The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 386: Expected by Exactly Whom

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

Chad DeDominicis joins the show to discuss the Buffalo Sabres, the cursed start to the season, and what to make of their strange underlying numbers. Topics include: All of the bad luck they've suffered through Their historically bad 5v5 offense How shooting % fluctuations can mess with you Do they have the right system for their personnel? Pros and cons of low event hockey Is Ralph Krueger best suited to be a coach? Victor Olofsson at 5v5 vs. on the power play The mystifying way they've used Jeff Skinner Skinner's value, trying to make it worth  Ways to improve the team this season Keeping Jack Eichel happy Eichel's shooting this year Taylor Hall's future If you're interested in the Blue Wire Hustle program discussed at the top of the show, you can submit your application here: http://bwhustle.com/join 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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That's bw hustle.com slash join. Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey Pediocast. With your host, Dmitry Phil. My name is Dimitri Filipovich, and back by popular demand after his off-season P.DioCast debut, where we dissected the Sabres rebuilds, it's my good buddy, Chad Diedominces. Chad, what's going on, man? Hey, man, how are you? I'm good.

I'm sure I'm doing better than you right now, considering you've been watching a lot of Buffalo Sabres games. You got, I mean, you caught us after a win, so the mood is different, I guess you could say, right? That's true. That's true. I mean, there's too many Islanders games in here that's really messing it up, but then they play the Islanders three times in a row next week, so it's, you know, we'll be back to in the, in the droids here pretty soon. It's a problem.

I, uh, I went, I went back. I've been watching because I knew we were going to do this show for a while. So I've been making a point of watching Buffalo Sabres games to the point where I went back and I, I, uh, now that I'm working with elite prospects, I've got access to in stat hockey and, in their, uh, video tracking software. And so I've actually, actually went back and for some reason subjected myself to watch, rewatching Buffalo Sabers games. So listeners can know that I, I'm really committed to bringing you the best product.

possible here and that included watching Sabers games for the second time just so that I could be confident in my opinion so that's where we're watching twice so I give you full credit for doing it yeah it's it's a hard life it's you know what but we've chosen it for ourselves so we have to exactly exactly so I went back and actually also relisten to our off season show that I mentioned the top there where we we deep dive the Sabres rebuilds and and I thought we did a really nice job I'm patting ourselves on the back. I thought we were fair. I thought we were critical where it was deserved.

The one thing I regret, though, is we wasted a bunch of time, especially at the end, kind of like optimistically trying to fix the organization. And we acted as if it really mattered. And when you're as freaking cursed as this organization is, it's just, it's pointless. I mean, it's, where do we even begin? because this season has been such a roller coaster ride for so many bad reasons. Obviously, you know, some self-inflicted some of a very unfortunate nature, which wasn't their fault at all.

But it's just you kind of go into it with the best of intentions. And especially at the start of a new season, you're like, all right, well, we got Taylor Hall. All these young players could conceivably get even better. There's reason for optimism is it's a clean slate. And then the season gets going and it's just more of the same. yeah it's the crazy part is like the guys that you thought like going into it like i don't know like wrist linens like that's a problem well i mean the guy had the best 10 gang attractive his career before he got covid and then not only did he get covid he got like the worst case of

covid anybody's got in the league besides rossi so like that you know that's just i think sums up their whole season it's just it's players not playing to potential and at the same time it's a crazy stupid, unbelievable amount of bad luck they're going through right now and especially it's with their key players, which also will get deeper into it. But it's wild. And then you have, you know, the coaching aspect of it with a particular player, which again, I don't want to get too deep into it. I'm sure we'll talk about that too.

So there's just so much in the top level to rip apart with this team, but also makes them super interesting. It is there's so much to it. I mean, and some of their young guys like Brison, who had a good guy. good debut last night. And then Borgon looked good for a few games, but he broke his arm in the first period of the Devils game played through it.

They thought it was day to day and turns out broke his arm out six to eight weeks. So like, oh, I guess it's just one thing after another. And then you lose McCabe, who is having the best season of his career. It's because he needs a whole new knee now. He has ACL MCL and meniscus injury in his knee, so he's done for the season.

It's, and they don't even know any of it rest line back either. Like, it could still be weeks if that, so. you know it's rough right now yeah i mean obviously when i was calling them kris like it's somewhat in jest but i do think you know before we really get into this i think a conversation about the sabres you need to acknowledge it off the top that they've been just insanely unlucky and it's not even um you know it goes beyond the typical sense which they've also suffered from of of puck's just not going into the net which is like a much more common way of being unlucky for nchl teams but

it's just a lot of stuff that that we need to frame it through that lens before anything. And it feels like, you know, we, we'd be doing ourselves and the listeners of the service if we didn't mention. I mean, first off, you know, you've got the mass exposure to COVID because of the league's negligence is the only way. I think you can put it in terms of allowing those devil's games to happen when they're clearly at risk. Uh, Rasmus Stalin, and as you mentioned, getting terribly ill as a result. And I know he's someone that, you know, we've made a habit of poking fun of on this podcast over the years because of his play, but just reading about what, you know, he who is an obscenely fit, 26-year-old is going through

his symptoms is genuinely terrifying to read as a significantly less fit, soon to be 30-year-old here. And so I just really hope, you know, first off, he's going to be okay. I think everything else is totally, you know, meaningless compared to his long-term health and ability to live a comfortable, healthy life. But on a significantly less important scale, you're right. You mentioned that this just so happened to be him putting the finishing touches on what I can I don't even remember him having a more effective 10 game stretch I'm sure he had one earlier in his career but um you know pretty much all across the board whether it was just being a menace on the power play like scoring a net front power play goal um whether it was being paired with with jake mccabe and

having a 56% expected goal share uh leading the team and goals above replacement like it was it was just it was a remarkable 10 game stretch and after all all these years of sort of bemoaning them, not moving on from him or why they were so patient with him. He finally kind of seems to put it together and have this great stretch. And then just the worst case scenario happens. You've got Jake McCabe, his partner, as you mentioned, out for the year. And now he is going to be hitting unrestricted free agency with a completely... Top break, man. That's just, that's the worst. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Especially at that age, because you have no idea what he's going to look like physically when he gets back. Hopefully he'll look like he did now. But he was all kind of profiling as a probably undervalued player on the market because he's not someone who's going to put up jaw dropping, counting stats or anything, but just his defensive metrics

and ability to suppress stuff was through the roof. And nerds, like you and I appreciated it, but I'm not sure how much on the unrestricted market, a major market that would have accounted for. And then Borgon breaks his arm, and he looks good in his finally getting an opportunity as well. And so there's a team that just come in completely decimated on the blue line. And, you know, at the same time, though, I think there's also been a bunch of issues on the ice in terms of tactical stuff and choices they made.

And that's why I wanted to do this show because I think someone might be listening that hasn't been following closely. And there's like, okay, the Sabres are sitting 27th in point percentage. I think they're sitting in last place in their division at the time of recording. They've got a minus seven goal differential for the year. It's like, yeah, these are the Buffalo Sabres. Why are you recording a deep dive about this? This is who they've been for the past nine years. And I just think the specifics of how we've gotten here and the fact that I really do believe they're one of the most interesting statistical profiles in the league right now in terms of being like literally a historically bad five-on-five scoring team and a historically great top three currently in the league power play scoring.

It's just like it's just so bizarre that the same players can produce such divergent results. And so I think that's kind of why I wanted to have you on here. But okay, so this is a good place for us to start this, I guess, because I think, if you're a believer that you create your own luck in this league or at least do things a certain way that give yourself a chance to benefit from it or maybe make you kind of less susceptible to these wild percentage swings, then I don't think the sabres have necessarily been tactically infallible or blameless in this because I think you and I would both agree that when you look at the personnel, it feels like certain choices that have been made aren't necessarily optimizing

this current crew. And that's why I don't want to just give them a complete free pass. and why I actually thought that this merited an hour-long deep dive of what's going on. Yeah, no, I think you're completely right. I mean, it's some of the players that they signed that we knew would be this. And I'm particularly talking about Cody Egan. And it's just the utilization of, like, Jeff Skinner, Taylor Hall and Jack, I go not working like we thought. Yeah, I mean, it's, there really is a lot to pull away. And even defensively, you know, Daleks.

got off to a really tough struggle again but they've been forced into a situation where now they have no choice but to play him top pair minutes and he is taking that ball and run with it so that that's you know one of the promised things i guess you could say but yeah i mean that there's just so much crueger-wise you really can dive into to to rip this apart and you said figure out how crazy this is right now statistically too i mean so the 31st and in five-on-five scoring to put that into context i think they're like depending on the site i think evolving wild has them at like 1.5 goals per 60 or something like that and I went back and looked the only scoring rate I could find lower than that since 2007 is the 2013-14 Buffalo Sabres who were like just a tad a bit below and that team was pretty much actively trying not to win hockey games right right yeah which is alarming now their expected goals are are slightly higher they're certainly not good I think they're 26 this year in terms of five-on-five expected goals and it's like that sounds right 355 out of 424 qualifying teams that's banned dating back to 2007.

So it's not like I'm saying, oh, they've been completely unlucky here. There's clearly something flawed. But, you know, I message Steve Aliquette, who has access to the clear site analytics data behind the scenes just because I wanted to, you know, sometimes we hear teams talk about, oh, our proprietary in-house metrics are significantly different than what you're looking at publicly. And funny enough, it makes us look better than you probably think we are. And we hear teams kind of say that all the time. Paul Maurice was the most recent one. But he said that, according to his, which I do think is more accurate representation, they have currently scored 10 fewer goals at 5-1-5 than expected so far.

And, you know, they've been outscored 30 to 20 at 5-1-5 this season. And so you kind of look at that and go, okay, well, you know, if they're playing up to their expectations and converting it what we'd expect them to be, they're a break-even team. And considering they have a top-five power play, that would probably be good enough to be significantly more. competitive in winning many more games than they have so far. And so I'm kind of curious about sort of the conversation that's happening both internally with the team and also locally

in the market in terms of the framing because you always hear when this happens, there's going to be people who kind of preach patience and look at the bigger picture and understand that they've been a bit unlucky here. And then there's going to be people that are like scoffing at it and making fun of expected goals and or maybe suggesting that the numbers are off or there aren't properly accounting for what's happening. Like kind of what's going on there in terms of that sort of relationship between all these moving pieces. Yeah, I think all that is actually happening. You're funny enough.

So there's a group of us. And again, it's mostly the stats people like myself that are trying to preach patience. I mean, you're at 15 games now eventually. My fear of this team is we're going to preach patience, preach patience. And this positive regression is going to come, but it's going to be too late. And we're starting to track towards that. But, you know, the conversation I'm telling people is, like, you just, you look around the, like, Jack Eichol, Taylor Hall, and even Jeff Skinner. They didn't forget how to score goals.

Like, they're not going to shoot under 4% or 5% at 5 on 5 the entire season. Like, it's not going to have, maybe one of those guys does an outlier year, but what kind of season do you have those three players on the same team shoot like that? I mean, it's insane. And then you look at Victor Oliveson, who will put every single puck in the net on the power play. but at five on five he doesn't have any five on five goals and he's shooting like two goals below expect the last time I looked you know so it's it's nuts so you have a guy that old was some with that shooting talent

that's they're just the puck's not going in and I keep saying to people where yeah we'll get to in a second here how they're still not overall generating enough offense but if they just got the puck to go in with what they're generating now they're probably at worst fourth or fifth in that division right now and we're not having this conversation we're just saying look at they're an average team, this division isn't really as good as we thought it was going to be, and they're in the mix. Well, they're not getting the puck to go in.

And it's put them in a big hole here. But overall, technically, yeah, this is the second year in a row now that they're just, I mean, you mentioned the expect to goals forward. They're still at the bottom of the league. They're just not generating enough offense. And when you make additions like Taylor Hall, bring in Eric Stahl, you have Skinner, who's still generating stuff. You have Eichol, you have Reinhardt. Olof sends a, you know, not a great five-on-five player, but still he should be able to score goals. And then, you know, you're bringing Dylan Cousins, who for a 19-20-year-old kid,

he really brought that second line together, and he came back from COVID. He said he was asymptomatic the whole time, and that was like, I think he said the crazy part with, what do you have to be in quarantine for Team Canada, and then after I had to come to Buffalo, he's been in, like, quarantined for 36 days over the last three months, something like that. it's insane number. But he's been great. I mean, he's really brought that second line together with Hall and Stahl. So, you know, you're getting that impact, too.

It's just still there's a lot of point shots. There's not enough to the net. Their transition game is pretty poor. They're just not generating anything off the rush. When a lot of goals in the league are scored on the rush, they're relying on their cycle game in this. They don't have enough players who really can play that game effectively. Yes, poor is a generous interpretation.

Of that. Here's the thing. Like, I want to be careful about how we talk about this because I think in general, shooting percentage can really mess with your brains and your eyes in terms of like just being an optical illusion. Even when you're looking out for it and when you're kind of aware that that's a possibility, it still gets you, right? Because I think you can kind of talk yourself into things are going poorly. It's like, oh, well, there's something fundamentally wrong. And then if it's someone's kind of playing over their head, you're like, oh, well, maybe, you know, they're in better shape. Maybe they're motivated more. this year and it's like a couple pucks randomly bouncing off someone's butt and going into the net and it's an entirely different conversation and it's not an issue or it's a great kind of story out of the gate and it really sometimes is that simple and so I do think we need to be cognizant of it but at the same time and I'm not I'm not sure if you feel this way but I am kind of sympathetic to the idea if you were a Sabres fan or an analyst where you're like I'm having a tough time giving the team the benefit of the doubt in terms of the bad luck department because there's nothing in the past decade or so now

that's done anything to warrant feeling like this is kind of out of the norm. Like all these historically bad percentages are, but the idea of luck implies that it's chance and it's eventually going to even out. And now we're going on like nine years of a team that's just been year over year, unlucky for a variety of reasons. So I don't know what the explanation is for it.

But it is a really tough sort of thing to weigh in terms of like the emotional, aspect of this isn't like a great team that is just out of the blue having a bad season and you can be like okay well we can kind of chalk this one up as a as a fluke and throw it away it's a 65 to 56 game year this is like kind of an extension of of everything that's happened in buffalo yeah for sure and that that part definitely has merit to it and that's part of the pushback that you get when you cite these numbers but you know i keep going back to it it's never it's never been this bad though like it's it i just keep using the word stupid like it's just

stupid. Dalene, I think, is a perfect example for me. He's a guy right now that I'm pretty sure is at 1.67% on a ice shooting percentage. His expected goals is at close to 51% score and venue adjusted. And then you look at his actual goal differential to at like 15%. Like, it's just, it's stupid stuff like that. It just makes no sense that never happens. Or if it happens to one guy, not five on your team.

And it's just, it's frustrating because, like, if you said, that just kind of start this, if you just were getting what you were supposed to be getting right now, this team is not going to try to compete for a Stanley Cup. They're just trying to get in the playoffs. And if they were just getting the goals, then they'd be in the mix for. I mean, they do an excellent job for all of Kruger shortcomings with his offensive restrictions, I guess you could say that that guy can put together a nice defensive system. We've done it two years now.

And they're one of the best teams in the league at it, suppressing opportunities. So, you know, while a low event style isn't pretty and isn't fun to watch, it can work if, you know, they just were getting the goals and it's not happening. And it's, maybe you can hold the New Jersey game kind of boost them. Because, I mean, they hit like three posts on a power play and then eventually scored and then it scored twice in the third period at five on five. So maybe that was kind of a turning point for them and boost them to give them some confidence. But, you know, it's, it's, I still can't get over to how crazy these numbers are. It's never been like this before. Yeah, I've given this a lot of thought because I don't think saying they have a low shooting percentage and it will bounce back makes for riveting podcasting and it certainly doesn't give us an hour of material.

So I've really given it a lot of thought in terms of if there's something we're not necessarily accounting for or maybe something that they're doing that's either exacerbating the issue or making them more susceptible to it. And the one kind of working theory I keep coming back to is if you use, you know, shot attempts for and against as kind of like a proxy, the rate of them as the pace we play at, which I tend to obviously has its flaws. But I think it kind of gives you a good representation of what's happening on the ice, right? And they're currently playing at the 30th rank pace at 5-1-5, which is like literally just the smallest possible fraction ahead of Detroit. And they're right down at the bottom with teams like Dallas and St. Louis and sort of the

usual suspect. And, you know, those teams have had success. So this isn't to say that you can't be successful playing that way. Entertaining hockey doesn't necessarily equal positive results. But I think the bigger philosophical question that I would hope they're asking themselves right now is, are they built for that? And should they be doing that? Is that the optimal way to be running this team? Because I think we'd agree a coach's main job is to properly evaluate the strength and weaknesses of their personnel and get the most out of them.

And we're going to work around them, right? And you look at the Sabers group, I don't think it's going to be mistaken for the Russian 5 by any means. but like Eichel, Hall, Skinner, cousins, Dolly, even Brandon Montere, who's a highly flawed player, like his best skill is skating. And this is a team that, like, theoretically their strength should be that ability to get up and down the ice.

And I'd be highly tempted to see what it would look like, at least, to take those training wheels off, let them play up tempo. And instead, you've got this super low event environment where nothing's happening for large stretches of time. And it leads to good defensive results. But I wonder, especially in terms of, terms like the long-term development of a player like dali and whether that is the best way to go about bringing him along because it seems like it's it's a pretty tricky way to have to play it as a young player in today's game yeah for sure i think we even talked about this um in the off season is you know when you went out and made those signings hall stall um you know you're bringing cousins in this season um you know you have skinner and i go and runner and i guess all those guys there there's there's no reason

for you to play in a low event style. It just, it didn't make sense. And when they made all those moves and they brought in, you know, Hall was a good transition guy who plays with speed and they kind of focus on it with Tobias Reeder coming in and Cody Ekin. I mean, those guys can skate. So, I mean, you see that and you're like, okay, their defense can skate too with Dahlene or Rissalining can go get going.

The cave's a decent skater. Colin Miller can move too. So like, you have some guys who can move on the blue line. So this is going to be a team who's going to probably transition better and, you know, try to get more on the rush to be more effective and better foretracking team and not the style they played last year well turns out they're playing the same style they played last year which I don't think matches what they have that forward now the caveat to that is where the glaring issue comes up and it's something that was an

issue in the off season is they didn't they didn't address their goaltending and you know Hutton and Allmark right now are two of the worst goal is and goals is above expected in the league. And that's with a low event style of hockey. Now, if you open it up, you might score some more goals, but what's the likelihood are also going to allow more goals? So that's kind of where the catch-22 as we have here with the conversations in Buffalo is, yeah, let's open it up more.

But can our goaltenders handle it? Now, Allmarked the last four or five games has played really, really well, and they're kind of just riding him out here, which is good. but through his career he's kind of been a guy he'll throw in 10 great games and he'll throw in 5 stinkers and then 4 good ones and 5 bad ones it's so much inconsistency so that I think is ultimately the Kats 22 this team while yes

they should open it up more I'm not sure it's going to result in more wins because their goal tending still could be a problem yeah no that is a good point I was surprised to see that all marks numbers for the season were as poor in terms of the expectations as they were because I guess maybe I just the reason see bias of his most recent performances where even the game where he gave up a couple goals in Washington I thought he played pretty well and made some pretty

ridiculous saves and you can kind of see the athleticism and I don't know at the same time is it flipped from last season right he's right he was one of the best five on five goals in the league last season but his penalty kill numbers were atrocious it's flipped this year his penalty kill numbers are really good and his five on five you know numbers are pretty poor so it's it's crazy how that flipped on them. Well, but I guess there is probably a middle ground there though where, you know, the stars are a team I mentioned that that generally plays a low event style is going to consider to be stingy defensively. But as we saw in last year's postseason, they were very opportunistic in terms of when they would pick their spots. Like they would nail those transition opportunities. Like, you know, and it helps having guys like high skin and obviously to kind of. to move the puck quickly in Klingberg but you know Guryanov and hints and so on and so forth like they would kind of lull teams to sleep a little bit where they would let them let the Vegas golden

nights dance around the offensive zone and keep everything to the outside and then after seven minutes they would get the puck and quickly it would just randomly be like a three on two going down their way and they would make the most opportunities and i guess maybe that's on the net what just happened kind of thing right yeah exactly and you're like okay well we were out playing them for such a long period a time and we have nothing to show for it. And I don't think that's a fluke. Like I think it's a risky way to play, but it was clearly by design and they pulled it off. And so if you're the Sabres team, you can still play a lower event environment, but that transition game, I mean, it feels like sometimes, and it's so bizarre because you would think that they have the puck carriers to do it.

They just, I don't know, do you think it's as simple as like they're being coached not to? because it's just so bizarre to me that it's not happening more. It feels like it's kind of being beaten in them in a way not to take those risks because that's the only possible explanation I have for why you're not seeing highly gifted skaters breaking out into transition more often. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I was looking at, because I was thinking about the exact thing, the transition stuff, it just didn't line up to me or match.

So I was looking at Corey Snyder's microsatts the other day, and it's only like six games. I think he's tracked at the Sabres, which is a small window, but it kind of gives you an idea of what's happening. here. So my theory was they were dumping the puck in a lot. Well, that doesn't really seem like it's the case. I think they're like still top 10 in the league and entering with

possession and the other ones of zone. But if I remember quickly, they were like 24th or 25th and chances off of entries. But I think what's happening here and you kind of saw it a lot against New Jersey too. A couple of times I wrote down. I if you wrote like the times, I go back and watch the video again,

they would get the transition going through the neutral zone. They'd enter with speed. Then nothing would happen. It'd be a turnover. a player would stop or it'd be a bad pass and that kills the play. Just like they're getting the starting point right, but it just falls apart. Nothing happens from it. It'll be a bad pass. It'll go off a stick.

Somebody will pull up and allow the rest of the defense to get back into the play. So I think that's the issue. I think they lack support and creativity and transition. And that could be issue. Maybe there's still not enough speed or even creativity itself on this team. and that's what's hurting them and maybe you know it gets back to the system thing where

you know Kruger thinks they're a better cycle team which I just don't believe in it and maybe you know that's why they're not fully going that hard in transition and setting up these plays because they're trying to set up a cycle play I guess you could say so you know that keeps getting

back to the system but I really think there's a lot of what I call empty calorie entries for this team and I think it's really hard on those especially for players like Eichol and Hall, you know, that kind of live and thrive off that transition game. Yeah, there's a reason why so many teams were shifted to, like, primarily attacking off the rush. It's because the data shows, like, how much likelyer you are to score on shots coming off the rush, as opposed to sort of stagnant offensive zone sets where you're kind of settling for a point shot through traffic

while the defense and the defensive shell is, and the goalie are set and kind of shifts the mat on your favor. But, yeah, that's what I kind of keep coming back to here. It's like, you know, you have a bunch of players where, were clearly imperfect as a lot pretty much the majority of NHL players are but you have they each got to the NHL for a reason for the most part right and you have certain skills and it's up to you to get the most out of them and like the victor olison thing for me is one of the most puzzling things where he at so on the power play he's got 19 power play goals in 76 career games since the start of last year only pastor knight dry sidle and matthews have more goals with a man

advantage he's shooting 28% on the powerplay and that seems low based on watching buffalo Sabers games because it feels like every single one of his bazookas it just winds up if he gets a one-timer it's going in is what you feel like yeah exactly yeah it's like it's like it's impossible it's just a matter of whether he's going to hit a spot or not because the goal he's not going to stop it and yeah it's a big reason why their power play is is third in the league and scoring so far on a permanent basis and at the same time you you put that in contrast with he's got what six goals at five-on-five and like over a thousand career five on five minutes now, including zero this season, which doesn't make him unique as a Buffalo Sabre, but is still an alarming continuation of a trend.

And especially because 850 of those have been with Jack Eichael. And you think like, all right, so you got Olison who has this remarkable shot. We see it on the power play. What are you doing to manufacture easier looks for him at even strength? It really would seem logical, like even though he's not necessarily the most clear foot. player, like getting the team out in space on the rush where he has more time and you maybe want an odd man advantage, you've got a three on two or a four on three coming down, he's going to be unchecked and he's going to have that same sort of look as he has on the

power play. And they're just not nearly enough of that. And I do wonder, like, whether that is something they're looking at right now and kind of concerned about if he is going to be just purely a power play specialist, which is remarkably valuable or if there's some tinkering they can do to squeeze more out of that shot at even strength because that goal total just is not good enough for how good that shot is. Yeah, no, he's just a bad five-on-five player and he's 25 years old and I know it was only a year and a half in the league, but he played a lot of pro hockey in Sweden. That was his game.

He played a two, a year and a half of HL hockey, or one season at least. That was his game. and now he's in the NHL and he's doing the same thing he's just he's just a power play specialist and don't get him wrong there's value in that because he's a really good power play specialist so I mean I'm not saying like they shouldn't play him at all but then why is he playing top line minutes at 5-15 oh that's the thing I think they need to accept it

they need to just bury him at 5 on 5. Like I said 850 minutes with I go and he has five goals what other player would get that leash if some guys on Eichl's wing I mean Skinner got two games on there. He didn't score and he got pulled off. Olsen gets 850 minutes and he has five goals at 5 and 5 and 5. Nobody gets that leash.

Sherry didn't get that leash. V.C. didn't get that lease. Skinner didn't get it. I mean, nobody does, but he does. So I don't know if they're just trying to force a square peg in a round hole with him and just being accepted. It's who he is. And it's fine that he's that player.

Yeah. I call him a poor man's line. It's fine. Let him be that guy. Put him on your third and your fourth line. maybe he'll get loose sometimes in 5 on 5 in poppy a goal or you know five to six goals at 5 on 5 on 5 then he's going to rack up his goals on the power play just let him be that guy there's no need to continue to let him play a top line minute because a lot of plays dying a stick he's not a good against the wall he loses the puck in transition he makes the wrong pass and that's just I think it's hurting I go transition game because you'll see a lot of it you know he'll push it off

to um all of a sudden as he's entering the zone and then it'll be the play dies or he'll get his all of a sudden on the wall and his cycle play and the play dies. So they just need to get him off that wing. I don't know if it's going to happen because they're stubborn and frustrated when they want what they want. But yeah, I mean, they've got to make, I don't know what's a tough decision,

just the right decision there and just accept who he is at this point. Well, and when you're not paying a premium for, which they aren't right now based on his contract status, that is a valuable asset. I think back to, was it 2015 or 2016 maybe, there was that one year where Columbus randomly had an amazing power play, and they had like Sam Gagne, who they...

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to start selling online today. Shopify.com slash Bluewire. Signed for like the league minimum playing on their fourth line. And then he just come out on the top unit powerplay and they just had like this beautiful motion. And he wasn't like obviously the trigger man shooter that Oliveson is in this case. But it was that sort of same sentiment of pretty much a pure power play specialist where he's not going to be playing much at even strength. but he's going to generate you some easy offense here or there. And I don't think that's anything to scoff at because as we're seeing, he's an immensely valuable power pulley player and that's literally the only thing

that's been keeping this team afloat so far. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I just don't know if they're ever going to do it. I mean, Kruger digs in when he wants, what he wants. Well, this is a great transition to talk about Jeff Skitter. This is why you're a professional. Wow. I know you're like very over this but we have to we have to like fully unpack all this because

it's good it's all good it's been bewildering it the discourse around it drives me crazy a lack of new odds it's just okay so to sum it up they gave him 855-1-5 minutes with ickel uh he scores 40 goals that year they give them 72 million over eight years then last year in the first year of that deal, they play him primarily with some combination of Marcus Johansson, Connor Shiri, Evan Rodriguez, Vladse, Boudka. I think those were all of his top five-on-five line mates. Cut his minutes. They basically take like a minute at 5-15 off the board, half a minute or so on the power play. His shooting percentage dips and it gets cut in half, which kind of happened on his way out of Carolina. I think a reason why Carolina kind of soured

on him. And he quote unquote only scored 14, 5-1-5 goals last year, all of which, so all of the 14 of his goals were at 5-1-5. That was more than Mark Shafley, Mark Stone, Sasha Barakov, Andre Svetnikov, John Tavares, Patrice Bergeron, Philip Forsberg, to put that into perspective. So they come in this year, and from what I gather, the suggestion or implication was they want to spread the wealth, they feel like he can help drive play on this third line. And 51% shot share, 61% high danger chance share. It seems like they accomplished that. Like obviously the offense wasn't there,

but in terms of playing up to your kind of territorial responsibilities, it seems like they're just fine. And he gets scratched for these past two games. And I guess the question is, like, what are you, if you're being genuine about this and taking it on its face, what are you realistically expecting from a player that's playing full-time with Curtis Lizar and Riley Shean, who have historically been black holes offensively. Shan most memorably in 2016-17, despite playing the full-time season with the Red Wings,

didn't score his first goal until the last game of the season. So it's just like with those two players, yeah, it's obviously not great that he has zero goals and one assist so far, and that looks bad. But were you expecting that he would be crushing it offensively, and the opportunity you were giving him. That's the thing I keep going back to. It seems like it was just this like, sort of they put him in a position to fail in a way,

and he almost didn't fail like they were probably expecting. He would, and he still got punished anyways. Yeah, I think that's, you know, the entire thing that I'm looking at right now. I wrote about this week, and that was the entire thing. I don't know what Kruger wants of him. And really, it's frustrating and kind of what I'm accepting at this point is the simple answer here as well. crew which doesn't like the player.

Amis evident last year and he's doing the same thing and this year he talked in the preseason about a training camp about principles, he has to follow principles and I don't know what that means. I don't know what these principles. Is there defensive principles? He's playing better defensively than he is offensive

or technically he flipped his underlying numbers. Or Cody Weekend and Kyle Lek-Pozo following these principles? Well, that's the thing too, right? It doesn't check and that's why it comes back to he doesn't like the player, but I don't know what you're expecting or what you want out of that line. line. Really, the She and Lazard Skinner line makes them a three-line team. They're winning their

minutes. I mean, I always get back to the objective of the Buffalo Sabres is to not badly lose the minute check like goes, not on the ice. And that line wins their minutes. In almost every measurable metric, goal differential, expected goals, goals against, shot quality against, you know, chances, you said high danger chances. Like the They're winning everything. What do you think is going to happen? You're putting it with Lazar and Shan. Those guys don't score goals.

You're asking them to be a checking line. In his last game, he got no offensive zone starts. He got three defensive zone starts, no offensive zone starts. So he's deployed pretty much in a defensive role, which again, they succeeded at and created offense. I think he's top 20 in the league, individual expected goals. Just the puck's not going in. I just, I don't know what Kruger wants.

If you can't deploy him that way and expect goals, but get everything else where he has him to do in the way you're deploying him and then scratch him. It just, it doesn't, and it keeps coming back to, he just doesn't like the player. And that's, that's the simple answer to all this. Yeah, but you, if you're Ralph Kruger, you have to get over that.

Like, this isn't, this isn't a sunk cost where you, he's stubborn. Right, but this isn't, like, In some cases, when a player, especially if they have hit a certain age, you're like, okay, like this was a bad contract. We're just not going to get value out of this. Let's not try to double down here. Like, let's not play him.

Like, this is not a player. Are you Barry? He's turning 29. 2028. Yeah. He's got six years left at $9 million per. The thing is, though, he's making, I think, $40 million combined in real salary over the next four years. So he's got this no move clause, and I've seen people go like, oh, this is the first

part of the dance where they're going to alienate him into waving his no move. It's like in this climate where like an Adam Henrique for significantly less basically just pass through waivers, you're just not seeing teams taking on financial commitments for one or two years, let alone six years. No one's taking that contract. It doesn't matter. He can say he can, he'll go to any of the 30 other teams. Like it's not happening. And so the bizarre thing for me is like you're a team who's struggling 5-1-5 to score goals, Skinner, although he hasn't so far this year, is a guy who historically scored 5-15 goals

at a very high rate. And, you know, one strength as a team is your power play, as we've talked about so far. And he's just like an all-time great penalty drawer. And I think he's drawn six penalties so far this year. And it's like, if only for that... When I looked, I think it was 19th in the league and penalties drawn per 60 minutes.

Yeah. And it's like, okay, if you're a bottom six guy who literally just draws penalties at a high rate, he can do nothing else and that's going to be valuable for a team. And your team can't score a 5-on-5 only scores in the power play so that makes even more valuable. Yeah, exactly. It's so that's what I keep coming back to. It's just crazy to me.

And so like I said before, I asked Valiket for the clear stats analytics numbers for this. And so evolving hockey has him at 2.93 expected goals at 5-1-5. Natural Static has him at 2.95. CSA has him at 3.7, 5-15 expected goals so far this season. So the public models are underrating the quality of the looks he's been generating so far at how much we expect him to score. And it's just, it's crazy. If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny. But it is sad.

And so I'm not sure what the takeaway is here and sort of what, how they're going to bridge this gap between coach and player. Because if Kruger doesn't like him at this point, Jeff Skinner kind of is what he is. And you and I both agree that he doesn't need to change because that's perfectly valuable. even if he is overpaid. But so I don't understand like how this impasse will be resolved. And the bewildering thing for me is you can envision a scenario where they put him back in

and he scores because he's a good player who's due to score. And the dialogue will be about how he was motivated and how this was actually the right decision all along. And it's like, oh my God. And you know that like those articles and tweets will happen. Oh, absolutely. Epps Kruger will be glorified.

See, he knew what he was doing the whole time. It worked. Stop. This was only a matter of time when that happens. But I don't even know when he's going to get back in. Because I find it hard to believe they're going to play him Thursday against the Devils. They just, you know, you don't want a mess winning lineup, although they took him out of the lineup after they won a game.

But, you know, so they'll ride that winning lineup because Rasmus Haspin had a shot go off his stick from Jack Eichol, so he's got to stay in now. And then what? And maybe against the Flyers on the weekend? Maybe what if they win again? Then he's out again? Then what are we doing here? Now we're at a week, we're at five, right?

or at six, we're at seven games. So it's, I don't know. If they're thinking this is a way to give him the way to the move clause, it's not going to work. He wants to play close to home. And that's one of the reasons he ended up in Buffalo because Carolina, got away with his own move clause. He says, okay, fine, Toronto or Buffalo.

What do you think he's just going to say? Okay, fine, I'll go play in Seattle all over there. No, he doesn't say the same thing. Okay, trade me. Toronto or, I don't know, Montreal. Those are your two options. Good luck. he's not going to make it easy for him

I don't know why he would either he shouldn't I think we need to have a conversation about Ralph Ruger I think we do too I wonder about him I really do the media is enamored with him

and you can A lot of water carrying especially when he got hired too you can see why like listen we bemoan all the time about how this is a sport with no personality or thoughtfulness

or any sort of, you know, dynamic personality qualities beyond hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, 24-7. And, like, in comes this guy who is clearly charming, kind of a worldly guy, well-travel, thoughtful, seems to be fun to talk to. I'm sure a lot of these people who write articles about him and get scoops loved chatting with him. Sure. But beyond the theoretical idea of him, like, do we genuinely have any reason to believe that he is best suited to be behind an NHL bench and can be an effective NHL coach.

You seem to at least, you know, the past year and a half now or a year and a third of a season, he has certainly constructed good defensive results. So that is something like they're not, you know, completely porous in their own end. And it's clearly by design. So, you know, that is something that I would point to, I guess. But just in terms of the personnel usage, the adjustments, the system, the strategy, I think it's especially being exposed a little bit this season where you've got these three straight games against the Islanders

and you're just kind of approaching it certainly shorthanded but you're approaching it each game the same way and it's like you're playing right into the Islanders' hands like they would love for you to play this type of way because they're better at it. They're going to beat you at it. Yeah, well he tried to pledge that. That's what happened in the last Islanders game.

He tried to play the Islander style. It worked for a period. And the Islander's like, okay, this is cool. We're just in a play our game and then we're going to beat you. Yeah. Just you don't beat the Islanders, except their own game. They're the best in the league.

You can't try to do that and they tried it every time and it's hurt him. So I don't know. You know, the thing I've always said about Kruger is, I think, long term, that he's at eventually at some point you're going to move him to the front office role. Because if I remember correctly, before he got hired, even the interview he did, and he talked about wanting to come back in a front office role. And then all of a sudden he's a coach. And I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Because we heard the connection between Krueger and the Sabers, like, oh, maybe there's, can bring him as a president of hockey officer some sort of thing or a team president and then he's the

coach and that okay i guess it's just you know so that's the dynamic i think has always been there and i think he can act like you mentioned he's a good guy um he's well spoke he's intelligent um you know from even just a world you know perspective um i think he'd be a good guy to act as a buffer between the baguulas who put their foot in their mouth every opportunity they get and you know he can be the guy to stop that. As a coach, as a tactician of the modern game, we haven't seen anything

that has indicated that he's good at that. Going back to Edmonton, maybe he was unfairly fired, but still the results weren't good. Only good results he has as a coach is a small tournament, you know, for Team Europe, playing the low event style

that can work in a small tournament, right? Yeah. The same that works in the playoffs. So, you know, so that that's, I don't know, So my hope is maybe after this season, I'm like, all right, well, if we're going to bump you up and we're going to get a new coach, because Adams technically didn't hire him.

You know, so maybe that comes about. I mean, Julian's out there now, Budro is out there. You know, I saw a thing from Pierre LeBron talking about, you know, what if Rob Bremdenmore is a free agent? He used to work with Kevin Adams. And, you know, so maybe that's an outside chance they could look at too. So there's names out there. Even Galon, I don't think I mentioned him.

He's still out there. So there's some names. they could run down if they want to make a change, but I don't know. I think eventually he's going to go there, but I just don't know when it's going to happen. Oh, if you want lack of offensive creativity, can I offer you one Claude Julianne?

Right. Who I think would be a, I should say, Adol jokes is I had a massive step up in terms of tactics and squeezing results out of this team. But, yeah, I wonder. It certainly seems like the connection and relationship with Taylor Hall was a reason why Taylor Hall came, And I think anyone who's...

And Jack Eichael likes them a lot. Yep. Which is important. It's important in the situation where are right now. I think you need to keep Michael as happy as possible. And I think, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but everyone I've talked to about this seems to believe that I'm not sure how far along in the process they are, but like the belief is that Taylor Hall will be staying in Buffalo for for some time.

Like this isn't really a one-year deal. Like it was, if you look at it on the cap-friendly page, but the connection there, it seems like this will be more of a long-term relationship. It's interesting because actually you had the conversation that was only about that today that told me they think that's a little bit overblown and to not kind of say that's going

to happen yet. They said that right now is probably at best 50-50. But they did say to me though was unless they're way out of it. They don't expect to all be traded. But they said, you know, the LeBron I know, he had their article or the comment or whatever. They said, you know, that's maybe

a little bit of crap for the horse kind of thing because they don't think they're there that far yet. Well, if you're pitching a player on signing away the rest of their productive years, this season certainly has not been a very enticing one so far. Right. You know, exactly. Exactly. But, okay, so let's talk about some several outings here, because I think if you look at it

now, I believe they're currently in this stretch of ridiculous scheduling where they have like 36 games in 63 days or something by my count, which is just insane leading up to mid-April. There are certainly difficulties in terms of if you were going to improve this team in terms of trading. You and I discussed through messages about how I think I'm a TSA at Coleman would be very interesting, especially considering all of their injuries in the blue line because I think he still has quite a bit of game left.

He's only got one year left on his contract at a very reasonable hit. And certainly, you know, the way teams divvy out ice time is usually an indication of how in favor that player is. with our organization and his has been like as significantly cut as I could remember for a player that's still somewhere near their prime. And so it seems like one foot is out of the door there and it's just a matter of where the landing spot is going to be. And so he'd be an interesting player, but I don't know if you're in a position necessarily to be making moves like that when you are where you are in terms of the Sabres right now and the fact that you probably wouldn't

get that player in your lineup for at least, you know, a certain amount of time, especially with this schedule of 36 games and 63 days, like missing two weeks could be a significant number of games you're missing, so I'm not sure if it's worth it. Right. And I know the teams have, like, figured out some way around it, whether having players drive or private planes that goes like 15 to like seven or something like that. But still, yeah, I mean, they're going to miss games. So that's the difficult part.

But, I mean, you're looking at a situation right now on the left side of the blue line. It's Dahlene. And then it's a rookie Jacob Bryson. It's Matt Irwin. And then it's Brandon. and which is, ugh, you know? So I feel like if you want to, and then there's the, you know, the Friedman report to the, that they have Brandon Montour out there.

So I don't know if the McCabe injury is going to prevent them from doing that, or they're going to hold until Rich Lining comes back, but I think they need to address the left side of their defense. You know, a guy that I really like that I think is underutilized in Montreal, and maybe now that Julian's gone, I don't know if that changes things, but Brett Kulak is somebody that I would look at. I think he's a guy who could, you know, he's a cheap contract, which they don't have a lot of cash space, but now they have some LTIR they could use if they really wanted to with McCabe and Gergensons.

But yeah, I mean, I think he's been in the other line. I'm kind of rotating with Mette in Montreal. So I've always liked him, and I think they don't value as much as they should. He's kind of one of the nerds, you know, underappreciated players, I guess you could say. So, no, if it was me, I wouldn't target a guy like Ocomleton to cost a lot of money, or not a lot of money, a lot of assets to go acquire him. I just don't think they're that position, but I would definitely try to run down a player like Kulak,

or even Mette, if they do decide to move him. We know he wants out. Yeah, I'm really interested in the decision-making process and sort of how they're reaching their conclusions, especially with the front office reshuffling during the off-season and sort of what, like, do we have any indication of what that process is like in terms of the hierarchy or the voices

involved right now because I keep coming back to it like we talked about it and it's it's a small thing in isolation but like how you possibly could look at cody eiken last year and decide to give him two years as a free agent and now there's sort of the owner saw him play in the cup finals i'm not kidding i mean it's it's so brutal because when you're when your best players aren't producing the way they aren't so far you just really cannot before to be giving away any minutes and pretty much every time that line is on the ice, they're just giving away those minutes to an extent.

I'm curious, like what is the process right now in Buffalo in terms of evaluating players and the choices they are making? I mean, it's, Adams a de facto GM. And the way I put it is, it's Adams is a GM.

He has no assistant GM, so his assistant GM is Ralph Kruger, and I honestly believe that. So it's kind of a one-two punch with those two. But yeah, I mean, it all falls back into the baguulas, you know, and you could just see it. In the draft, the baguulets are sitting at the table during free agency. Both the baguas are sitting at the table.

And there was this video they put out about, you know, Taylor Hall. And when they, you know, they showed some clips from, you know, Free Agency Day and how they kind of rained down Taylor Hall. And there was a closed door, just audio thing, you know, with Adams and Begoula. And Pagula talked about, you know, how, you know, standing hall shows that we're going to be a cup contender now. Like, dude, what? How out of touch kind of are you?

You know, it's so that that's the concerning part that, you know, he has his favorites. Rissalainen is a favorite of the owner. And that's one of the reasons I believe that he's still here. You know, honestly, I have a feeling that once he hears about or does know

that they're not pleased about paying Skinner $9,000 to not play because that was a, there was a big issue that came up over the summer July 1st, all those bonuses were due. About all these players that are owed bonuses, and they had to pay out that don't play that much. Well, the Sabres have never made a bad roster decision based on bonuses, have they?

I know, I know, I know. So, yeah, I think the owners are heavily involved here, and I think that's part of the problem. Now, I personally give Adams full credit for what he's been able to do. This is a first-time general manager. Not only a first-time general manager, this is a guy who really has never been in a hockey-ups front office. Before he was hired, he was in charge of human resources for the Buffalo Sabers.

like he was their business VP or someone that forgot his exact title. So that's what he was doing. I know he's played hockey. He's been around the game. So he had experience there, but not really ever in a front office role. But he made some good moves. He got Eric Stahl.

He got Taylor Hall, whether that was Kruger's help or not. Tobias Reader was a good addition. Riley Shan looks like a good edition, you know, for cheap. So he's made some nice moves. I don't know how much he's hamstrung. He doesn't have a lot of help around him. No assistant general manager.

There's nobody with experience in that front office. You know, he just has the one analytics guy, Matt Ellis, Dan Girardi as a player personnel guys. That's really it. And Ralph Kruger's gut feeling. And Ralph Kruger. But yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, it's tricky because I think we can definitively say from years of experience and countless examples that making big decisions based off of these kind of wacky percentages that they're kind of incurring this season is a bad idea. Like allowing it to influence your judgment on any player is terrible and you're going to wind up regretting it. And so I just wonder like how you even approach that right now. Like I, for me, it's interesting because I think people are understandably focused on Jack Eichol

and his feelings and how, you know, if he wants out and what I would take to get him. And I understand why people do that to get to get clicks. and have people talking. But like for me, I think every single smart team that's eyeing the Sabres right now is having many more internal conversations about Sam Reinhart than they are Jack Hekel.

Yeah, they should be. You know, a 915 PDO, a sub five on ice shooting percentage, a bit of a tricky negotiation this past off season is an RFA now, a player who, I don't know what it is about him. How would you describe it in terms of something about his playing style

just like causes people to, to disrespect him. It reminds me of what really flashy. Because he's not, right? Yeah, he's not flashy.

He was a second overall pick. And when you get second overall picks, you want the guy who was on, I know, flashy, look all these fancy pansy moves he makes and that's not his style. He's just, he's not the quickest skater,

which a lot of people beat him up on, but you don't have to be because he thinks the game so quickly. I mean, you saw it against New Jersey. If you watched that game, just the two plays he made to set up the power play goal, then another one for the other goal. So it's just,

he's so undervalued and so underrated. There's people who call him soft and he can't play in front of the network, but this guy just takes the beating and always gets up. So it's not how underappreciated he is, and I wonder how underappreciated the Sabres are. Honestly, I think if he wasn't Eichael's closest friend in the team, I wonder if he'd still be here. And that's also part of the keeping Eichael happy.

They trade a lot of Eichael's buddies, Begosian, going all the way back to Jamie McGinn. Evander Kane was close with him Ryan O'Reilly was close with him too though there was a craziness that they didn't get along which came turned back to be completely false so they still keep in contact O'Reilly and Eichael so you know I kind of wonder too

while we talk about Ryan Hart if I go still around you know I don't really know if they're going to want to touch that I guess I would say amazing falling ass backwards into a great decision of keeping an awesome player because he's friends of someone Sabre style though right

Sabre style so good Oh, so good. Yeah, so I guess we haven't really talked about Eichl and all that much. We kind of tangentially been like referencing them and stuff. I just, I really thought that was like the least interesting part of this. Like, yes, Ikel having two goals and one at 515 is, is weird and certainly not ideal for the Sabres. But like, I went back and watched all of his shots so far.

I know you wrote about this recently. Like the raid is there. Like the, it's not like it's being in. inflated with empty calorie shots, like all the quality is there. I don't see anything technically that makes me think that something has significantly changed. I think shooting 4% at this point is just a complete aberration. I guess the one functional question, if you were the Sabres, though, would be, all right, he's clearly not a 4% shooter. But is he going to be a 16% shooter like he was last year? Or is he going to be more of a 9 to 10 like he was for the first four years of his career?

Not that it changes your opinion of him, but I do think in terms of the goals scoring ceiling, clearly I think there's a pretty big gap between kind of expectations depending on which side of that argument you fall. Yeah, I think he way overshot expectation last year. We've never really seen it. I think he was like 14 goals over expected overall, which is nuts. So I think realistically he's around that 10% shooter,

which is fine. If he's going to give you, depending on how much he just shoot at a high volume. Right. So, you know, what if he gets you, 25 to 30, then he's going to give you. I mean, he's a decent playmaker. Gives you another 50 to 60 and assists. That's fine. You know, the crazy part for me when I look at Eichol, if you look at the public bottles, the underlying, his on-ice impact, it's actually better than what it was last year.

Yeah, defensively. And that was going to the roof, right? Right, and that's when he got MVP votes. So, like, that's the crazy part. If the puck was going in the net for them and they were in the conversation, I feel like he would beat, you know, know if he was scoring goals if he had the points to kind of back it up i think he'd be in that MVPish conversation again so you know it's another frustrating part it's just i don't know it's a lot of people i think in buffalo are i don't want to say turning on him um there's a lot of narrative

coming out that isn't true that he's just not a good leader doesn't care um you know he's been here so long it's obviously he's the issue because he's only thing that hasn't changed so it's him So let's, you know, trade him, whatever, who cares? It's just, it's kind of a nonsense thing. And even the trade stuff he referenced, which I think is overblown right now. Realistically, not only from what I've been told, but the Sabres think and kind of where it's going, but just some of realistically logical point,

the Sabres have until 2022. That's when his no movement clause kicks in. He's not asking for a trade after a 56 game season, COVID pandemic, in allowing you to trade him to Ottawa. Yeah. That he's not doing that. He's in a way until no movement kicks in. And then when he wants to get trade, he's going to hold you down and make him trade you to either L.A., the Rangers or Boston, because that's where he'd want to go.

He doesn't want to go to Minnesota or Ottawa or Montreal or, you know, anywhere or Winnipeg. Like, he's just not going to let you do that. He's going to want to go where he wants to go, and he's going to wait until his no movement kicks in, and then he's going to hold his thumb down on you if he really wants to move at that point. So it's just, yeah, I think a lot of people are getting carried away with the trade things because it's not happening in the LLTs. I'd be very, he'd have to get really frustrated, because then he doesn't have any power in control. They can go wherever they want to go with him. Well, he survived this long.

I don't know what would happen. They would finally push him over the edge. He's trooped through it, so we'll see. But, yeah, I mean, just hopefully he starts scoring some more goals so we can stop having these conversations about how he looks disinterested, because there's just nothing. I part of me, I know he had an office. an injury that I think is carried into this season.

Pardon me wonders if he does have something else too. Maybe he's nursing. But it's just so weird that all the underlines and the rate generation and everything is right there. Like it's not showing up. Everything is right there. It's not showing up in the numbers, which is bizarre. Yeah. I think his speed is the only thing that kind of makes me concern that he might have something

because he doesn't have that explosiveness. Every single night. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. And that is what ultimately makes them special. So you're right.

All right, Chad, let's get out of here. Plug some stuff. Where can people check out your work, and what are you working on these days? Yeah, so over the pandemic, I think I talked about this last time, I started my own website, which was a bold move for a team that's not going to play for 10 months. But it's worked out. So expected Buffalo is the site. You cover the Sabres.

We're more of a stats. Look, advanced stats, kind of focused on the Sabres. There's three of us, as myself, Anthony and Eddie, three of us kind of hammering away in the Sabres and the numbers stuff behind it. So that's where you can find me, expected Buffalo.com. That's where most of my content is right now. And then our podcast,

expected Buffalo the podcast. You know, can't find that anywhere to iTunes, Google Play, Spotify. We share, we go through our Sabres misery there. So if you ever want to, you know, join us there, it's good stuff. We really want to revel in the Sabres misery and up and downness of just being a Sabres follower and fan.

Awesome, bad. Well, this is a blast. I'm glad we got to talk away through it. hopefully we provided some therapy for people out there. And we'll chat sometime down the road again. All right, man. Thanks. I appreciate it. Cheers.

The Hockey P.DOCAS with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.