The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 162: Bringing a Sabre to a Gunfight

Episode Date: April 21, 2017

Joe Yerdon joins the show to discuss where it all went wrong for Tim Murray in Buffalo, whether it made sense for the Sabres to clean house in the manner which they did, and where they go from here as an organization now. Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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And joining me on the other line is Joel Yurt on Joe. What's going on, man? Dimitri, it's been a day. Let's put it that way. It has been a day. You know, for the record, though, we should say that the show was a long time coming, and we actually had started planning it before the ICO stuff really got out of control, and then news of the firings eventually came out.

So, you know, I guess the timing worked out pretty well for the show. Maybe not if you're Tim Murray or Dan Baezma, but for us for sure. Yeah, it's funny the way it worked out because, yeah, we were talking about this, the other day and, you know, obviously with all the, uh, with all the stuff surrounding Ikel and, and everything that had to, had to do with that, I had no inkling that there was, that things were going to come to a head this quickly. But yet here we are and the sabres are basically back to square one. Yes, they're back to square one. Um, all right, we got, we got, we got some juicy stuff here to unpack. I think that, uh, you know, honestly, I don't even want to get into the,

uh, the whole sort of gossipy side of things here with whether, uh, All of this is because Jack Eichol was actually involved and whether he was, you know, this was a power move and the ownership was trying to appease their best player. I think for our purposes, that doesn't really matter. I'd rather attack this thing from looking at the respective resumes and whether the moves were actually warranted. And whenever we have these sorts of discussions, the first logical error we kind of need to peel back and figure out is who's responsible for what and how much of it is on the GM for not assembling the right combination of players versus the coach for not utilizing them. properly or making the most of what he's given? Like, where do you stand on that? Obviously, both guys are gone.

So for Sabres fans, it might not matter. But just in terms of like assessing what went wrong here, how would you divvy up to blame, basically? Well, I think when you look at it this way, it's, you can almost understand why the Pagool is figured, well, let's just send both guys out of here. Because I think what Tim Murray wasn't able to do in getting the team set up and the biggest, the glaring weakness with this team.

Going into this season was defense, and everybody knew it was going to be a work in progress that needed absolutely everything to go perfect for it to be at least a playoff-type team. And the best laid plans never seemed to pan out the way that you want them to, and they certainly didn't in this case, because it's the team that had to rely on about 10 or 11, it seemed like 10 or 11 different defensemen this season.

getting looks at different guys, and, you know, they make a big trade during the draft where, you know, they move a guy out who's a solid puck mover, but not a physical player for a guy who was, you know, who has seen some hard miles in his seven, seven, eight years. And, you know, it isn't exactly a great first pass guy, but it's, you know, it's something where, you know, Murray didn't give Bilesma the guys to really necessarily make it work. and I don't know that Dan really did a whole lot to really help his case because, you know, the main question I had asked Tim Murray at the end of the season press conference was, you know, what his vision for the team was. Did he want him to be a chip and chase team and a team that has to go retrieve pucks in the corner? The way Dan Bilesmo was coaching him up and he said, no, I want us to be a speed team, I want us to be a possession team.

And it seemed like the words didn't necessarily mesh with what was happening on the ice. case. So to me it's, you know, you can understand why both guys get shown the door because I'm sure their visions were, I mean, at least seemingly, were drastically different. Well, and that's, I think, a common theme that you see amongst successful organizations, not just in hockey, but in all of pro sports, where, you know, everyone from the top down seems to have a shared vision. And obviously, you know, it's good to have healthy debate and maybe sometimes you clash over a certain player or a certain stylistic preference and you come to a conclusion but ultimately like you know everyone's everyone's pushing in the same direction and you're not having all of this internal turmoil

and that that seems pretty clear there was some sort of disconnect between the two as you just mentioned yeah and you see the way it's so difficult to look back at how how the sabres seem to play about 80% of the time where you know they give up an early goal and they're and they're chasing the rest of the game but yet they're trying to play this this system where, you know, the first pass is coming from deep out of their own end, and it's going off of a stick. It's not even a controlled entry type of play. It's just going off the stick of a player in the neutral zone to make sure the puck goes deep into the corner and everybody's flat-footed and just trying to race defensemen who are already wheeling their

way back to try to get the puck, and it's so frustrating because you saw how well Bilesmo was able to do in Pittsburgh. And granted, you know, having Malkin and Stomacken and Stomacken and install. Osby makes life a lot easier, especially when you add in a crystal tank and you have that kind of success. But geez, it just seemed like a night and day kind of thing, at least from Dan's early days in Pittsburgh.

I got a funny feeling if you compared tape of his last season with the Penns to a lot of games this year with Buffalo. Things might look very eerily similar for the way things were played. Yeah, well, I mean, let's talk a little bit here about, you know, Murray's resume and his moves. And I think that before we get into individual ones, the first point that needs to be made, and I can't emphasize this one strongly enough is,

you know, I think Murray's approach in terms of tearing things down completely, stripping off all the parts, bothering him out and going for broke with the draft lottery was and remains a smart strategy. I think that, you know, honestly, when you reach a certain point as a franchise, it's really the only logical course of action. And I know that, you know,

this firing and the saber is not really having much to show for honestly a couple of the worst seasons we've seen in the NHL in a long time is something people are going to use to show the tanking is bad. But the NHL is a superstar driven league. And I think in most instances, the only way to get one of those superstars is to be really bad and then get lucky. And I think that maybe as much as I love Jack Eichol and we can talk more about him, if this team had Connor McDavid, for example, and just got a bit luckier with that lottery, we'd probably be having a different discussion at this point in time. Yeah. No, there's no doubt about that.

I mean, that draft is fascinating to me because there are so many, so many very good players in that draft. But it's just, Connor is so head and shoulders above everybody else. It's foolish. I mean, it's, to think that there was even a competition, and I even think there really was one. But, you know, to frame it as, you know, Connor versus Jack, I mean, yeah, they were the two, probably the two best guys in that draft.

But, I mean, to frame it that, you know, you're not really losing out if you didn't the number one pick, now you're, you were going to lose out. You weren't getting, you weren't getting the next absolute, you know, knock it out of the park generational guy. And I think that's, I mean, I think back to that day, being in Toronto for the, for the lottery that day, and speaking with the coyote, you know, the coyotes owner, and, you know, getting that view from inside the room when they're pulling the numbers. And, you know, I'll never forget it for this day.

He said that once we saw, we were out of it, you know, the coyotes, once the coyotes weren't big, going to be able to get that first pick. He's like, we were rooting for Buffalo. Like, we did not want Edmonton getting that pick. And then Edmonton gets the pick, and I'd be willing to bet. That's exactly what everyone else in that room was thinking. Like, she's not these guys again, but, but I mean, these are the state. I mean, that's what happens with the lottery. But the key for Buffalo was, you had to finish last day. You had to give yourself a chance to make that happen. And, you know, leaving it up to fate kind of stinks. But, I mean, this is a, this is a, a scrapped down pull apart that's been happening since Darcy Rageer was in charge.

I mean, you look back to when they traded Jason Pommonville to the wild. And, you know, that was the trade that was the first domino that really started things going down that road of just pulling everything apart. And, you know, obviously some other factors played into that. You know, you fire Lindy Rough. You're bringing Ron Ralston, and Ron Ralston just didn't have it. And things started looking really bad. And then, you know, they had to save face. And then you bring in Ted Nolan and you go that way.

and, you know, I think Ted was, you know, Ted's a great person, great person. I just don't think he was, he was ever cut to be a coach in this, this kind of NHL. And things, you know, things just snowball from there. And now this is, this is a whole new wrinkle into everything. It's just, it's, it's unbelievable it's gotten to this point already. Yeah. Well, it's funny because just like for some perspective, I know that I've said this a bunch of times, but it just bears repeating, like with the, everyone wants to make the oilers out to be,

this new refined team where Peter Shirelli did a masterful job of putting all these different players together and making it all work. But at the end of the day, like if you look at the sabers and the oilers, it's not, there's not that much difference, but beyond the fact that Jack Eichol just unfortunately isn't Connor McDavid. Like it's, you know, Cam Talbot and Robin Leonard were pretty comparable this year. I think that the supporting cast, you know, the Oilers blue line was better, but it's not that much drastically better to make up for the difference between these two teams. At the end of the day, it is just the fact that Connor McDavid was the best player in the league and made everyone so much better around him.

And that kind of sucks and it's a tough pill to swallow. I mean, you know, Eichael is a perfectly fine fallback option and you'd rather have him than not. But it's just, it really does sometimes come down to the things as simple as that. And they just kind of, you know, drew the short end of the stick there. Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's. It's crazy to think that one player can make that much of a difference,

but it's totally the case with McDavid because he's able to do things on his own to takeover games. It's not to say that Eichael can't do the same. I mean, he can. It's just his skill, his skill package is so much different. You know, I don't think he, I think Connor is such a smarter player. And it's not to say that, you know, Jack's a dumb player. He's not. but the way Connor uses his skill set and for what he does,

I think it's, he has to use it, he does it in such a different way than Jack does. And I don't know that, I don't know that Jack has that, has that ability to, you know, to pass the way McDavid, I mean, McDavid's probably already a top five, top three passer. Yeah. And, you know, Jack doesn't thread it the way he does. I think Jack might have a better shot, but that's up for debate. McDavid's probably a faster skater.

We've already seen in the playoffs that McDavid's doing, getting to do things on the, you know, short-handed. So, you know, I think that's, I mean, that's part of his skill of it. I saw McDavid doing that here in Buffalo with Erie playing short-handed because they were like, well, let's open up the bag. Let's show what else he can do. And he scored short-handed that night here too. So, I mean, it's, it's, we.

when it comes to, I mean, it was a much debated thing for something that had no debate. I think that's what it boils down to it, though. Right. Yeah. All right. So, I mean, I was looking at some of the other moves, Marie Maiden. I like a lot of the other stuff he did. I mean, like, the return he got for Ryan Miller and Steve Ott from a desperate blues team was really good.

You know, getting a couple assets for Matt Moulson before quickly resigning him was smart. I'm a Joel Armia fan, but I still think the Evander Cain trade was ultimately a win for the Sabers. and the O'Reilly one was a no-brainer. But with that said, and I know this is something that's going to seem sacrilegious, considering that Tim Murray is supposed to be, you know, one of us, and I should be propping him up on this analytics pedestal. But I just, I look at this roster, and I really, I think it's fair to say that, you know, the Sabres were justified in this decision.

And that's not to say that he won't ever be a good GM and that he can't use his experience to be better in his next gig. But just purely in terms of the team he put together, it's, it's fair to be. critical. I mean, listen, the tear down is the easy part of any renovation. And I think it's easy to just look at the things that obviously don't fit and shouldn't stay and to just get rid of them and send them out the door. But ultimately figuring out what should go there to replace it and figuring out a logical way to acquire those pieces, that's an entirely different challenge. And especially with the blue line, as we mentioned, I just don't think enough was done there ultimately to say that he did a good

enough job to keep his job here. Yeah, and the defense thing has been, had been Murray's thing forever. You know, from the moment he came in here, he knew defense was the thing he had to fix up. And it took him, took him until last summer when he, you know, he trades for Kulikov to find a guy who even remotely fit the mold of a top four left-handed defenseman. And I mean, that, that's been debated ad nauseum as to, you know, exactly, you know, what Kulikov is and how he can play. yeah it's it's honestly been an exhausting topic in buffalo but i mean when when you're getting to the point where where kulikov is your guy where you're like okay this this is the guy we can get to compliment wrist the line and and try to make and have our d go from there it's like well

do you want your d to start there or do you want that to be maybe you know your your your middle of the pack kind of de-setting i mean that but it defense has become such a thing in this league, you know, for for, for, for, for cut control purposes, for passing, for getting things set up that teams now, I mean, they're hoarding their defensemen. And that's, that makes it hard to make trades. And I think that's, that was one of Murray's strong points is that he was able to make some trades, you know, the cane trade obviously, the O'Reilly trade, very obviously, where he was able to get elite players without really giving up a whole lot. I mean, Sabres fans will will find.

ways to grumble about the cane thing because, you know, Joel Armea scores a goal. They'll say, oh, geez, we had them. I can't believe we got rid of them. But, I mean, pretty clear they got the best player in that, in that trade. And obviously, the O'Reilly trade, they did the same. So, GMs become wary of other GMs when they start

getting roped over. And I think that's what started happening with Murray. And, you know, team's other GM's way to counter that is to come back with ridiculous offers. And Tim was just, you know, forget that. I'm not going to make a crazy offer just to get a middle the road defensemen.

Yeah. Well, I imagine that the frustration for a lot of Sabres fans this year was that, you know, if you look at this roster, it was a reasonably competitive team, all things considered. I mean, Robin Leonard would play like a top 10 goalie, which is a really nice development for them. And aside from some early season injuries up front, they had a pretty intriguing group of forward talent, especially at the top of the roster. And I think ultimately that is what makes the blue line they decided to roll with that much

more frustrating or indefensible. I mean, you mentioned that like 12 guys or so played there. I mean, I was like blown away when I was doing research for this podcast. I didn't even like, I was like Casey Nelson, Brady Austin, like are these actual, actual people? And then I think the most egregious of all is that, listen, Josh Georges is at a nice career and he's been a serviceable player for a long time. But he's a 33 year old now. And I think there's been a case to be made that like he's been at the end of the road of of his playing career for a good, like, four or five years now, and they were leaning on him pretty

heavily. So I think that's like, it's just tough to reconcile those things where if there was even just like a certain baseline level of competence in the back end, this is a team that could have been pushing really legitimately for a playoff spot down the stretch. Yeah, and I think that, I think that's where one of the bigger Dan Bilesma's criticism comes into play because his fallback option on defense for Ristelainen. And let's face it. I mean, Ristolinen's the best of of the group that they have. I mean, as far as youthfulness, future, you know, ability,

all that stuff. Like, he's the guy that, you know, they basically said, like, all right, this is what we're moving forward with. And we have to try to build around him. But when the fallback option is to always put Josh George's with him to play, to play home base or to,

or to do, you know, to do anything, like whatever. That's not great. And, you know, we saw at the end of the year, Jake McCabe kind of struggle, because McCabe started to show that he was, maybe going to be that guy that was going to slot in next to him, and maybe that's going to be the pairing.

But, you know, he struggled at the end of the year. He was healthy scratch for a game. And I think that's where, you know, maybe at the end of the year where Dan's looking at it, it's like, all right, we've got to try to figure some stuff out for next season. Maybe he's overthinking it a little bit. You know, you know, McCabe was struggling under some of those stresses too. But, geez, I mean, it's, when these are the blocks you've got to play with and you've got to try to mess around them.

That's, it switches right back to Tim to say, all right, well, why didn't you get anything better than this? Why didn't you find maybe a veteran on the cheap who maybe could have plugged in a little bit better and done a little bit more? I mean, it's very frustrating to think back to to look at what their idea of what their top six was going to be. And you're thinking, geez, you think this is going to be a playoff team if this works out? I mean, it's crazy to think that, you know, that a lot of people thought that was going to be the case. I mean, for me, I thought they were a team that could have been anywhere between 8 and 12 in the East, which I think at this point that would have been, that would have saved everybody their job if that had happened. Yeah, well, no, and that's definitely where Dan Bilesman on the coaching job, he did ties into this,

because while it's pretty clear he didn't have very many options, you know, like his second and third defensemen in terms of 5-1-5 usage were Kulikov and Bogosian. and they're both like intriguing names that have had pedigree before and flashed upside but they're also at this point i think it's safe to say pretty flawed players and like i i think they would have been well served to give guys like jake mccabe and honestly even uh even the the worst justin falk uh better you know more opportunities to see what they could they could do because they were doing well in the limited opportunities they were getting so i just it's it's tough I feel for Bosma because his hands were tied a little bit, but at the same time, it is one of those situations,

kind of like with a Jeff Blasheel in Detroit or maybe even like a Willie Desjardin in Vancouver where I just don't think they ultimately were doing enough to make what they had going on and get the most of it. So you can't entirely just absolve them of all blame just because they didn't have really good options to begin with. Yeah, it's wild to think that we can sit back and watch these games and see the decisions made and say,

well, what is he doing that for? Like, you can sit back and just say, all right, why are these guys being put into this position? And I think in Buffalo's case, it's a little bit different because, you know, Begoshan's paid, paid like he's a top two defenseman, top three or four.

And he hasn't exactly played that way. You see flashes of it. You know, you see parts of it where he's physical, he's engaged in the play. He's, you know, he's keeping the offense going. He's really jumping in. And you're like, all right, well, here's the guy that we thought, was going to be like this all the time.

But then, you know, that guy shows up, you know, for a few shifts on a game and maybe once out of every five or six games. And that's what gets frustrating. I think that was the case with Kulikov at the end of the year. Once the back was healthy, and I still don't think it's totally healthy. But, you know, the back was healthy and, you know, whatever his upper body injury was, we don't know what that was. But once he came back, I mean, we saw it in the second to last game against the Leafs

where Buffalo won that game five to two. And you saw the best and worst of Kulikov because he got turned inside out by Matthews, which, hey, that happens. Austin Matthews is really good. But then you see him make up for it by teeing up Eichael for a one-timer. And he let go probably the hardest shot I've seen all season for a goal of his own. But when you show up once in his season, and granted, the injury thing for him was a bigger deal. but when you show up once

towards the end of the year out of like 10 or 15 games ain't getting it done and I at least at this point Buffalo could walk away from Kulikov or Kulikov walks away from them you can feel fine but geez but like with Begoshin

they're kind of stuck I mean you'd think like well expose them in the expansion draft and you know maybe Vegas gets crazy but they're kind of stuck like if they lose him they got nothing they have nothing to back that up yeah yeah but it's like over five million over the next three years is a pretty big financial pill to swallow.

It's always tough when you're evaluating, you know, especially trades that didn't happen at the deadline because you don't know what was available and what the conversations being had were. But I do think that one of the more sort of low-key, interesting subplots and maybe this tied into the frustration and ultimately today's news was that it was weird to me that the Sabres just kind of sat on their hands and didn't do anything, especially with some of these guys that are impending free agents that either won't factor into future plans or aren't, weren't necessarily guys you had to keep around, like whether it was Kulikov or Franzin or even like a brand jaunt.

I just find it hard to believe that those guys wouldn't have been appealing to certain contenders for even like depth draft picks, which, you know, Tim Murray seems like a guy he would have valued that and has in the past. Like, I don't know, like what happened there? Do you think he just wasn't getting enough in return from them or what happened there to make him just stand pat and not do anything. Yeah, I think, well, what happened with Brian Gianna was, he had offers for Gianna, and he went to Brian.

He said, he's like, listen, I know you want to be here. You love being here. It's home. He's from Rochester, so, I mean, it's home for him. But, you know, Gianna made it very clear. Weeks in advance of the trade deadline. And again, you know, on trade deadline day, he said he's like, I do not want to leave here. He's like, I will not go anywhere else.

He's like, I came here for a reason. and, you know, according to some people, back when he had signed with Montreal after leaving New Jersey, apparently he wanted to come to Buffalo then, I mean, years and years ago, and just didn't work out at that time for him to come to come to Buffalo. But when it finally did, you know, here at the end of his career, he's happy here. He's, you know, his whole family is here. This is the place that he wanted to be and where he wanted to stay. To me, I mean, again, it's tough to be the guy in that position.

But to me, I could suck it up for a couple of months, go somewhere else, live out of a hotel, then come back and talk to Buffalo in the summer and say, all right, let's get it back here. But maybe even in a case like that, maybe the offer isn't great. And I think that was the case for guys like Kulikov and for Franz and where the offers weren't very good. I mean, if it comes down to, I have a feeling, Tim, probably the price for Kulikov was a little bit higher, given that, you know, that's his neck on the line on that. But for a guy like Franson or whatever, you know, maybe the offer is like a sixth round pick. And it's like, well, no, I'm not, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to move a guy who's immensely valuable.

I mean, Franson, for all of his offensive work, I mean, he's tremendously valuable. I mean, I keep thinking, you know, one, one rumor I'd heard, one team I heard that was rumored interested in Franzon was Minnesota because they needed some help on the right side, which I thought was weird with, you know, with Matt Dumbah and Jared's. version, but maybe they just wanted to cinch it up on the right side and get another guy who can be really good on the power play. And for some reason, that didn't, that didn't even work out, even though Murray and Chuck Fletcher are, you know, longtime pals and they've always made trades. But, you know, it's, it was the kind of thing where I think all the prices, all the asking prices were way too low for these guys.

And GMs just aren't going to make a, they're not going to make a trade just to make a trade. And even though I think Tim would be the type of guy who would, who would make a trade to make a trade, but if the comeback price isn't that great, then he's just not going to do it. I think maybe Tim took a little bit of heat for what he let Torrey Mitchell and Brian Flynn get away

to Montreal for basically nothing. Those were seventh round picks, essentially, but you know, those are the kind of trades you can't have happen if those guys end up going somewhere and end up hurting you in the end. You've seen Mitchell

score enough against Buffalo and Lynn's just, you know, those are, I mean, they're fourth line guys, but they're steady guys. But you can't let them just get away for basically nothing, especially our rivals. And, you know, if the price, if the asking price is that bad, I mean, I can't, I can't blame Tim or anybody else for, for not making a move. It means they're going to look bad at the end. Yeah. I mean, all the, listen, I've given up trying to make sense of why people evaluate Cody Franz in the way they do, because it seems like he should have been a player that, like, at least five playoff teams would have. been trying to get, especially considering how suppressed his price must have been.

And for whatever reason, he's just one of these guys where I think just the way he plays and maybe his, you know, easily perceived lack of foot speed turns people off. But it's like, it's just, it's telling that teams generally just do better when he's on the ice first when he's not on it. And if I was a GM or a coach, that's something that I would be looking at and say, well, after so many years, there's there's something to this beyond just what I'm seeing. with my eyes, but I don't know. I guess I've given up trying to convince people.

If you haven't bought into Cody Franzen, at least being like a serviceable NHL defenseman, then it's probably just not going to happen. Yeah, it's, Franson's thing is fascinating to me because, and I'll be totally forthcoming here. I, from when I first started doing this work for NHL.com, where I was in Toronto and Buffalo my first year, Cody's been like my go-to guy to talk. talk to about picking out, I mean, because he's, he's such a smart player. Like, if there's, if there's, like, a system thing or, like, reading a play question, I'll go to him for it, and he'll break it down for me, and he'll, you know, he'll help me understand it better.

He's been, he's been immensely helpful for me at that over the years. And he's, he's a guy I've gotten to, I don't tend to get close to a lot of guys at all, because that's the business. It's the way it goes. But Cody's one guy where, you know, I would go and do the Tim Murray thing, have the cup of coffee and go talk to him about, you know, family and life and all that. But with him, you know, he was pretty honest at the end of the year where he said, you know, I mean, he's concerned about what his, you know, what's going to happen with him over the summer. Because, I mean, you don't know what's ever, whatever's going to happen as a free agent. But his biggest, his biggest complaint was that his raw numbers, the goals, the assist, all that stuff weren't good enough. and that's probably a good reason why a lot of,

maybe a lot of teams are looking at it and saying, well, geez, this guy's supposed to be a power play guy, but he didn't have any goals, he didn't have any assists, what's going on here? And, you know, never mind that that was kind of a product of the whole team. Nobody on the defense really scored other than Ristelainen, even he only had six goals. Right.

But it's something where, you know, he's worried about the, he's worried about the raw numbers of things, and I think a lot of GMs still look at it that way, because, you know, they look at it straight up as a, you know, if you can produce, you're going to get your place them no matter what. And well, the league's not exactly that way anymore. I even told him, I said, you're, I said, you're kind of an analytics darling. I said, I wouldn't be surprised if you get some phone calls based on that.

And he's like, well, I don't even, I don't even like look into that stuff. He's like, I, you know, whatever. But he goes, he goes, but the facts of the matter are my raw numbers aren't great. So that's going to hurt me in the end. And I wonder if that may be played into it. I think Cody needs to hire a better like marketing manager. I feel like, you know, if he brought me on board to run his PR campaign, he'd be like just getting all these interviews out of just dropping random references to analytics and just

hyping himself up because I definitely feel like he, there's an opportunity here for him. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the funny part is that that was essentially a role that he was, he was in in Toronto where, you know, that's what he was doing. and I think Randy Carlisle put it into his head and like, we need you to be more physical. You're a big guy. You need to hit more.

Then I think the second season, the second season in Toronto, I think he led the team in hits. And his offensive game suffered for it. And everybody's like, well, this guy's not so great anymore. And it's like, oh, God. It's like, all right, enough. You know, I think Cody knows what he's doing.

He knows how to play. He means a smart guy. Yeah, he's not the fastest skater. It's one of the things you've got to deal with. But, I mean, if you can plug him in on your second power, unit, fine. I mean, you're going to probably do pretty well. He's got one of the most accurate shots I've seen from a defenseman, period. I mean, it's a hard shot. He always puts it on that. And if you've got a guy standing in front, you're probably going to have some good luck.

Yeah. Well, no, and that's the thing. I think a good point in referencing his lack of counting stats is I think people sometimes lose sight of the fact that in the NHL, you know, Offensive production is so context-based and situational based, and that's what makes evaluating players who are playing on, you know, not very good teams. It makes evaluating them a tricky challenge, right? Because, like, you see based on who they're playing with and the roles they're in, it affects things so much.

So when it comes to Rasmus' Strline and who has been a massive topic of discussion on hockey Twitter with the analytics community, it's tough because you have to factor in the fact that he's playing so many of his minutes with Josh George's who was pretty clearly anchoring his possession stats and bringing him down. And so like you got to factor all this stuff in

and sometimes just looking at the superficial stats might paint a picture which is an actually reflective of the guy's abilities or what he's capable of. Yeah. That's the hard thing about analyzing savers players that have been here that played through the tank

and the tank junior seasons where I mean obviously the tank season and I probably shouldn't even be referring it to that way but it's the common term for it but that season I mean anybody who played on that team that season you basically have to throw out any of their

numbers for that year because how do you account for a team that didn't even try to possess the puck that didn't even try to do anything that looked remotely like trying to play good hockey I mean they didn't score goals they gave up I think the most shots on goal in, Jesus.

History, basically. You're the most shot attempts in history. I mean, it's a team that got so grossly outshot. I mean, you can't even, you have to, like, you have to do a guy's career numbers by subtracting that season out. I mean, there's so many data analysts that I kept up with during that season that, whenever they were graphing numbers or they were laying out the number, they said, we had to omit Buffalo because they're so far off the map.

It's pointless to even have him on there. It's astronomically bad. And I think, you know, and obviously it was Ristoline and it's, I mean, I get why it's a hot topic because anytime he makes a mistake, it's like, well, this is why he stinks. And every time he set somebody up or he comes up with a great play, it's like, well, you know, I don't know. I don't know. We still got to figure him out yet. But, what I mean, I don't know. I don't know for him if it's a case of where he's the best of a very bad bunch.

or where he's just the best guy in a group where everybody else is literally an anchor on his ankles? Yeah. I mean, it's a bit alarming that, you know, his numbers are bad with George's, but even if you take him away from Georgia's and put him with a guy like Jake McCabe or

whoever else, they're not necessarily like, you know, skyrocketing. It's not to the point where he's elevating everyone he's playing with. So that's a bit alarming. But I try not to wait into this Ristelina in discussion too often just because like this happens with with you know all sorts of players but it's like it seems like people just

can't be rational with him where it's like you can say that he seems like an intriguing young player who's still very raw and has physical tools and could potentially wind up being a really good player while also acknowledging that you know he probably shouldn't be your best defenseman who's playing 26 minutes a night and doing everything for you like there's there's a middle ground there you don't necessarily have to say he's a he's the best or the worst. Like sometimes a guy can just be like a perfectly fine, intriguing, uh, player and, and we can preserve, uh, our judgment on him until we, we know more about him when he's playing in a better situation. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, I, I, I think that's really why

a lot of the contract issues that happened last summer, where it took them forever to get him sealed away, uh, came into play. Because I, my, my thought on that was that they, that yes he was the number one on the savers but I'm not sure that Tim Murray was convinced he was a number one defenseman period and that's where you know that's that's where a lot of the the haggling over

over money came into play because um because how are you going to give a guy you know five and a half six million six and a half million a year if you're not sure if he's your guy I mean they've already they've already took on a guy who's in that sort of mold in in Bego who's making that same kind of money and you're already like well we know he's not the number one guy but

you know I think with Ristaline at least he's he's young enough and it's not to say that Bagochen's old but Ristaline is a lot you know is four five six years younger than Bogosian and you're still not sure if he's the guy but but I mean that's the spot where you know it's that's tough I mean you're you're kind of stuck with you're kind of stuck with with trying to figure that out until you develop I mean at this point you have to develop your own top defenseman. I think that's where a lot of the hope for the Sabres falls on a, falls on Brendan Gouli to, to maybe be that,

be that next guy for him. But geez, that's, it's not an enviable position to be in to, to tell a guy who just finished up as, probably his last, I think it was his last, it's going to be his last junior year to say, like, all right, man, you're a guy. Just jump in there right away out of, at a Prince George. Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't seem like a recipe for success. Okay, so I guess the one final logical question,

here before we wrap this up is where do the sabers go from here especially in terms of the hiring process like do they entertain the idea of of sticking down the younger inexperienced route because there are some intriguing names we've seen floated about whether it's you know julian breiswaw from Tampa Bay or jason botterall from from Pittsburgh who have been cutting their teeth in the business as assistant GMs but don't necessarily have the the GM track record yet or do they get scared off by the Tim Murray experience and maybe go with a more sort of proven veteran influence, like a Dean Lombardy or something like that. Well, that's the million dollar question right now with this,

because you would think they would stay away from, you know, a new face because, you know, they did that this time and it didn't work out. Granted, I don't know that guys like Jason Botterill or Julian Breesbois have, have the same sort of aggressive personality, Tim Murray does. and maybe they can just come in and just be brains about it and say, listen, this is what we're going to do. And just take control that way. I mean, if you're going the experienced GM route, I mean, I'm not sure who else aside from the bar. I mean, my brain has just been short-circuted by having all this just come up today.

So we haven't really like kicked around ideas of like experienced GMs who are out there. but I think if you're going the Dean Lombardi route, I don't know that that's, I mean, yeah, he's won two cups recently, and that's great, but I don't know that that's the road you want to go down if you're Buffalo. I don't know if that's the way to go. To me, you got to go with somebody whose knowledge is more based in the forward movement of the game, you know, and putting a team together that way. I think this, if you're looking for an old school guy with an old school,

school mentality, I think that's the wrong move. Yes. Because I don't think that's the way you're going to get wins. I think if you're getting, if you're going to get somebody who's like an old school guy that knows what they're doing, then, I mean, I don't know that Scotty Bowman wants to be a GM.

I don't know that, you know, that, I mean, that's basically the highest part of the totem pole that you need to go if you're going old school is that you got to get somebody who understands that the game is always evolving and not just stuck. in a way where, you know, they think of the game, well, this is the way it was when I was a manager in, you know, X, X, X, X years, and then say, all right, I'm just going to do it the same exact way. Well, no, you're, you're just going to be spinning your wheels. I think that's, that's what they have to do as far as the gym.

When it comes to the coach, I mean, that's a whole other, that's a whole other discussion that needs to be had because, you know, crazy as it sounds. I mean, Dave Quinn is the one name I have heard thrown around a lot, you know, Eichols coach from BU. I mean, with how this whole thing is played out with Jack and, you know, the rumored stuff, I mean, is that even the right move you want to make? I mean, I don't even know if that's even good for optics. But, I mean, as far as the GM goes, though, I think you need a young voice. I think you need not necessarily a young voice, but a guy who thinks the game in the modern way and who can move in can move the team ahead that way. That to me is, if you want a no-brainer move, that's the kind of guy you got to get. Well, listen, in terms of the GM, I don't necessarily, I'm not necessarily responsible for this, but I'm not shooting it down either.

I've seen some people start the Filipovich for GM movement on getting it off the ground on Twitter. So I'll just, I'm going to throw that out there and let you guys figure that on out for yourselves. But listen, Joe, I appreciate you taking the time. I know this is a pretty crazy, going to be a pretty crazy couple days here for you. I appreciate you coming on and sharing some of your expertise in the situation. And we'll definitely get you back on sometime down the road. Yeah, Dimitri, it's great to finally get a chance to talk with you about all this. And yeah, if you need a press agent for the for the for the for the for the DM movement, I'm your guy.

Hey, likewise, tell Cody Franzen that if he need someone to pump his tires, I'm here. I'll do that. Hopefully I get to see him again, hopefully in a Buffalo locker room. Yes, all right. Talk soon, Jew. You got it. The hockey P.O cast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filipovic.

and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com slash HockeyPedioCast.