00:00If they were to make the Connor-Hellebuck trade, would that needle move at all?
00:07Yes, I think it would, and I think it might buy a good amount.
00:10I think they would climb into the top ten.
00:14I think they would probably jump teams like Washington.
00:17I mean, I think they very easily could do that.
00:20So, yeah, they were not that far.
00:24They actually were a little bit lower, by the way, to start the season,
00:26so maybe teams have fallen below them.
00:28All right.
00:29Like Montreal, for instance.
00:30Montreal had better odds, and now they have the same odds
00:32because they've had a worse start than the Sabres have,
00:36and maybe so have a few other teams.
00:38But, yeah, I think they would go up.
00:40I think you would have to.
00:43If you're seeing a team that is, in one hand, not being able to get saves,
00:49like it's one of their weaknesses so far on the year,
00:52and they just plug in the best goalie of his generation,
00:56who won the gold medal last year and won two of the last three Vezina trophies.
01:01Yeah, that team's odds would go up.
01:03And that can happen, too, just from even if you make moves, right?
01:06Like Washington didn't prove anything on the ice.
01:09Washington went out and made moves during the offseason to get better,
01:12and guess what happened to their Stanley Cup odds before they ever played a game?
01:15They went up.
01:16So I would think expectations would raise for them,
01:19and I think all of that would follow suit.
01:21It is.
01:22At five on five, by the way, it's worth pointing out.
01:24Like, I know this is not exactly perfectly predictive.
01:28I'm on naturalstatrick.com.
01:30The Sabres save percentage at five on five.
01:32Do you know where they rank?
01:33No.
01:3431st.
01:35It's bad.
01:3731st.
01:37Now, save percentage isn't exactly perfect because not all saves are the same.
01:41Right.
01:42But that is one of those ones.
01:44I don't know.
01:45Do I not have to dig into that?
01:47Is it just because it confirms what I already think about them
01:50and how they have not had good enough goaltending to this point?
01:54Like, how many points does it cost them?
01:55Yeah, pretty much.
01:57To be 31st in save percentage, people would say,
01:59so PDO is your puck luck, right?
02:01Your shooting percentage plus save percentage.
02:03And that's something teams, people will always look to say,
02:07well, that'll average out.
02:09If that's really high, you can expect it to come down.
02:12If it's really low, you can expect it to come up
02:13because these two things make for your puck luck.
02:16Sometimes your puck luck lasts the whole season.
02:18Anyway, in PDO, the Sabres are near the bottom of the league,
02:21but that is pretty much all because of save percentage.
02:24Their shooting percentage is about middle, normal,
02:27and their save percentage is 31st.
02:30Mm-hmm.
02:32I feel like there have been a lot of these years, though,
02:35where their shooting percentage is, like, top 10.
02:37So even them being middle is probably down from where it's typically been at.
02:41You can win that way.
02:43Mm-hmm.
02:43Like, this is where, like, oh, the Sabres are,
02:47I don't know where they're at right now,
02:49sixth in expected goals at five on five.
02:51Last year in shooting percentage, the Sabres were fifth.
02:53Fifth.
02:53Okay.
02:54And I think there are a lot of years where they were that high recently.
02:56Like, since 22, 23.
02:58And save percentage, they were sixth.
02:59Right.
02:59It's great.
03:00So a top six in both of those.
03:01So you get 109 points and you win the division.
03:05They, you can't overcome goaltending like that,
03:09but how much of the other stuff do you really need to work for you?
03:15The Sabres, the only, the only reason it hasn't collapsed,
03:20the same way Philly, it's kind of collapsed for them to start the season so far,
03:24is because they are such a good team at five on five.
03:28Because think of what else is going wrong.
03:30Goaltending's going terribly.
03:32Penalty kills going horribly.
03:33They're the worst power play in hockey.
03:35You got those three things all going about as bad as you could have hoped
03:39or could have thought to go into the year.
03:42And they're not, are they in a playoff spot?
03:45I know it's so early in the season.
03:46They're very, they'll be, if they win tonight, they're back in one.
03:48They're like, they're 10 points.
03:50They're in the hunt.
03:51Yeah.
03:51You're right there with everybody else.
03:53Almost everybody's in the hunt.
03:54Philly is not.
03:55Yep.
03:55You're in the fight.
03:55And the only reason you're in the fight is because you're such a good team
03:59at five on five.
04:00That's the only thing that is keeping them afloat.
04:02And it's maybe the most important thing you'd like to have,
04:05but I don't think you can just do that.
04:07I got to have something else.
04:09And like Ottawa is a good example of this last year.
04:12Ottawa never got saves all year.
04:14Like it just never came.
04:15Never.
04:15All mark in the playoffs.
04:16Maybe they finally kind of got there.
04:18How'd they make the playoffs?
04:20They were one of the best five on five teams in the league,
04:23and they were one of the best power plays in the league.
04:26You had two things working for you.
04:28And I think if you're the Sabres, you need the five on five to continue.
04:32Just keep doing what you're doing on that front, getting more of the chances,
04:36more of the shots, more of the expected goals, carry the play.
04:41You keep doing that.
04:42I might only need one other thing.
04:45I really might only need one other thing.
04:48And what do you think that's going to be?
04:49Is that going to be the power play?
04:51I could not imagine it being the power play.
04:53I can't imagine that being the one thing that comes back and is good for them.
04:57But goaltender, if I add Hellebuck, and that could, I guess, also add in penalty kill
05:02because those two things, it's hard to get great goaltending in, I guess,
05:05not have a good penalty kill.
05:06If I can add Hellebuck, I don't care if my power play is good
05:09because I feel like I can make the playoffs without it being good.
05:11I don't need everything to be good, but I got to have one more thing than I have right now.
05:17And then I think they can make it.
05:19And this trade would solve that.
05:21Or it could just be Almark, or excuse me, Almark, Lucanen
05:27continuing to play a little bit better and better as it's kind of arrows going up a little bit.
05:32Sure.
05:33Or if Lyon can do something coming back.
05:35Like, it's not lost on me that they could, with the three guys they have now,
05:39do better than they have so far.
05:41We think Lucanen tonight, right?
05:43Definitely.
05:44UPL tonight?
05:45I would be.
05:46In Lyon, we've been waiting for him to come, to return.
05:49Ellis, and they're not happy with how he's played, I don't think so.
05:52Yeah.
05:52Probably Lucanen tonight.
05:54I would think Lucanen tonight.
05:55The GM saying what he said about Ellis yesterday was striking to me
05:59after he defended UPL the way he did because I think UPL's been worse.
06:03For people that didn't hear yesterday, what did he say about Ellis?
06:06He was like, Ellis hasn't been as good as he was last year for us.
06:10And that was, like, not what he said about UPL, really.
06:14Like, and UPL's been worse than that.
06:16So, I found that interesting.
06:19I found that it makes me think that he's thinking about it more than he's thinking about much else,
06:26which, what does that tell you?
06:29It could mean a lot of things, but it makes me think that he's worried about it.
06:32And if he's worried about Ellis, what does that mean?
06:37Does that mean that he's got, he knows he might, you know, be in a spot where he's going to
06:41need to play at some point
06:42because he's got Connor Hellebuck playing most of the games?
06:46Or is it, you know, he's just worried about it because he's worried about it because Lyon's been hurt and
06:51he had a setback?
06:52Yeah.
06:53803-0550.
06:54Every time we talk about this Hellebuck thing now, I want to shout out Matt Perino's tweet about how this
06:59is the most annoying sports saga ever
07:00because I do feel that.
07:03It's still live and happening.
07:04It's so dragged out.
07:05But I do feel like it is a saga that must end for everyone's sake.
07:11Yeah.
07:12If he got traded to Utah in five minutes, at least we could say, like, it's done.
07:16Okay.
07:17Right.
07:18Whatever.
07:18There was one, you know, we're on this conversation about how big a difference he would make for the Sabres.
07:24I did a little work on this yesterday.
07:26That season last year that everyone is saying is so horrible is better than every single one of Ukopeka Lukanen's
07:32seasons in his entire career but two.
07:35Mm-hmm.
07:37So the floor on Hellebuck is a lot, lot, lot higher than the floor is on Lukanen.
07:44And so, like, that is just to illustrate my point about, like, even if he's not the stellar Hart Trophy
07:51winning version of himself,
07:53him bad is still better than almost anybody else bad.
07:58Him bad is league average.
07:59Him bad is one goal saved above expected this last season.
08:04Like, that is his terrible down year that everybody is mad at.
08:08Sure.
08:08And it's an average NHL hockey player.
08:10So the argument, I guess, would be if you don't want this, if you're arguing, if he stays there, I
08:15already have that, why spend assets to get that?
08:18I guess that's the case against it.
08:20You're not even there, though, with this.
08:22But I understand.
08:22Like, the idea is that's bad for him.
08:25If he stayed bad, yes, you're not there, but how far off of that are you?
08:28Right.
08:29I don't want to spend a ton of assets to move up 5% in win probability for the Cup
08:35or a series.
08:36I'd want it to go up, like, how much am I spending in assets?
08:39I'm spending this player, this prospect, and this prospect, and this pick.
08:43I better go up 22%, not just 4%.
08:47So, whatever.
08:48I know these are, like, vacuous numbers.
08:50Right, but that's – but the thing there is that you are as close as you can get to guaranteeing
08:55at least some level of improvement.
08:57Right.
08:57And you know that your ceiling is a Hart Trophy winner, and, like, that's a bet I think you should
09:04make, personally.
09:07Because that year last year, he's hurt, the team is bad, there's a lot of extenuating circumstances that aren't just,
09:13he's bad.
09:14We've got some calls to get to on some Bill stuff, but you're making me think about this with Yarmo.
09:19If Yarmo is able to wait as long as it takes, another week, another two weeks, a month, and then
09:25the deal gets done, and people think he didn't pay a lot for that muffler –
09:30sorry, that's a commercial thing – he's going to get a ton of credit as being a stone-cold poker
09:39player that you can't beat.
09:40He's going to get so much credit for waiting it out.
09:43If he comes out on top of this thing and he, like, looks like he won, he's going to get
09:49a major rep here, and I think nationally, for, like, this guy.
09:53I mean, look at what he pulled off here.
09:56He kind of has that rep as being shrewd and –
09:59He's an assassin.
10:00And aggressive, and yet – I asked him yesterday, do you feel like there's more for you to do, right?
10:07Like, do you feel the offseason people expect a lot, do you feel like you have more to do here?
10:10And put your stamp on the team.
10:12And he said all he cares about is winning.
10:13It's not about his stamp on the team.
10:15But this would, of course, be a big, big step towards that.
10:19I think it's close to that.
10:20If they just get it across the line, we already pretty much know what the draft package was.
10:28We know what it was at the draft, right?
10:31Like, they were going to be giving up the 20th pick, moving down from 4 to 8.
10:35They were going to be giving up, what, Friedman's detail that a lot of people have.
10:38If Norris was going to be in the deal, Mirka was going to be in the deal, Lukanen was going
10:42to be in the deal,
10:43all that stuff was going to Winnipeg.
10:47All that stuff is not going to Winnipeg if they make a deal this week.
10:50I mean, a lot of it can't go to Winnipeg.
10:52I mean, they're not going to trade the 20th pick, if you even care about it.
10:56Norris wouldn't be in it.
10:57Lukanen wouldn't be in it.
10:58McLeod would be in it instead.
10:59So, I think if they make a deal this week, that is what's going to happen.
11:04He's going to get a ton of credit, because he's probably going to pay less than he would have in
11:10June.
11:10And on your point about what the ceiling is for Hellebuck,
11:15I would even say that goes beyond what Larkin would be.
11:19If Hellebuck is at his best, he's the best player on the Buffalo Sabres.
11:24That's true.
11:24And he's one of the best players in the league.
11:26Dylan Larkin's not the best player on the Buffalo Sabres if he shows up today.
11:29No.
11:30And he also costs you twice as much.
11:33That's true.
11:34So, honestly, if Larkin put the Sabres on his list today,
11:39I don't know that I'd want to just do that.
11:41I'm going to trade double for him when this guy costs half as much
11:46and plays a position that I need more right now.
11:52Doesn't matter, because Larkin's not putting him on the list anymore.
11:54Right.
11:55They didn't make it.
11:56Yep.
