The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 265: Still Processing

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

Joe Yerdon joins the show to discuss the Sabres unexpectedly successful start to the season (1:00), The Tim Murray Years with the benefit of hindsight (16:10), the deadly combination of Jack Eichel and Jeff Skinner (29:00), Rasmus Dahlin's immediate brilliance (41:40), and the big decisions that wait ahead (49:45). 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 $10 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. Also sponsoring today’s show is PuckPedia. It’s the ultimate resource for hockey fans, containing salary cap information, basic and advanced stats, draft and transaction history, news feeds, game previews, and injury updates. It’s also the exclusive home of the Agent Leaderboard, which shows who the top agents are and lists which players they represent. Regardless of what you’re looking for, it’s got it, which means that you no longer need to be switching between multiple different sites in the pursuit of information. 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.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theas, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl Defensive Inn, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and, of course, the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's non-stop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. It is literally made to chill.

Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Pressing to the mean since 2015. It's the HockeyPedioCast. With your host, Dimitri...

Welcome to the Hockey Pee-Ocast. My name is Dimitri Philopovich. and join him. He's my good buddy, Joe Yurdon. Joe, what's going on, man? Not much to be, Trie. Things are, uh, things are well here in Buffalo, so it's, uh, it's good to talk to you again. Yeah, I feel like the tenor of our discussion is going to be vastly different from the last time I had you on the show. I was going back and trying to figure out when that was, and it was April 2016. Does that sound right? I think it was like right after Tim Murray was let go. Yeah, I remember that discussion being pretty dire and things were at a low point.

Little did we know it would get lower a year later, but... But here we are. Yeah, crazy. Good things happen to those who wait. No, it's, listen, we wanted to wait to do the show we were going to do it last week, and then I kind of wanted to watch the Sabres a bit closer against the Predators and the Leafs this week. I feel like, you know, that was obviously very tricky back-to-back, and it didn't necessarily...

You know, I think they played pretty well. Obviously, they only got the one point out of the possible four there, but I kind of wanted to get a better gauge of what we were dealing with here and kind of prepare myself better for this discussion. And I feel like now I'm a bit more ready to go. Obviously, you covering the team full time for the athletic. You obviously have a pretty good pulse on how things are going there. So I'm excited to unpack all this stuff with you

and really do this Sabres deep dive justice. Yeah, it's being this close to it. It's different because, you know, this is my sixth season cover in the Sabres. Granted, this is on a, this is a more, in-depth basis now, but you get, you can't help but get caught up in how exciting things get when a team rattles off 10 wins in a row. And, you know, it's, it's hard to not be like, wow, hey, maybe the season's really

going to be different. And, you know, you have to try to keep the steady view on it. And I think with a lot of the stuff that, that we kind of zero in on at the athletic to try to look at things, helps that out. Because you can kind of take a more balanced look at it as opposed to just, looking raw wins losses and saying, hey, good for the team or, oh, boy, things are really bad. You know, you can, things can be, you could have wins and things not go well, or you can lose games and still do, do fine. And that seems to be what the story is with these guys.

Yeah. Well, I think that's, is it the most sort of, I don't know what the right word is. I guess if you're not a fan of the, of the Sabres, or you probably don't think it's the best story. But I'm just thinking, like, in terms of from a team perspective, I mean, if you look at the playoff picture right now, it's obviously still. but like there's not that many surprising stories out there. The Islanders being in a playoff spot after losing John Tavares this summer and sort of the offseason moves they had is surprising, but they've been pretty boring to watch, and I don't think anyone thinks that's going to continue. So, you know, it looks like the hurricanes are going to kind of be that team that goes and takes the leap

and all of a sudden has this young, exciting core, and everyone's talking about them, and there's sort of the Cinderella story, but obviously they've kind of fallen back down to Earth a little bit after a hot start. So this Sabres team really does feel like, you know, whenever they're playing on a nightly basis. And obviously that 10-game winning streak goes a long way towards this. But especially with the dramatics that were involved in some of those victories, it feels like they really captured the attention of the hockey world outside of just Buffalo. Yeah, it was the way they're winning games, and I guess the way they're losing games now, because it's four straight without a win.

But all those losses were one-goal games. And it seemed like all the wins were one-goal games, too. And I was describing it to people that it was a little bit, NBA style and how they're doing. Not necessarily from the entertainment standpoint. Granted, the games are exciting, but in the fact that you could almost not watch the first maybe 50 minutes of the game, tune in for the final 10 and get a really good idea for how the game was going to play out

because the games were just that close. I mean, a couple of those games were, you know, the Pittsburgh win was a rally back from down 4-1. But basically everything else was either, either they got up by two and held on or they would be down by two and they would rally back and winning overtime or winning a shootout. And, you know, those games are exciting. It's not like the old dead puck era where, you know, every game was two to one, but you were

wishing you were doing something else. These games have been, you know, for better or for worse, they've been exciting for different reasons. And, you know, that, you know, it goes a long way to saying for how bad things have been in Buffalo with the last two seasons because, you know, I think that's, you know, I think that's a lot of there's a lot of things you could pick apart about how they're winning and how they're losing. But it's so much better than the way it's been that everybody doesn't want to hear about any of that. Yeah, no, for sure.

And obviously, you know, listen, especially whenever something goes, you know, differently than we expected in the preseason or kind of flies a bit counterintuitive to what we're expecting. All of a sudden, you're sort of either waiting for the other shoe to drop or you're skeptical, especially at the start of the year and you're citing small sample size and stuff. But now I think that we're overshundated. two full months into the year and I believe by the end of this week every team will have played at least 28 games which means that we're over the one third mark of the regular season schedule like we're getting to the point obviously context is still important and you got to go on a kind of case by case

basis and unpack the numbers and see what's sustainable and what's not but you know if a team is hanging around for this long chances are they're doing something at least that is for real and it's not just entirely a mirage unless it's like you know we've had those teams like the Avalanche a few years ago or the Minnesota Wild before that where it was like, you know, they were just riding this ridiculous PDO and everyone was expecting them to fall off and eventually they did. For the most part, though, with the Sabres team, we're going to get into all of that. But at the very worst, they're more competitive than they've been in the past.

And that goes a long way to make you think that even if, you know, their current place in the standings isn't necessarily completely legit, they're not just going to completely fall back and revert to what they were in years past, which is very close. clearly a step into right direction. Yeah, I mean, it's a team that very clearly has premier players that can make or break a game with, you know, if they, if they show up and have a monster game, they're probably going to win. You know, if you get Jack Eichol to pour in three points, you get Jeff Skinner to score two, three goals a game, you know, you get Sam Reinhart to really blow up.

Rasmus Dahlene continues to go in the direction that he's had. Even, you know, we've seen Rasmus Ristelainen, who's kind of, you know, of taking it upon himself to try to win a couple of games here. You get some high-end guys like that. I know some of those are more controversial than others, but you get guys like that that can play to their absolute peak. They can swing a game. And I think that's something Buffalo obviously hasn't really had too much of.

I mean, you get an Ikel learning how to do it. You get an Evander Kane in the past who could kind of do that for you. And, you know, you didn't really have the goaltending guys to do it. They certainly didn't have the defensive units to try to hold teams down. But it seems like for all the, I mean, this is a team that has holes. There are, there are issues. They're not super deep. They're deeper than they've been.

The goaltending is a little bit better, you know, they show up in the better spots. But it's, it's step by step. And I mean, this is a re-rebuild for this team, really. And, you know, they've, they're getting better performance. from their higher end players, which is basically all they've ever asked for. And that makes up for a lot of things. And now they've got some guys that can kind of pick it up in the meantime. Granted, you know, I think the last 10 games or so, it's been a little bit quiet from those

support guys. But they're, I don't know, it's a different feel because, you know, those high end guys are doing great, but everybody else is just kind of average. And I think in the NHL, you just really just need people to be steady and you'll be okay. Yeah. And then obviously, as you mentioned, you need those game break. to sometimes it just comes down to, you know, being able to make that last play and take over a game. And they've clearly had that this year more so than a past.

And yeah, I mean, they're coming off a pretty tricky part of the schedule here where I feel like they had a couple back-to-backs in a row. And, you know, they play the sharks, the lightning, the leaves, and the predators, which are like probably four of the best six or seven teams in the league. And then even the Panthers game was the second leg of a back-to-back there. So, I mean, the fact that they've lost a couple games here in a row now doesn't necessarily or shouldn't be too discouraging. And you look at the overall package this season,

I mean, the fact that they're 17, 8, and 4, they have a net positive goal differential. I mean, they're sixth in the NHL and point percentage. They're third in the Atlantic. I think, you know, the Bruins have clearly had their fair share of injuries and I think they're better than they've shown thus far. But the fact that we're two months into the season

and the Sabres are ahead of the Bruins in Atlantic Division, you know, speaks to a lot of things. But I think even the most optimistic people wouldn't have probably expected that heading into the year. So, I mean, the reason why I cited that record more than anything else is just for context, because I was looking at the year-to-year history. And there were some Tim Murray tanking years there where they were in the low 20s, it wins, and they're going to match that sometime here in December,

which is just remarkable for context purposes. Well, looking back on what they've done in the past, they've had such horrible octobers. I mean, it feels like every year, every year since I've been here, they've gotten out of the gate something awful. Joe, Joe, let me stop you there. They've had horrible October's, November, December, January, February, Marches, and then not April's because they've stopped playing at that point. But yeah, it's pretty much all the months have been bad.

Right, but I mean, for a team that's got, well, I mean, they've kind of, they've built with matchsticks, I guess, for a few of those years. But, you know, where a team's got a lot of young guys, if you get off, get off to a bad start like that. Those guys, I mean, young guys especially are just going to take that to heart and just say, oh, geez, you know, here we go. This stinks. You know, we're getting a hole.

We're already down. We're, you know, we're already sixth in the division, you know, six-seventh, eighth in the division, depending on how bad that start was. And you say, well, you know, this hole's already huge. I mean, I look back to last year where there was a lot of hope going into last season, new coach, new GM, new players. I mean, they replaced basically 11 starters last year. And then they changed nine of the, you know, changed.

nine more this year. And, you know, you had that changeover last season. Everybody was all hyped up about, you know, it's going to be nudes, Phil Housley. You know, there was all the questions about Dan Bilesma. If, you know, the guys in the room didn't like him. You know, if they hated his coaching style, whatever the case was. But then they got off to such a bad start. And everybody said, oh, man, here we go again. And when that happened, especially when you didn't really have injuries getting in the way early you know they had those excuses a couple years ago when when ikel gets hurt the beginning of the year that it followed by cane you know but they get let her hurt a couple years ago whereas you know his ankle just was in shards and you know it was

always a convenient excuse and last year they didn't really have that to build on they were just like oh no we're just bad and the fan said oh no they're bad forget this team and it seemed like everybody bailed on them including you know there was even some guys in the room that were just like, man, this stinks. I can't get up for this again. And, you know, this year that didn't happen. I mean, it very well could have. You know, they had the first, their first four games at home were Boston, you know, which,

okay, impossibly tough. Then you get the Rangers, okay, you got to beat the Rangers. Then you had Vegas and you had Colorado. And then they had to go out west for five games. And it's like, oh, no, they could be, they could be toast after nine games of the season. And they came out of it ahead. And it changed in L.A. when they put Skinner, Eichl, and Pommonville together. And then that's when the run started.

And it was like, oh, okay, well, cool. They figured some stuff out here. That's awesome. And, you know, it says a lot that they've set like these kind of goals for themselves to say, all right, let's get this done. And let's not let things get us down. And I know it's a lot of, you know, psychological speak for these guys. but I think there's a big part of it where these guys have a chip on their shoulder to say,

you know, we're not doing that again. You know, Phil Housley after the Bruins game, you know, the opening night, it was four to nothing, and they got, you know, they got the pants beat off of him. And, you know, Phil was honestly ticked off. He said, we're not going through this again. We were just not doing it. He was the most angry dad, you know, Phil Housley version I've ever seen. And it was just like, oh, okay, this is a little different.

And, you know, that kind of stuff, it goes a long way. and it seems to have gotten through to these guys that they've taken care of it in the room. Yeah, I think there certainly is a psychological element to it from the perspective of we're not talking about a team that was mediocre and bad. And I think in that situation, sometimes that kind of stuff can be overblown. We're talking about teams that are like catastrophically historically bad. And I think being part of that is very clearly both embarrassing and also I'm sure it weighs on you. Every day you're coming to the rank, you're like, oh, God. not this again like what's going to happen tonight and the fact that you're at least reaching a

modicum of respectability i'm sure goes a long way towards uh boosting the morale and all sorts of other things down the line um yeah i mean last year was just my goodness that team i remember there was some preseason hype and people were like oh they could be kind of feisty and then they came out of the gate and wound up finishing 31st in the league with 25 wins and and obviously they were rewarded for it with the first overall pick and we're going to get into that as well but i think credit their fans, you're right. I think there were certain points over the past couple years where they would see the writing on the wall and they would

check out on the team. The thing about the Buffalo fans, though, is they would never check out on the NHL, and I give them an awful lot of credit for that. I mean, just such a vocal, boisterous, fun, collective group of people, like, you'd always see those, when NBC would tweet out the

playoff metrics for audiences and Buffalo would be atop the list, and it's like, they just want to watch hockey that doesn't make them feel sad and I feel happy for them that at least they're getting a little bit of that this year. Yeah, they're paying it off too because the Flyers, the Flyers game that was on, it was the middle of the streak was the highest, one of the highest rate of games in Buffalo, I think since NBC took over.

It was like a 13, I think it was like a 13.8 rating and, you know, the game with the Leafs, just the other, you know, last night, you know, we're recording this on Wednesday, but the Tuesday night game was a 12.7 rating. And I'm just like, wow, what happened to those 1.1. 1% of people that were they were they that put off by the street but then I thought about they were probably watching it somehow in TSN so you know it's it's something where everybody's paying attention and when this team's winning this whole city goes bonkers I mean the places that I'll go to if I'm not on the road with the team I'll go watch the game out someplace and in the past it's always

been like I've been you know almost twisting somebody you know a bartender or or a waiter's arm to put the game on a TV and now it's I walk into a place and it might be a Monday night where there's a football game or, you know, if there's a big college football game on a Saturday, those games are put on the small screens and, you know, those people have to go watch in the corner, every other TV is going to be on the Sabres because the people are into it. Yeah, no, for sure. And they have reason to be. I mean, I'm kind of curious what the vibe is or sort of what the discourse is regarding this kind of transition to a new era of Sabres hockey, because obviously, you know, this team's going to be linked to the reason.

bill they went through and and the job tim married it and obviously we just haven't really seen a franchise like that especially in the nchel just so uh openly and unabashedly just strip strip the team down and tank for high draft picks i mean you know you have the process uh philadelphia 76ers and they're sort of the only other current sports parallel but that's basketball and that's an entirely different story i'm kind of curious like when people are talking about this team in buffalo So what, how is that era look back upon? And because I know that like 76ers fans, for example, now, you know, they make jokes about how Sam Hinky died for this and fell on the sword. And they also credit him for his vision now, even though he can't kind of reap the rewards of it now because he's obviously no longer running the team.

He was the architect in place securing guys like Joel Embed and Ben Simmons. Whereas for this Tim, for this Timray situation, obviously he wasn't around for the, you know, the. season that wound up getting them Rosmas Dahlin, but a lot of these other guys were his draft picks or guys that were brought into the system under him. So is that era viewed as negatively as you'd think, or are people now kind of coming around on it, or has it changed it all based on how this season's gone? It's weird, because I think the tank, non-tank thing, which that discussion, which I'm sure, I'm sure the battles on Twitter about it have. have spilled over into more common grounds for people to pay witness to because it's been a

very big discussion point for many in Buffalo. I've tried to stay out of it because I'm just like, listen, you know, the setup is the setup. You got to do what you got to do. Granted, you know, Tim Murray kind of went about it in a way that was just not really seen since, gosh, maybe what, the Mario Lemieux draft going back that far. I mean, I mean, I mean, those. even those Penguins teams that wound up getting Crosby and Malkin, like those teams were pretty you know, shockingly bad. But it's always kind of tough to know how much of it was just you kind of stumbling into it unintentionally and just being genuinely bad and how much of it is a concerted effort. And it's very clear that, you know, Tim Murray's plan was, and he made no

bones about it, was we're going to be bad on purpose because we think that this increases the likelihood of us getting star players. And yeah, so I think that obviously clearly turned a certain segment of fans of both the Sabres and the NHL off because it kind of goes counterintuitive to this whole idea that you need to be going 110% every night and trying to win as many games and be scrappy and tough to play against. Yeah, and it's something where, you know, the seeming other popular team that's been in Buffalo is the Chicago Blackhawks, and that's because of Patrick Kane being from South Buffalo and a lot of people started watching them and they said, well, gee, Chicago kind of did the same thing. And it's like, well, kind of

know, but they were really bad for a long time just because they had bad ownership. And, you know, you get a Jonathan Taves, you luck out and get a Patrick Kane in a draft. And, you know, you pull a couple of strong cards out by being, you know, drafting Duncan Keith and those guys. And things work out for themselves. In this case, it was, you know, the pulldown started with Darcy Reargear when, you know, he traded Jason Pommonville, which makes it weirder that he's, you know, he's back now. But, you know, he trades Pominville and he starts pulling. the whole thing apart during the lockout season. And, you know, the next season, they were, they were bad.

You know, Regear gets fired after Ruff was fired the year before. And, you know, they bring in Ron Ralston. And then Ron Ralston was not a good coach. And he gets fired. They bring back Ted Nolan. And it was just very obvious they weren't going to be a good team no matter what. I mean, it was just the way they were assembled. And, you know, they hire Murray that January.

And then, you know, they go ahead and they make a bunch of trade, you know, they trade Ryan Miller and Steve Ott. they bring in you know they bring in all these these other guys they make the evander cane trade they do all these other moves where it's just like wow they're they really stripped this thing down over the course of two years and got rid of anybody who is even noticeably a saver at any point in their career and you know it was something where it just took so long to just strip it all away and and turn it into something that i mean obviously the culmination was the was the was the mac david ickel season where they were gunning for mac david and yeah you get jack Geichel, that's fantastic. But I think that left a real sore taste in some people's mouths because they said, they said this is, you know, because Buffalo people don't want to do it the wrong way. But then again, Buffalo fans watch the bills, you know, rally. They would rally their way into, you know, winning the last four games of a season every

season and never have like a top five draft pick and they just mire and mediocrity. And in this case, the system, as much as you could rig the system for yourself, and it was much easier to do that season, as long as you finished last year, you're going to pick one or two. And, you know, it worked out the right way. I mean, it might seem icky in the end. But, I mean, you see what's happened with Dylan Strom and Arizona. And, you know, I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean that's, that's, you know, Dylan Strom's fault.

Arizona could have picked Mitch Marner that year. And maybe history goes down a little bit differently. you know last season wasn't a season where they were trying to lose they were trying very hard to pull it out of the toilet and every effort they made to do that failed and it i guess you know it it plays into so much superstition and karma and all that stuff where you're saying no you're trying to win of course you win the lottery that year it's like well no they were just they were just they were just you know unmistakably terrible and not fun and just sore to be around like it's amazing to be around a team like the the teams that were built to lose you felt for everybody on those teams because everybody knew what was going on last year it was just like wow i feel bad for them but i didn't want to be around them they ever like everybody just kind of makes you feel like oh my god nothing nothing's ever going to get right here and that's a really tough spot for everybody to be in and you can see why it's a chip on the shoulder for the

players this year because you get a taste of that and you don't want that again especially for guys that had been there for a few years. For sure. And I think, I mean, obviously, you need to really be fully committed to it and realize the reality that, you know, if you do strip it down and try to go for those high draft picks, like it's going to be a lot of losing and a lot of misery. But you hope that the light of the end of the tunnel makes it worth.

And I think if anything, I don't think what did Tim Murray in was the plan. I think it was the execution, right? I mean, if you look at some of it was obviously just unfortunate luck with the lottery balls and if they wind up with McDavid and Eckblad in those two years back to back, I wonder how differently things are and if he's still there. But even some of the other picks, I mean, I think the plan and the theory behind it was sound, but I was going through the list of, and some of his dates back to even before Tim Murray took over, but over the past decade, the first round picks the Buffalo Sabres have made.

And I mean, it's quite the list of guys that either never really made an impact on the team or were never really even made it in the NHL as a whole. I mean, just going down the line, especially the years where they had, you know, those two picks and they take Rasmusers-Lyna and Nikita Zadora-Ov. I'm assuming they think that those are going to be their number one and number two defensemen for a decade to come or when they had the two picks and they take Mikhail Greigranco and Zemgus Gergensons.

And, you know, at least they used two of those guys to get Ryan O'Reilly and eventually traded him for other assets. But when you're loading up on all those picks, that's great in theory, but you actually have to execute by nailing at least most of them. and that's, I think, where they failed ultimately. And if you want to look back at that era and point to a reason why it didn't wind up working out, it's that more so than the idea that you can't tank and win in today's NHL because, you know, I hate to break it to people, but you look at the Leafs right now

and how do you think they got Austin Matthews and William Nealander and Mitch Barner? It wasn't by being incredibly good for a lot of years. Right. And, you know, it's missing on first-round draft picks, but it's also not getting anything from anybody else. in any of those other rounds. And, you know, that helps, you know, it helps to get those guys to nail your first round picks because you know they're going to be NHL players.

But if you can't get productive HL players or, you know, depth NHL players from your second or third or fourth round picks, that just, it hurts you so bad in the long run. I mean, everybody would point to Edmonton or Montreal and say, wow, these guys could ever got anything out of the draft. And people in Buffalo are just kind of like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those guys, yeah, boy, they can't draft for anything. Who, who, who, don't look at our record, though. It's fine.

And you go back and look at it and you're like, they didn't hit on it. They didn't really hit on anybody. And, you know, from a developmental standpoint, you can be critical of how they've had, you know, how they handled Grigorenko. And they, they, they butchered how they developed him pretty badly. And even for some of these other guys that got kind of pushed up quickly, I mean, you could argue that, you know, they're almost. going too slow with Alex Neelander,

but I would trust that they know more of what they're doing in that case. But I mean, if you don't do it the right way, and I think that's where Jason Batchel's really gotten things correct, is that he's,

you know, you get your NHO roster to a point where you don't have to rely on calling these guys up when they're not ready all the time, and then you get to figure out if they're actual players, and if they're actual players, they'll get their turn. But if they're not, well, they can hang out in the HL and they can be competitive there.

And if they become a player further down the road, that's even better. But, you know, Buffalo has just gotten to a bad cycle where everybody that they were saying like, okay, we got a prospect, we had a kid, all right, is he ready yet? Well, no, but can he play in the NHL? Well, you can. Okay, whatever, put him in there. And that was, that's a bad routine to get into.

And it seemed like that's what happened here for a while. And when that's happening, your team's just got a founder, and they did. It's pretty obvious they did. But you look at Rochester now, and the team's playing very well, and you look at the guys that are doing well. It's like, oh, well, here's a guy they drafted two years ago.

Here's a guy they drafted three years ago, four years ago in some cases. And you're like, okay, all right, well, yeah, these guys are going to get their chance eventually, or maybe that's just where they belong. Yeah. I want the record to show that you served up a softball there for me to make a joke about Alex Nealander and going too slow, but I chose

to take the high road and not make an easy joke like that. So anyways, Joe, let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor and we're going to dive into some other saver stuff on the other things. Getting tickets online can be far too complicated. With hundreds of websites and varying levels of reliability, it's hard to know who to trust out there. That's why Seekek's so clutch, because they take all the guesswork out of the equation for you. Seekkeek pulls millions of tickets into one place. you can easily find the seats you're looking for for a price you willing to pay. There's nothing quite like being there in person, and Seekek's going to get you closer to their action for a great value.

Not only does Seekykeek identify the best seats that fit your budget with their grading system, but every purchase is fully guaranteed so you can shop with supreme confidence knowing that what you're paying for is exactly what you're going to get. That's why you need to make Seek your go-to ticket source for everything from sports and concerts to comedy and theater. This time of year, some tickets would make for a great gift for that special someone in your life. even if that special someone is yourself and you just want an excuse to get out of the house and go watch your favorite team play. I love when my listeners send me pictures of themselves going to these games and thanking me for the promo code and it warms the heart seeing that you guys are taking advantage of it and the great deal that it's providing and having a good night out.

Recently, I had a listener Adam DeStefano actually go to a Raptor's Sixers game, so not even a hockey game, which kind of shows the versatility. the quality of Seekek and the tickets they provide. So that could be you as well. And the best part is that as my listener, you're going to get $10 off your first Seek purchase. All you have to do to claim that is download the Seekek app and enter the promo code PDO. That's promo code PDO for $10 off your first Seek purchase.

Now let's get back to the show. Okay, so when I was preparing for this show and I was looking at some of the underlying numbers and trying to make sense of this team and kind of get a better grasp of how legit they are and sort of where they're headed in the weeks and months to come. You know, clearly, I think they've overperformed a little bit. But when you look at sort of the formula that they have in place and what works for them, it's very reminiscent of me to sort of what Colorado has working for. Like, I feel like kind of their avalanche east a little bit, just from the perspective of, like you mentioned that goaltending early on, and we'll see how

Carter Hutton holds up in a season where he's probably going to nearly at least double his previous career high for appearances in a season, especially at the age of 33. It's kind of not necessarily unprecedented because that position is weirder than most other ones you'll see out there, but it's not something you see every day. So we'll see how him and Linus and all Mark Holma hold up, but I mean, you know, so far, so far, they're far. There are. There are at 5-1-5 and all situations, say percentage, and if that continues, that's going to keep the Sabres in a lot of games. and they have the top line dominance. I mean, if you look at Skinner and Eichel,

and regardless of who's played with them, whether it's been Ryan Hart or Palm Inville or whoever else, with those two guys out there, the Sabres are outscoring teams 2511 at 5-on-5, and they're dominating the shot metrics and high danger chances, and you go on down the line, and so you basically have the goaltending,

you have the top line, and then you kind of hope to grind it out with the rest and at least kind of stay afloat, so you just give your top guys a chance to win the game, for you and so far they've managed to do that and I think what was a very interesting game to me was that game the other night against Nashville where like I don't think the Sabres team is necessarily slow in terms of foot speed or how it can play but I feel like I don't know you can maybe speak this better than I can whether it's actually by design by Phil Housley and his coaching staff but it feels

like they sort of realize that they can't maybe get into too many track beats just because they don't have the talent down the lineup to keep up with some of these teams so whenever that top lines not out there. They're really kind of trying to grind it out and slow it down and limit the events. And, you know, I mean, they're 29th in terms of pace played at 515 for all teams in the league. And that kind of is a bit counterintuitive to some of these young guys they have on the team. But I think it speaks to them realizing that that's probably the way they're going to be most effective in the long haul. Well, they've got a lot of guys who are, and the thing Phil Housie likes to point out is their is their is their is their checking uh the team checking like the checking assignments

and how they're able to to match up and make sure that they've got their guys covered and you know you have certain guys that can that can play faster and apply pressure better all over the ice you know think of conor sherry where he's a guy that's you know he can use his speed effectively that way and then you get him in the offensive zone and he can you know he's a good guy that crashes the net and he can use his speed to get around and you know Jeff Skinner's very elusive and he plays a little bit nasty like very quiet

nasty but but he charges the net constantly and he's always around and you get you get those kinds of guys and you have your Eichol who can you know just just about do anything offensively and Reinhart who's got such eyes

on the ice where he could just make such incredible passes and you know you have other guys that are just really, I mean, they're really role players when you look at it. I mean, Vlad Saboka, I mean, he's, he's by no means a guy who's an analytics darling by any stretch, but he's he's done his job. You know, he's lived up to his assignments. And I think Evan Rob Regas is a is a more friendly version of that where, you know, he's just, he gives you all effort. And Jason Palmaville, when, you know, when he's on a role, he's scoring and he's doing,

he's doing well in those parts and you know guys like larsen and bergland and gurgensens and those guys they can just jump in and just try to grind things down and try to limit the shots but they can also get their shots if they get on a roll which is weird because like none of these parts sound like they make any sense together and yet it goes out there and if they stay even then they're fine but if one of those lines starts to get rolled it's pretty obvious and that seems to change game by game and depending on what the matchups are. I mean, against Toronto, it was, you know, Casey Middlestat had a very rough game. But, I mean, overall, he's been mostly okay.

But there are certain combos that just haven't really looked like they've worked out very well at all. And, you know, I think that goes into figuring out. And it's certainly, it seems to center around the younger guys because you don't quite know what you've got with him yet. And, you know, middle stats won and Tage Thompson's another. And, you know, those are guys where they're a little bit more, mercurial and their performance, but I think that's to be expected. They're kids. Yeah. No, for sure. I, I call is interesting to me because obviously he's, you know, an incredible player to watch. He's one of my favorites in the league. And I noticed that, you know, people

were kind of questioning his game early on just because he wasn't scoring the amount of individual goals we'd kind of expect from a player of his caliber. But I mean, you look at most of the underlying stuff and, you know, the fact that he's on pace, he's shooting more than ever, he's on pace for, like 350 shots on goal or something this season if he stays healthy for the full 82. He's still on pace for 96 points even though the fat even though he's only been shooting 5.7 percent and he's never been a guy who has been a Patrick Lanier type where he's going to just you know shoot the lights out but he's been hovering around like a 10% league average guy throughout his career so far so I mean we expect that to to rise and when it does um like

I'm very curious to see what happens to his point total and how people start talking about him just because the ceiling there is quite clearly elevated, and I wonder how he feels personally above the fact that now he finally has a bit of support and a legitimate running maiden in Jeff Skinner. The lack of support that he had offensively the past couple years was just stunning. I mean, generally for top players,

I like to look at secondary assists to kind of snuff out if a guy is just stat padding. Based on that, with Ikel, he's basically had like five or six secondary assists only in every season so far in his career, and he's already got five this year. And, you know, you could kind of view that as a negative and say that he hasn't been generating all of the offense by himself.

And he's kind of been a bit fortunate to have the point totally has. But I look at it from the other perspective where it's like, wow, the Sabres are finally scoring some goals where he's not either putting the puck into the net or directly setting up someone else himself. And that's clearly a formula for more success from a team-wide perspective now that they actually have guys who can carry the load a little bit and not just give him the puck and get out of the way. I would be curious to see how many of those second assists have been on a pass that led to a shot where the rebound is something where Skinner scored on or Reinhardt scored on because it seems like that's where his second assist come from. And I mean, I can be just making it all up in my head thinking of how his plays have developed.

But it seems like that's where those types of second assist for him come from because when, you know, whoever he's been with, it's just. when his line is out there, they're going to create a chance. There's going to be an opportunity. And it just seems like every time Skinner scores a goal, it's within 10 feet of the net. Or it's the same for Reinhardt, where if he's deflecting a shot past

or if he's picking up a rebound. And, you know, Ikel's shooting a ton. And people have kind of gotten on him until the Toronto game where he scored twice. But people have gotten on them for not scoring as many goals. And some might, some have even criticized to say he's like, well, he's getting his assist so he doesn't care about goals. I'm like, no, it's not the case.

He likes to score goals. He's very good at scoring goals. And he likes to shoot. And he is shooting a ton. But I think a lot of his shots have come on situations where he knows he's got Skinner Eichel or Skinner or Reinhart coming on the other side. And he's firing it far pad and waiting for a kickout and getting it. It's easier to do that than it is to try to, you know, sauce one across between two defenders to get it to the other side and try to get a one-timer.

It's going against the norms. And it's something where if I can dig through all the video to see how his points are coming from, it would be very interesting to see how that works. But, I mean, he's been tremendous. And the criticisms of him, I'm just, I just kind of throw my hands up and say, I don't know what else you want from a guy. I mean, yeah, you want more goals. But my God, he's, you know, he was, you know, over 20. assists, I think, at this point. And it's like, wow, he's doing everything he can to try to help

the team out. And you can see it on his face sometimes when you ask him, you know, he's like, oh, you're not really scoring goals. And he's just like, you know, he takes a deep breath and he doesn't roll his eyes anymore the way he used to. But you can tell on his face, he's just so annoyed that he's like, he's like, what do you want to do? I can't tell the goalie to let it in. I can, you know, there's only so much. Yeah, he's amongst a select view. I guess it would be like Kim, McDavid, MacKinnon, and Hall in terms of, like, the best four or five guys in the league and just picking the puck up somewhere in their own zone and single-handedly tilting the ice and creating a, you know, controlled zone entry and either generating a goal or some sort of

sustained zone pressure for their team just single-handedly like that. And there's very few guys who are capable of pulling that off on a consistent basis. And he's one of them. Yeah, I just pulled up while you were talking the secondary assists. So by season, since his rookie year, he had five and 81 games, 7 and 61, 6 and 67, and this year he has 5 and 29 games already. So yeah, it looks like he's going to finally blow that out of the water, and it's remarkable that he had so few throughout his career, but it makes sense just because if you'd watch those teams, it really would feel like if he wasn't doing himself, there just no one else was out there, they would be able to capitalize on the situations he was creating.

It's, I mean, it's something else for him to have a guy like Skinner who, who gets to a different part of the ice to help score points because you think of Avander and the way he scores a lot of his goals. I mean, he did score a lot of them in close. But a lot of those were his own generated efforts where, you know, he's picking up his own rebound or, you know, he's picking up the rebound from somebody else. And, you know, with Skinner, it's, it's different because he's just, you know, he doesn't, he doesn't exactly carry in a ton. At least it doesn't seem to be to me. He's the guy picking it up in the zone and either, you know, dangling something. somebody getting to the net or he's just picking up a rebound and, you know, doing the dirty area

scoring. And for Eichol to have somebody that goes there all the time is such a drastic change. To me, that's why it's working out. And, you know, for people to get mad at, again, it just goes back. Just people get mad at Jack for not scoring goals. It just makes me, it just makes me shake my head. I can talk about it for the rest of this show, but I'm not going to. I mean, it's obviously part of it is just unrealistic, unrealistic expectations, and part of it is just seemingly like a lack of understanding of how percentages work sometimes. Like, it's mind-boggling to me how. And I know, listen, you're right about kind of where he's taking the shots and what he's trying to accomplish with them. And it explains the higher shot totals and a lower percentage.

But I mean, at the end of the day, whenever a guy who's a 10% career shooter is shooting around 5% for like 20-something games, they're generally not going to score very many goals and they're going to look a lot worse than they are. and we already saw him with the multi-goal effort against Toronto, and I wouldn't be shocked at all if he goes on a goal-scoring tear here where he has something like eight goals in five games or something like that, and all of a sudden the full package for the season looks a lot closer to what we'd expect from him, and it'll seem like this entire discussion about him not scoring enough goals was from a completely different year because he'll just blow it out of the water. Yeah, and I've been trying to be calm and telling people, like, listen, you know,

I know he's shooting, he's shooting five or six percent. I like to throw that out there just because, you know, that will make people look and say, well, what does he normally shoot? And then they see 10 percent. And they go, oh, well, that's going to change soon then. And it's been the same way for Sam Reinhart, who was shooting five or six percent. And they go, well, geez, that seems kind of low. And you look at his past and you say, oh, yeah, it is low.

Well, gee, what's going to happen when it gets back to what he's normally done? Oh, right. He's got a goal in four straight games. and, you know, things catch up to themselves. It's, you know, sometimes the math is simple. It's just a matter of paying attention to it. Yeah, man, I was, I mean, I don't want to be as creepy as Pierre McGuire was being on last night's broadcast about Ross Mastalian and the fact that he's only 18 years old.

But it is, it's genuinely jaw-dropping what he's capable of doing out there. And sort of, I think more so than the actual plays himself, it's how he goes about it at this stage of his career, just because he really does seem like this kind of poised, polished veteran in terms of the calm nature where he approaches some of this stuff and regardless of a forecheckers on him or if he's in a dangerous space where most guys would, you know, all of a sudden, frantically do something stupid just because they're worried about turning it over and it would actually ironically enough lead to a turnover. For him, it's, it seems like it doesn't bother him at all. He's just kind of impervious to it where he just does, skates a little lap or makes a little

quick move and gets it out of his zone and does stuff with purpose and he's not just trying to get the puck off of the glass and out. He's actually trying to get it to a teammate or at least move it into a space where someone can do something productive with it. And that's what I've been kind of most impressed with. And, you know, we've seen his ice time ramp up as the season's gone along here. And it makes sense that even though he did come in with all this hype and this pedigree, that they would start to kind of spoon feed him a little bit and wouldn't instantly make him a 25 minute per game top airing guy.

And, you know, I think he'll get there eventually this season. It's maybe happening a bit slower than most people would like. And that can be frustrating at times. But there's clearly a plan there in place. and I think that, you know, it's only a matter of time before he has that workload that he should be having. And I think he's going to thrive in it. I mean, just the fact that what he's been doing lately and doing so with next to Zach Bogosian and sort of revitalizing his career there, who, I mean, I just think the world of him. And, you know, defensemen typically don't get too much love in these individual awards. And it's going to be hard for him to sneak into that race with what Eliza Pedersen and Brady Kachuk are doing offensively. But just in terms of impact on their team and how productive they've been, I think he's,

right up there with those guys. It's pretty stunning to watch how quickly he's moving along because, you know, the thing we all talked about and what even he talked about before the season started was, you know, what the adjustment from going from 200 by 100 ice surface and the speed of the NHL game, you know, how long that adjustment period was going to take for him. And I was maybe biting off more than I could choose. when I was guessing, I said, give him about 10 to 12 games and see where he's at from there and see how things change. And, you know, it just, I think it's 10 of the last 11 games.

10 of the last 11, he's been over 20 minutes. I mean, what was it, 29 minutes against the Leafs? I think so. I mean, injury played a part of that because Casey Nelson went out. But, I mean, he handled it. I mean, you know, the underlying numbers weren't great in that game, but obviously some of that was against the opponent. but the fact that I don't think he looked out of place at all should probably, you know, give a lot of confidence to Phil Howley that he can give, put more on his plate immediately

and not worry about it completely sinking him. Yeah, and it was, that was a case where all the deep pairs were just kind of rotating. You know, everybody was, everybody had somebody else at some point throughout that game. But, I mean, the last, geez, I want to say the last five or six, he and Rist's the line and have been basically splitting, having the same ice time. And they weren't D-partners, which, which says a lot about how, you know, Phil was rotating his, you know, his pairs out there. But, you know, when you've got two guys that can chew up 24, 24, 25 minutes and, you know, you can argue about how effective Ristalainen is and how well Dahlene plays. I mean, I know everybody will have that argument at any time.

But, I mean, with what Dahlene's able to do with it, and, I mean, you mentioned it with how he's always looking to make a play forward. He's always looking, you know, he's not going to force a puck into the corner by dumping it in, you know, and making it into a long run turnover. He's going to try to get something generated and get a play into the zone to generate a shot or generate something in the other end. And that to me says a lot about how smart he is about everything and the way he thinks the game. And you can see it in the little plays that he makes where, you know, it's tough to describe. It's a place where you look at it. You go, ooh, why did he do that? Where you're watching him and you say, oh, that's different.

And then when it works, and you're like, oh, that's why he did that. And it's things like that were, you know, we're not accustomed to seeing that in Buffalo from defensemen, at least not in a long, long time. And seeing him do it out here, it's just like, wow, this guy thinks the game on a very different level. And he's playing the game on a different level. And when his teammates, now it's up to his teammates to get used to him doing that. I think the higher end players are adjusting to him much quicker.

And even his D partners are learning like, okay, this guy gets it. We can kind of roll on him now. And instead of, you know, the first 10 or so games, those guys were playing like big brothers to him and making sure that he wasn't getting exposed or, you know, if he's learning on the fly, he's making the decision, he's not the guy. You know, if he makes a small mistake, it's not turning into a goal. they were covering his tail. And now those guys are like, okay, he's got it kind of figured out now. We can let him roll. And if he's going to make a jump, we'll still have his back.

We don't have to worry so much anymore. Yeah, no, I'm sure it can be frustrating for him at times because he definitely strikes me as one of those guys that, and you see it, that he just kind of sees the game at a different level and thinks that and he's a couple steps ahead. And I'm sure there's times where he wants to make a play. But unfortunately, the guy receiving the puck, especially if it's a third or four linear might just not be able to do anything with it so he kind of has to dumb his game down a little bit to make the smarter play and and you know i'm i just can't wait to see how he develops and especially

as phil housley empowers him with more ice time and he plays with better players like it's just i think the ceiling is endless for him and we rarely i mean in today's nchl we're seeing it more and more whether it's you know the guy like thomas sabat or mirro heiskin and and we're seeing uh you know teams be less conservative with their young defensemen and and really trust them to shoulder a heavier workload and play tougher minutes. But it's still at the point where, you know, when an 18-year-old comes into the league and he's never played in North America, obviously you kind of have to have a little bit of a feeling out process. And now it really feels like those training wheels are coming off. And it seems like

he could explode over the next couple weeks into something truly special, like right before our eyes immediately probably faster than even the most optimistic people thought he would. Yeah, and I mean, he's he's splitting number one power play unit time with Ristelainen, you know, depending on, depending on how Phil wants to use it or who he feels is going a little bit more. That's the guy he'll put on that top unit. But, I mean, they split time pretty evenly between the two. You could roll either one of them on the power play the way they're both playing offensively. You know, I think Ristelainen, you can be a little bit, you can be a little bit more aggressive with him in a power play situation. But with Dahlene, it's, he's just so good.

and he's always in the right spot and he's never making a wrong choice. So it makes it so much easier to be able to have a guy like that because they haven't had a quarterback, you know, a power play quarterback like that. You know, she's probably before even I got here. And, you know, you might have to even go back to a guy like Henrik Talindar, which, you know, it doesn't really stand out as a power play quarterback type guy. But he was a guy, he was probably the last guy who was really able to kind of to rein it in. maybe even Brian Campbell, Andre Saccharra.

I mean, that's how far back you got to go to try to figure out, you know, who Buffalo has had in the past that could do this. So it's a whole new world, but having Phil Housley as your head coach and Steve Smith as, as one of your other coaches on D, that these are two guys that you can't ask for better help for a young defenseman. Yeah. All right. So let's finish this conversation by kind of looking forward a bit and mapping this out for the Sabres,

because I'm very curious to see, you know, how they play this and sort of how you manage expectations. Because obviously after you have years and years of not really giving your fans anything to cheer for and then you come out of the gate the way they have this season, you have that 10-game winning streak and you're sitting in a playoff spot, I imagine it's very easy to kind of get carried away and maybe get a bit ahead of yourself and not necessarily sacrifice the future to try and win now, but maybe talk yourself into thinking that you're, you know, you're more ready to win. or you're closer to it than you actually are. And you and I were discussing this before we went on the air about kind of trying to keep some perspective here.

And I always feel bad about throwing too much cold water on a situation like this. Because it's like when they're winning all these close one-goal games, there's an analytical part of you that wants to go, this probably isn't sustainable. And they're eventually going to start losing some of these. And sure enough, we've seen them drop, what, four or five in a row now in that variety. But at the same time, just, where they're coming from and sort of this exciting ride they're on you also kind of want to just

enjoy that for what it is so i don't know like they obviously have the three first round picks coming up this this summer or at least they should assuming that the conditions work out for them and it looks like you know if the sharks make the playoffs they'll get that one there and if the blues right to ship a little bit and wind up not picking the top 10 that'll all of a sudden give them three very interesting assets there and they've got this big decision with jeff skinner ahead whether you just pay him right now or whether you play this thing out or what have you. So just looking ahead, let's assume that this kind of continues and maybe they don't keep winning 10 games in a row, but they win enough games to at least stand the playoff

hunt. Do you think this is a team that could potentially talk itself into doing something and expediting this process? Or do you think that they're going to be level-headed enough to kind of play this thing out and sort of appreciate what's going on right now while also keeping an eye to the future? I think everything's really wide. open to what Jason Botrell and they can do

if they're in a spot where they become buyers come trade deadline. I think that's a great spot for them to be in. The Skinner situation's interesting because the only way that they screw that up is if he walks and they don't get anything for him. That's the only way

it goes wrong. I mean, I think if they extend him and they don't break the bank on him and then if the cap goes to 83.5 million next year. And it would be very hard for them to screw up their future cap, given all the big money that's going to be coming off next year and the year after. So I don't think they're in a bad spot as far as future cap's concerned,

but you can't give Jeff Skinner like 9.5 million. You can't, you know, when you're staring Razmus Delene down in two years and you're going to give them eight years and, I don't know, 88, you know, 88 million, 88 plus million, maybe. I mean, you can't just, you know, cough it all up there. But, I mean, they can extend them and they're fine. But if they have to trade them at the trade deadline, if they're not going to get a deal, then if he produces this way, you're talking about getting a pretty strong return and not just futures.

I mean, you're probably going to get somebody who might be under contract back. But, I mean, that's, you know, it's a big, it's a big what if. But I think that situation can get handled. pretty easy. Yes. Well, I mean, yes and no. I think it's a tricky one because I imagine when they acquired him, you know, I'm sure they thought he's going to fit in next to Jack Eichael and he's going to give him that supporting player and they're going to feed off with each other and we'll see where it goes. And considering the price they paid, it was a no doubt about a decision where you do that 10 out of 10 times. But I also think that probably in the back of mind, they thought, well,

you know, if weary become sellers of the deadline and hopefully he stays healthy and scores and goals, we'll be able to get more for him in return, a trade than what we paid for him. And then now, I mean, you obviously, is a great problem to have when you have a guy scoring 20 goals in his first 25 or 26 games or whatever he did. But you also don't want to be buying at his absolute ceiling where, you know, the guy's shooting 22.7 percent. And that's obviously not going to continue. And you're right.

If you all of a sudden are paying him to be that guy, you're going to be sorely disappointed, especially in a long-term deal. Now, it feels like he's been in the league forever and he has because he came into it right away. but he's still only 26 years old. I believe he turns 27 this summer. Now, he does have a long list of head injuries, and he's, you know, knock on wood, been healthy recently,

but that's always something you got to keep in the back of your mind. So there's a lot of factors to consider there, and I'm very curious, obviously, you know, if they fall out of the race, that'll make the decision easier. If something else happens, maybe that'll kind of open the door to something. But right now, where we stand,

there isn't a super obvious decision to go one way or another because there's so many different factors to consider. No, it's 100% true. But when it comes to his injury past, it reminds me a little bit of Patrice Bergeron where the first part of his career, he had the concussion issues and everybody worried if he was going to have a big future.

And that proved to be very true. He's had a great career. It's still, it's in front of him. But if they do become buyers, though, they've got enough prospects who still have shine to them. I don't think the blooms come off the rows of too many of these guys yet. It's a farm system that's pretty well, a prospect system that's viewed pretty highly. And if they've got to go buy somebody to make their defense a little bit better

or to add a little bit more scoring, I think they can do it. And they would, you know, might hurt the future as far as, you know, maybe you're giving up a guy who might be a player in a year or two, but with the way they've developed the guys in Rochester, they might not have to do that. If, you know, if Victor Olifson can still score like the way he is in Rochester and you bring him up and give him a taste and he does well in Buffalo,

then all right, well, you don't have to go get a guy. Or if Alex Neelander has got his stuff figured out and, you know, it can be a consistent player, which that's the big problem for him is consistency. But if he's a guy who can come up and be consistent, then instantly you've got a guy that helps you out. And it's things like that where they're going to know where they stand by the time deadline time comes around. If those prospect guys are ready and they can call them up and they can be reliable,

stick with it in house. And if you have to supplant it from behind with trading one of those guys, then okay, then you can do that. But they're in a good position. I think Jason Botrell's got them in a spot where they don't have to be rash about anything. They can either figure it out from within or. or they can use some of that strength from within to get better. Yeah, no, that's the thing. And it's ultimately, I mean, it's relative.

I feel like if everything else from this point is gravy, I mean, obviously, I guess if they lose every single one of their remaining games, maybe it'll leave a sour taste in people's mouths. But, I mean, when I point out stuff, like, you know, they've been playing over their heads. There's very few teams that have a bigger gap between their expected goals and actual goals and stuff like that. It's like, you know, you just want to pump the brakes a little bit

in terms of a 10-game winning streak can do a lot to dilute people and make them think that a team is much better than it is. And that was a magical run they had there. And it was really entertaining to watch, but that shouldn't make you kind of lose sight of the bigger picture. And you're right. Thankfully, for them and for Jason Bottle, there's enough time here still remaining between when we're talking now in early December and the trade deadline coming up in late February or early March. So we're going to see what this team really is with a larger sample size. And I'm sure that I'll make your decision easier for them. but it's both a blessing and a curse from the perspective of, really, if you look at their financial situation, you know, they're obviously going to have a guy like Rasmus Dally and that you have to

account for how much you're going to pay him down the line and Jack Eichol's contract's already kicked in. But for the most part, there's very few dollars that are really committed past the next couple seasons. And even a guy like Kyle Khozzo, for example, you think that he could be a candidate to be bought out with a compliance buyout if that comes up in the next CBA. So there's very few bad contracts on the books now for the longer term, which is great because that's going to give them plenty of flexibility to get creative and try to bring in impact players, whether it's in free agency or via trade. And that's an exciting proposition. But at the same time, kind of like what we saw with Vegas, it's like as soon as you have that money, that's great. But as soon as you make one or two bad decisions, all of a sudden that ties it up and you're back to square one.

So it can be a kind of double-edged sword there. yeah and that's that's probably why you didn't see buffalo go after go after guys like uh paul stasney or or make a trade for a max patcheretti where you know patch ready or make a trade for him and then extend them yeah yeah and then um you know you you just throw all this money on top of your on top of your future and you're just you just look at it you're just like oh man this is this is going to hurt in the long run but i mean beyond a pozo and i mean you don't feel bad about ickel's money but You know, I think with the Pozo's contract, you worry about his health and, you know, just the natural part of aging.

But, you know, beyond that, it's what Ristelainen's the next longest contract, and that ends in 2022, 21. Does it run longer than the cap hit they're paying for Cody Hodgson? Good question. I haven't checked on that one. They at least get the cap refund on him this year. That's true. I think that's, I think they got money back. Man, their books are hilarious.

I mean, obviously, because the compliance buyouts, they're not actually, um, you know, stuck with that tab, but they are paying out the real dollars. But yeah, it's, it's, I looked at it. It was nine more years of Christian Airhoff, and they still have one more of Villilano at, uh, the gift that keeps on giving at 1.2 million next year. Yeah. I got to, I got to try to find from one of the thrift shops around here to find a Villalano T-shirt.

I should, I should find one and send it to you because I think that would be. I would love that. I think that would be hilarious. But, but he's making paintings now to, to show how much he hated being in Buffalo. So I think that's, I think that's good for Billy that he's found an outlet. Well, when, you're as financially secure as he is, you can explore any avenue to fill your time. Joe, let's get out of here.

I think we kind of covered all the bases on the Sabres. Did we miss out on any big topics? I don't think so. We got Dalai, we got Skinner. We got how good Eichel is. We could talk goaltending, but eh, like, it's fine. I mean, it's been really good so far. We'll see how they hold up because they're kind of eventually going to be in uncharted waters,

just in terms of usage. and that's a bit of a scary proposition, but so far, so good, and it makes for a great story. And at the very least, I feel like it'll be passable enough where, unlike with some of these other teams, I don't think we're going to point to it

and be like, oh, what a complete liability that's completely sinking this team. Yeah, I don't think that's going to be the case here. They seem to really like Carter Hutton and Linus Allmarks of really lovable guy who's playing very well, so it's hard to dislike them. Yeah. Okay, plug some stuff.

Where can people find your work? and what can they expect from you moving forward? Oh, you can find me over at the Athletic. I'm, you know, the Buffalo Sabers Beat Rider there with John Vogel. And we've got Chris Baker doing prospects, and we're trying to crush it as hard as possible. I think we're taking care of that. And Ryan, and Ryan Stimson. And Ryan Stimson, my goodness.

My brain is not working today. Ryan, who very smartly pointed out how good Lawrence Pilot. We didn't even, there is a guy we didn't talk about, was Lawrence Pilot. Yeah. About how good he was matching up. against Austin Matthews, and he might be one of those secret weapon guys, but Ryan Stimson is killing it for us. He's making the people of Buffalo much smarter about hockey, which is a good thing. We like that. We don't want to be talking about guys fighting everybody anymore.

Absolutely. We're past that, but Ryan's killing it. Chris Baker's killing it. John Voge was killing it. I'm sort of killing it. You're killing it as well, man. Thanks, dude. I was setting you up for a compliment. Thank you for following through. You're doing great. You did great on today's episode. I'm glad I had you on. And hopefully this team gives us something to talk about from a positive perspective moving forward as well. And maybe, you know, we'll check back in with you sometime closer to the deadline. And maybe we'll have some more definitive answers to some of the questions we laid out on today's show. Yeah, let's hope the darkest, this is the dawn after the darkest times from two years ago

when we talked savers last. That's true. All right, man. Enjoy yourself and we'll chat soon. You got it, Dimitri. Thanks for that. having me. It can't end today's show without a stick tap in the direction of Puckpedia, which aside from being a gracious sponsor of the Hockeypedia cast has also helped make today's episode possible. It may have only recently launched, but Puckpedia.com's already become an invaluable resource for me whenever I'm doing a show prep for this podcast.

Whether it's salary cap info, draft and transaction history, individual player stats, or injun news, Buckpedia is great because it's got everything you need to know in one convenient place so that you don't need to bounce around from tap to tab and clog your internet browse, trying to figure out what you're looking for. Plus, they really put an emphasis on making the entire user-friendly, so it's easy to navigate even for someone like me who's not necessarily all that tech savvy.

My personal favorite component of the site is their agent leaderboard, which identifies the top agents and who they represent. When I was looking ahead to Patrick Lainey's upcoming contract and my discussion with Murat here on today's show about it, I searched it up and I was reminded that he's got the same agent as the guy who got Vlad Tarasenko and Leon Dreisaito paid coming off their ELCs, and the same guy who also represents Miko Rantonin. So just something to keep in mind and not too shabby.

Anyways, go to puckpedia.com and play around with all their cool features yourself and follow them at Puckpedia on Twitter since they're constantly tweeting out useful nuggets of info. Also, a couple other things. Before we get out of here, you can go check out the show now on Spotify. It's been up there for about a month or so, and I've noticed that a bunch of you have a gravitated over there and are using that to listen to the show now, and I appreciate that.

But once again, whatever makes you comfortable or whatever is your go-to source, whether it's iTunes or Google Play or what have you or Spotify, as long as you're listening to the show, that's all the matters. And also, if you could take a minute and go over to iTunes and leave the show, a positive rating interview that's always appreciated,

I'm not totally sure how their algorithm works and how their rating system works on the leaderboards for the podcast, but I've been told that that stuff goes a long way towards boosting the PDO cast up the charts. So hopefully you'll take the time to do that. And with that said, now we're finally ready to get out of here. So we're going to play the outro music. And we will be back later this week with one, maybe two shows.

So until then. The Hockey P.D.O.cast with Dim Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdiocast.