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Anyone care to tell me why the SABERS are playing so DARN GOOD ( Discussion )

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Snapshot85

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They've been awful for so long, you'd think it was only a matter of time before they turned things around. Maybe this is the year they do it?

 

Or maybe they'll fall off a cliff like they did last season. Lots of season left so we'll see. 

 

It'd be funny to see them make the playoffs and go further than Toronto though. 

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1 hour ago, GhostsOf1994 said:

Add Tage Thompson to that too... I'm almost jealous except they're in Buffalo :sadno:

Plenty of ex players are still in Buffalo.  Scotty Bowman even lived here for decades after he was fired, but then moved to Florida when he started slowing down.

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Buffalo picks litter the league. Not only is most of their current top lines and players from the draft, these are the ones that got away.

 

Source for the players listed below:

 

 

 

2006 - Alex Biega (Det).  

 

2008 - Tyler Myers (Van), Tyler Ennis (Ott).

 

2009 - Zack Kassian (Edm), Marcus Foligno (Min), Brayden McNabb (Veg)

 

2010 - Mark Pysyk (Fla)

 

2011- Joel Armia (Ott)

 

2013 - Nikita Zadorov (Col), JT Compher (Col), Justin Bailey (Utica)

 

2014 - Brendan Lemieux (NYR)

 

2015 - Brendan Ghule (Ana)

 

2016 - Alexander Nylander (Chi)

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1) They have an amazing coach in Ralph Krueger. 

 

2) They have added some great pieces on defense. Their defensive core went from being a disaster, to being one of the better cores in the league (Dahlin, Risto, Miller, Jokiharju, Montour, Scandella, McCabe). 

 

3) Rasmus Dahlin is a year older, and is getting better and better by the day. He's looking unreal out there.

 

4) Victor Olofsson is a bonafide sniper, and is lighting it up with Eichel and Reinhart. He will challenge for the Calder this year.

 

5) They added some great pieces to improve their offensive depth (Olofsson, Johansson, Vesey). 

 

The Sabres are definitely as good as they have shown. 

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11 hours ago, 6string said:

Agreed.

 

The Oilers bit the bait from CBC, TSN etc sales pitch on the "up and coming coach from the Marlies Dallas Eakins" that was delivered.

 

Fools!

 

while the Nux bit the bait on WD.. 

 

Eakins went 36 63 14 in 113 games. That is truly awful.. 

 

Willie's tenure in Van was definitely more successful, but somehow out of the 2, he is the one not currently coaching in the NHL.. and Anaheim is undefeated this year..

 

my guess is they both belong in the AHL.. time will tell.. 

 

Edit: ANA is 4-1-0 this year

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Ralph Krueger is known as a formidable motivator.  He is apparently very strong in getting players to buy in and team concept.

 

He was responsible for well over 10 years of the Swiss team.  Team Canada appoints a new staff each tournament while often in Europe there is one coach appointed for the mandate and it's exclusive - there's no coaching another team.  They are typically responsible for everything from youth development to coaching the main team.

 

As such he has a strong development background.  That colourful Swiss coach at the U20 was explaining that there is such a small pool given the size of the country that you can't let talent slip by - you have to find them, develop them and also keep them motivated.

 

He also had to find a way to compete with a team that is often mismatched against the bigger nations.  So he had to get his players to buy in - it's at the team level and systems that the difference had to be made as individually they did not have the talent of the better nations.

 

In his introductory interview he talked of using analytics to improve the team while not limiting creativity and the flow of the game.

 

Krueger's European background also brings a different perspective.

 

Advancement in tracking is showing that a lot of shots taken in a game aren't that dangerous - an easy stop for the goalie and a loss of possession.  Trotz says he is using tracking to gain in efficiency.   He talks of not wasting shots and of 1st creating the play then taking the shot, vs get shots on net and hope for goods things to happen.  Krueger has experience with that approach.

 

This is from an article by Portzline on goalie Merzlikins coming from the Swiss League  - he interviewed CBJ's and Detroit's goal tending coaches and writes in the Athletic (paywall):

European play is much more stylish and creative. In the NHL, no shot on goal is a bad shot on goal. But forcing a shot — one that’s an odd angle, or not a strong scoring chance — is almost regarded as selfish in Europe.

This gets back to the first goal Merzlikins allowed Friday.

In his years playing in Switzerland, Merzlikins learned to assume the puck-carrier in such a situation was looking for a backdoor option or perhaps planning to carry the puck behind the net while he waited for something to materialize.

In the NHL, almost any clean look at the goaltender is going to result in a shot on goal.

“Guys funnel pucks from bad angles,” Salajko said, “almost ‘nothing’ shots, but you put them on net, because the feeling is there’s no such thing as a bad shot.

 

If the team has the skills to execute it might be more efficient to try and score off high quality plays that will give any goalie trouble to stop, rather than try to capitalise on a large volume of low quality ones and hope for the goalie to not be sharp that game.  Will be interesting to see if / how Krueger balances both approaches.

 

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It was inevitable that the Oilers and Sabres show some improvement with good coaching. There's no way a team with McDavid/Draisaitl and Eichel and Dahlin should be bad.

Maybe not deep enough for a cup run. But they should be dangerous enough to make the playoffs. 

 

Didn't the Sabres storm out of the gate last year too?

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