Michael Ghofrani: Analyzing Sabres Armchair GM Rosters Part 1: New Blogger Vs. Former

Sure, and if we had two centers making $5M that outproduced their salaries we’d be a perennial cup contender.
- Pegullaville

Jonathan Huberdeau and Barkov make a combined 11.8 mil.

Combined for 140 points so far this year. Would’ve easily hit 165-170

Where’s the cup contention?

Jonathan Huberdeau and Barkov make a combined 11.8 mil.

Combined for 140 points so far this year. Would’ve easily hit 165-170

Where’s the cup contention?
- sbroads24

The guy they paid $10M too didn’t stop enough pucks.

I mentioned it before and would like to revisit the idea of trading for Victor Rask. He played his best hockey in Carolina with Skinner and hasn't done anything in Minnesota. Skinner produced with him as well.

The Wild are pretty thin at LD, so maybe a Rask for McCabe deal would work. Add a low pick if needed.

The guy they paid $10M too didn’t stop enough pucks.
- Pegullaville

Right. So basically what you are saying is, they took the cap savings they had paying Huberdeau and Barkov below market value, allocated it to another area, and that area is now an issue?

I mentioned it before and would like to revisit the idea of trading for Victor Rask. He played his best hockey in Carolina with Skinner and hasn't done anything in Minnesota. Skinner produced with him as well.

The Wild are pretty thin at LD, so maybe a Rask for McCabe deal would work. Add a low pick if needed.
- adambuffalo

You seem to have an affinity for guys who stopped being serviceable in 2014

Florida is trying to lower their internal cap, so why would they trade for Risto when they have Ekblad and Strålman playing RD at $7.5m and $5.5m respectively.

I'm flattered. I didn't expect this as I was just doin' it for fun.

And, I do like what you brought here.

You seem to have an affinity for guys who stopped being serviceable in 2014
- sbroads24

16-17 Skinner had 37 goals playing with Rask
17-18 he went down to 24, but Rask missed 11 games

How many goals Skinner have this year?

16-17 Skinner had 37 goals playing with Rask
17-18 he went down to 24, but Rask missed 11 games

How many goals Skinner have this year?
- adambuffalo

Idk man, all I know is Rask is a borderline 4th liner who was a healthy scratch multiple times this year.

Sorry for the length of this post.

Hopefully most will find it worth the read...

I mentioned yesterday that several weeks ago I analyzed the Roster and Cap hits of 10 Teams, in an effort to get a decent sample size of the league and be able to create breakdown of Cap hits by position.

Since there were 1/3 of the teams, some players Caps were obviously not included...hence why you may think of a player and challenge the figures for a certain position.

The 10 teams I selected were as follows:
Boston, Tampa, Washington, Pittsburgh, St Louis, NY Isles, Winnipeg, Nashville, Chicago, San Jose. I selected teams that were successful and had relatively mature rosters with some higher-priced talent. Only 10 because it is friggin' time-consuming.

1st, I wanted to use the Sabres Cap situation as the baseline for the following to compute how much is available in Cap for their Contracts, but also to account for other commitments such as Buyouts, Bonuses, and hold-over to enable flexibility.
so I used the following to identify a desired spend level:
-Cap ceiling $81,500,000
-Buyouts (Hodgson) $900,000
-2019-2010 Bonus rollover $3,000,000
-2020-2021 Bonuses $3,000,000
That left $74,600,000 available to spend and bank a holdover...so maybe $73,000,000 for AVV only, would still be tight.

Here's what the analysis of those 10 teams showed:
Forwards:
.............LW.......................C......................RW
Line 1.. 6.9% ($5.7m)... 8.0% ($6.5m)... 6.5% ($5.3m)
Line 2. 4.3% ($3.5m)... 7.5% ($6.1m)... 6.0% ($4.9m)
Line 3. 3.0% ($2.5m)... 3.5% ($2.9m)... 2.7% ($2.2m)
Line 4. 2.1% ($1.7m)... 2.0% ($1,6m)... 2.5% ($2.0m)
13th F.... 1.1% ($0.9m)

Defense/Goalie:
.........................LhD......................RhD.......................G
1st Pair. 5.8% ($4.7m).... 5.7% ($4.8m).... 6.2% ($5.1m)
2nd Pair. 4.3% ($3.5m).... 4.9% ($4.0m).... 2.1% ($1.7m)
3rd Pair. 2.2% ($1.8m).... 2.0% ($2.4m)....
7th D. 1.2% ($0.95m).


The above percentages total 91.1% which gets me to $74.2m...about $1.2M over the target of $73.0m identified above...pretty close...but some "savings" would be necessary to get that Hold-back up to just $1.6m (which isn't a lot of flexibility).
But it could serve as a rough "blueprint"

If you use this as a guide going forward, and plug in existing Sabres contract commitments like
-Jack @ $10M
-Skinner @ $9M
-Okposo @ $6M
that is already $10M over the blueprint.

Hence why I continually look for opportunities for cheaper players at certain positions like Larsson, Girgs, Mojo, Risto, Montour, Miller, Rhino...
Yup, $500k or $1.0M per player matters

Name the premier wingers in the league and tell me their centers.
- Michael Pachla

P.Kane produces with everyone, Anisimov and Dave freaking Bolland were 2 centers he played the most with.

Panarin had Anisimov, Dubois (who is a solid player but was not a premier point producer), and Zibanijad (also a very good player but wouldn’t get 40 goals without playing with a Hart trophy candidate)

Kadri and Tavares had their best years statistically wise with Marner. Coincidence ? I think not.

Taylor Hall won a Hart trophy had had 40 more points then the next closest player on the team.

Tarasenko scored 30 goals a year consistently with the likes of Backes and Berglund

Gaudreau took a step back this year but even his worst year would be Skinner’s best statistical year.

Those are wingers that are worth their bacon.

Now out of all the wingers that do have an Elite Center ? I take Kucherov, Ovechkin, Marchand, Pasternak, Rantenen, Stone, Huberdeau, Tkachuk, Connor, Wheeler, Giroux.

Skinner isn’t a top 25 winger in the NHL, even with Eichel.

Now we are going to have 50% of our cap tied up into the wing position which is like having a car without an engine, and we wonder why we still suck.

I’ll tell you, because we don’t have a goalie, our best d-men are still improving and the corps as a whole isn’t rounded out, and we don’t have depth down the middle.

Sorry for the length of this post.

Hopefully most will find it worth the read...

I mentioned yesterday that several weeks ago I analyzed the Roster and Cap hits of 10 Teams, in an effort to get a decent sample size of the league and be able to create breakdown of Cap hits by position.

Since there were 1/3 of the teams, some players Caps were obviously not included...hence why you may think of a player and challenge the figures for a certain position.

The 10 teams I selected were as follows:
Boston, Tampa, Washington, Pittsburgh, St Louis, NY Isles, Winnipeg, Nashville, Chicago, San Jose. I selected teams that were successful and had relatively mature rosters with some higher-priced talent. Only 10 because it is friggin' time-consuming.

1st, I wanted to use the Sabres Cap situation as the baseline for the following to compute how much is available in Cap for their Contracts, but also to account for other commitments such as Buyouts, Bonuses, and hold-over to enable flexibility.
so I used the following to identify a desired spend level:
-Cap ceiling $81,500,000
-Buyouts (Hodgson) $900,000
-2019-2010 Bonus rollover $3,000,000
-2020-2021 Bonuses $3,000,000
That left $74,600,000 available to spend and bank a holdover...so maybe $73,000,000 for AVV only, would still be tight.

Here's what the analysis of those 10 teams showed:
Forwards:
.............LW.......................C......................RW
Line 1.. 6.9% ($5.7m)... 8.0% ($6.5m)... 6.5% ($5.3m)
Line 2. 4.3% ($3.5m)... 7.5% ($6.1m)... 6.0% ($4.9m)
Line 3. 3.0% ($2.5m)... 3.5% ($2.9m)... 2.7% ($2.2m)
Line 4. 2.1% ($1.7m)... 2.0% ($1,6m)... 2.5% ($2.0m)
13th F.... 1.1% ($0.9m)

Defense/Goalie:
.........................LhD......................RhD.......................G
1st Pair. 5.8% ($4.7m).... 5.7% ($4.8m).... 6.2% ($5.1m)
2nd Pair. 4.3% ($3.5m).... 4.9% ($4.0m).... 2.1% ($1.7m)
3rd Pair. 2.2% ($1.8m).... 2.0% ($2.4m)....
7th D. 1.2% ($0.95m).


The above percentages total 91.1% which gets me to $74.2m...about $1.2M over the target of $73.0m identified above...pretty close...but some "savings" would be necessary to get that Hold-back up to just $1.6m (which isn't a lot of flexibility).
But it could serve as a rough "blueprint"

If you use this as a guide going forward, and plug in existing Sabres contract commitments like
-Jack @ $10M
-Skinner @ $9M
-Okposo @ $6M
that is already $10M over the blueprint.

Hence why I continually look for opportunities for cheaper players at certain positions like Larsson, Girgs, Mojo, Risto, Montour, Miller, Rhino...
Yup, $500k or $1.0M per player matters
- IonSabres

Appreciate the time and effort you put into this. Last sentence are my thoughts exactly

I'm flattered. I didn't expect this as I was just doin' it for fun.

And, I do like what you brought here.
- Michael Pachla

It was a lot of fun and you put together a nice roster. I felt it was only fair to start with yours haha

P.Kane produces with everyone, Anisimov and Dave freaking Bolland were 2 centers he played the most with.

Panarin had Anisimov, Dubois (who is a solid player but was not a premier point producer), and Zibanijad (also a very good player but wouldn’t get 40 goals without playing with a Hart trophy candidate)

Kadri and Tavares had their best years statistically wise with Marner. Coincidence ? I think not.

Taylor Hall won a Hart trophy had had 40 more points then the next closest player on the team.

Tarasenko scored 30 goals a year consistently with the likes of Backes and Berglund

Gaudreau took a step back this year but even his worst year would be Skinner’s best statistical year.

Those are wingers that are worth their bacon.

Now out of all the wingers that do have an Elite Center ? I take Kucherov, Ovechkin, Marchand, Pasternak, Rantenen, Stone, Huberdeau, Tkachuk, Connor, Wheeler, Giroux.

Skinner isn’t a top 25 winger in the NHL, even with Eichel.

Now we are going to have 50% of our cap tied up into the wing position which is like having a car without an engine, and we wonder why we still suck.

I’ll tell you, because we don’t have a goalie, our best d-men are still improving and the corps as a whole isn’t rounded out, and we don’t have depth down the middle.
- Pegullaville

nice research...

these are the only two I have issue with:

gaudreau was on Monahan's wing...the duo had a great season and when monahan slumped, so did he...

marner has played most of career with Matthews or Tavares...and, wadr, how can anyone say that marner drives tavares' numbers...

the sabres need to add to the team, not subtract...skinner averaged 32 goals the prior four seasons and 30 goals over the prior six...

he had a bad year in the first season of a huge contract...it's not unprecedented

Here's what the analysis of those 10 teams showed:
Forwards:
.............LW.......................C......................RW
Line 1.. 6.9% ($5.7m)... 8.0% ($6.5m)... 6.5% ($5.3m)
Line 2. 4.3% ($3.5m)... 7.5% ($6.1m)... 6.0% ($4.9m)
Line 3. 3.0% ($2.5m)... 3.5% ($2.9m)... 2.7% ($2.2m)
Line 4. 2.1% ($1.7m)... 2.0% ($1,6m)... 2.5% ($2.0m)
13th F.... 1.1% ($0.9m)


- IonSabres

Not sure how your math worked out, but I don't think one of those teams has a 1C at $6.5m. The average would be closer to $8.5m if I had to guess.

Right. So basically what you are saying is, they took the cap savings they had paying Huberdeau and Barkov below market value, allocated it to another area, and that area is now an issue?
- sbroads24

Tallon franked up a wet dream, should never have given Bob that contract. If Florida had any goaltending whatsoever they would have ran away with that third spot.

Frankie Vatrano is a prototypical Botterill trade target, but I dont think Risto would be going the other way there.

God help us if we're doing Mojo at 2C again. Not that it would particularly surprise me

Seems realistic overall. I think Reinhart will get more cash or fewer years

It was a lot of fun and you put together a nice roster. I felt it was only fair to start with yours haha
- Michael Ghofrani

thanks...I agree that haula might be low on the salary scale (maybe wishful thinking?,) but I don't think it'll be too far off...he had one great season where he put up 29+26 on a magical team...this past season he reverted to the norm which is basically third-line numbers...

as for lewis, I believe that angry larry or gus will be getting around the same salary this year...personally, i'd rather have a guy with two cup rings at that price than go with those two...am thinking that the underlying numbers are very similar over a three/four year span

Got the numbers from CapCentral, and then used Cap Centrals Fantasy Tools-Depth Chart to map players into lines.
If it showed Palyer X as 2C rather than 1C then that could happen but the overall numbers would be correct. For it to be off as much as you guess, that would have happened several times. Possible I guess, but I'll stand by the overall work effort.

Tallon franked up a wet dream, should never have given Bob that contract. If Florida had any goaltending whatsoever they would have ran away with that third spot.
- Pegullaville

And this is why cap space is severely over rated. It’s misused 75% of the time.

Keep your good players (this includes Skinner) and draft well and you will contend.

I used to think the exact same way you did. But the good teams in this league operate very similarly. They keep the guys who are good.

nice research...

these are the only two I have issue with:

gaudreau was on Monahan's wing...the duo had a great season and when monahan slumped, so did he...

marner has played most of career with Matthews or Tavares...and, wadr, how can anyone say that marner drives tavares' numbers...

the sabres need to add to the team, not subtract...skinner averaged 32 goals the prior four seasons and 30 goals over the prior six...

he had a bad year in the first season of a huge contract...it's not unprecedented
- Michael Pachla

When they moved Marner to Matthews’ wing, Matthews scored at the best rate of his short career.

Tavares’ numbers, although still outstanding, took a step back playing with Nylander (who also happens to be having a great year)

Marner is an elite playmaker.

Building through the draft has always been the right method, now if you blow the picks then it’s at the fault of the amateur scouts not that the method is flawed.

The teams that draft well always have success no matter what sport.
- Pegullaville

Yeah, drafting well is important. What you're saying is that you're fine with the losing last year and this year because that's how you build a cup contender (cup contender if/when high picks play well on ELCs)

I have 2 problems with that:

It's a high risk strategy to be consistently awful and then plug these kids into roles above their pay grade, as we do over and over again.

And -

We have no idea if this GM can even draft well. Mittelstadt doesnt look great, and for as much as we like Cozens, it's still possible that Zegras or someone else should have been the pick.

The entire philosophy requires you to suck at everything for 364 days a year (we have that down) and then on draft day, get everything right.

I'd much rather try to be good 365 days a year by acquiring good players, and supplement that with the draft

Not sure how your math worked out, but I don't think one of those teams has a 1C at $6.5m. The average would be closer to $8.5m if I had to guess.
- adambuffalo

Burgeon. $6.875
Point. $6.750
Backstrom $6.700
Crosby $8.700
Schenn. $5.125
Barzal. $0.863
Scheifele $6.125
Johansen $8.000
Toews $10.500
Hertle $5.625

As I said, I stand by my work.

thanks...I agree that haula might be low on the salary scale (maybe wishful thinking?,) but I don't think it'll be too far off...he had one great season where he put up 29+26 on a magical team...this past season he reverted to the norm which is basically third-line numbers...

as for lewis, I believe that angry larry or gus will be getting around the same salary this year...personally, i'd rather have a guy with two cup rings at that price than go with those two...am thinking that the underlying numbers are very similar over a three/four year span
- Michael Pachla

Pach...
The Roster Cap figure, did it account for $6.9m in costs that reduce the Available Cap...
2019-2020 Bonus Rolliver if $3m
2020-2021 Bonus if $3.0m
Buyout of $0.9m