful into a character in a movie. I am not a huge Nicholson fan typically, but the writing in this movie gave serious insight into the bigoted and misogynistic author played by him. One example: When asked how he wrote female characters so well: \u201cI think of a man, and take away reason and accountability.\u201d Just so well done, (written and acted and I guess directed if I knew how that worked!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What if the Sabres are done for the immediate future with roster upgrades? Will the streak be 15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-62023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}