Like periods in a hockey game, this mailbag will take place in 3 parts:

Trade Deadline

@HlyGasySelassie: Who are some fancy stats darlings that might make sense for the Sabres to add at the deadline? 

@Timmeejr: What depth pieces do you target in TDL return? Let’s say you get a hall trade, pick and piece who isn’t panning out?

Man, this is tough because all of their trade pieces are hurt right now. Eakin probably gets you a pick but nothing more as a traditional rental. Maybe Hagg as well? Anderson could move to a contender as well I guess but even then I don’t think the Sabres would want to move him because they don’t have the luxury of being able to move goalies around. If Colin MIller was healthy, he feels like the only guy who maybe would get a team to move a prospect if they had confidence that he would re-sign. 

I’ve got one deal though that might not be “fancy stats” but it fits a little bit. (Try to) Trade Jacob Bryson for Will Borgen. Their underlying numbers aren’t too dissimilar, with Bryson being the better offensive defenseman and Borgen having the edge defensively. The Kraken haven’t been afraid to use lefty defensemen on the right side, and Bryson’s high-event play wouldn’t scare off their more analytical front office minds. Plus, the guy who drafted Bryson works in Seattle now. 

Like I said, not a lot of analytical strategies there, but give it a try and otherwise keep acquiring picks. And then finally, in pure NHL GM fashion, discussing fun trade ideas feels like more of a June conversation

Kozyshank on Discord: Are there any other league gems from the SHL/KHL/Liga that the Sabres should consider scooping up?

Kozy and I shared a back and forth further about this directly in the discord, and for me, it’s kind of a no-brainer to absolutely not pursue a European free agent for a few years. After Antipin and Pilut were underutilized and returned to Europe, and with Ruotalainen having yet to establish a defined NHL outlook, work on developing the guys you’ve drafted before adding to what is beginning to become a logjam for time in Rochester. (And now that Power is coming in, that’s one less spot that Pilut would even have if I was to vouch for him to come back to North America.

Analytics 🙂

@lazytown716: How important is f/o win %? Is there such a thing as, “ahh, that’s close enough to 50%, you can take draws %”  and an “oh, buddy, you’re killing us out there %”? I guess what I want to know is, do we need Cody Eakin?

There is still a lot more work to go in the public analytics space to truly understand the value of the faceoff. The tracking data is slowly getting there, but we will need to know what it means to win a faceoff before we can assign value (How do the players value the puck after winning possession? How does it differ by zone? How quickly does that possession reach its conclusion?) Things like that. 

Inferentially at this point, the centering of faceoff performances league-wide taking place smack dab at 50% would suggest to me that there’s more importance on reaching 50% than having the best faceoff taker in the league. And even there, we haven’t seen enough abysmal faceoff takers to have it be a long-term problem for any team (A shocking NHL-small sample per game problem). 

So long answer made short, it’s important to have competent faceoff takers, but it’s not enough for someone like Mark Jankowski to be kept out of the lineup because they need Cody Eakin’s faceoffs.

Rc on Discord: There’s a lot of different types of prospect information out there these days (the scouts like Pronman, Wheeler, and Peters, the Byron Bader points model, scouches tracking, the xG from Patrick Bacon / JFresh). How much value do you put into each of them? After I take in all the info, I generally feel more conflicted than anything.

At the end of the day, player evaluation comes down to people wondering what it means for a player to be good vs bad, and in the draft and prospect context, everyone is asking their version of finding out what players will be NHL players someday, and how quickly can we tell that a prospect is going to follow that NHL path. 

Whether we as an analytics community like it or not, right now, there is not enough publicly available data available to distinguish rankings from those that are scout-y vs those that are calculating junior to NHL projections. So I guess my advice to avoid being conflicted is to take it all in, choose what makes the most sense to you to weigh more deeply, and the more you take in, the more you will know about the different players to make your internal rankings. 

Of course, the more hockey data the better no matter what.

That Guy who Used to Live in Town

Frostillicus on Discord: Does Eichel get booed when he comes back, and does he get a tribute video?

After staring blankly ahead for a good five minutes before starting to type, I’ve concluded that he will get a tribute video. It doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to wish him luck in his future. It doesn’t have to be cut with alternating clips of Alex Tuch talking about the 05-06 Sabres. They just need to acknowledge that he was the face of their franchise for about 5 and a half seasons.

Plus if they do nothing, that’ll probably look worse.

Would it even be an unpopular opinion to say that I think the arena response will be indifferent outside of a handful of people giving earnest boos and an equal handful giving an earnest standing ovation? For the amount of build-up that there was to the trade and the time that has passed combined with the collapse in franchise enthusiasm in the last 3 or so years to this point we’re at now where only half the building is even filled on a given night, it all just feels like a formality compared to the return of past players like Briere and Drury and even O’Reilly. 

Chad D on Discord (Hmm name rings a bell): Over/Under 9500 fans in the building if Eichel plays when Vegas comes back

After consulting with the good folk at Puckluck, I’m saying a close over at an even 10k. 

Photo Credit: Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images