Inside The Numbers - Time To Talk About The Hitting Numbers (Again) 

I agree with the hits. The thought I had, and I am repeating a point made earlier, is that the faceoff percentage (45%) needs to increase. Lindy mentioned it in his presser, but it didn't appear to me to get a lot of traction. Now that some time has passed and we've gotten to digest the Savoie trade, the bottom six acquisitions are going to payoff big down the stretch. They are faster and more physical and hopefully by Jan/Feb we will see a team just wearing their opponents down in the third period. Which pays off in two ways. First, having enough in the tank to make some incredible comebacks. Second, protecting a lead and forcing a plethora of empty netters. You could see with Girgy and Okie out there that the speed just dropped and the other team got to catch their breath. This bottom six is going to make it hard on coaches to match up their lines with the top six if they're best defensive fwds are gassed in critical moments. Another number that needs to be on the rise is blocked shots, a character stat that the bottom six acquisitions will bring. This will show if the Sabres are buying into the challenge of making a deep run this year. One last point that may go unnoticed. Even though it was time for Donny to go and Lindy to come in, I believe Donny did right by some of these younger players last year by forcing them to learn how to play better defensively. I don't like the results in the win/loss column, but I think he took the long term approach of getting these guys better in the long run. Lindy will benefit from some of the defensive building blocks Donny put in last season. If you check the stats, their GA was 243 last season v 297 the season before. I am sure UPL had a good bit to do with it, but it appeared to me that their team defense (sans hits & blocked shots) looked better in the games I watched.

I brought it up at the end of the season and everyone thought I was crazy saying they aren’t physical especially power. Glad people caught on especially LR and KA

Great intros

Granato always gave me Principal Skinner vibes, remember that wimpy "Puma Pride" mural? Great for peewee, not so great for the big leagues. 🤔

Two of my biggest complaints were the Sabres were Soft aka low hit totals and terrible on faceoffs. Well thankfully this will change next season with Lindy coming back , he will demand players to finish their checks and with the new additions on the bottom six. Malenstyn was one of the league leaders in hits . Face off wise the Sabres will be vastly improved with the addition of new centres Ryan Macleod a 50 % faceoff win rate and Sam Lafferty. Looking forward to this season! Thanks for the video Wayne, hope your back is improving!

Thanks for the content Roam!

I will say that only time will tell how these moves and these players will affect this team at the end of the day. However, this team did bring in a half dozen players that are a LOT Faster and Hit a TON more than what we the last 2 years. If this team comes out next season flying around the ice, swarming their opponents while hitting them like freight train repeatedly, this team will put so many teams on their heals that they won’t be able to compete with us.

Hits put you over the top, but you still need to be a great team to begin with. If you look at the Panthers, they were a unique team last season: they were leaders in hitting, sure, but they were also among the best teams in puck possession, and they did not lose many man-games to injury. Nearly everyone else seemed deficient in one or more of those areas, but the Panthers covered all of the bases.

Improve Home record Improve Hitting/playing physical/ some timely fights Improve PP Improve faceoff % Its a wrap , we are playoff bound

Ya this will be a fun season to watch ,the fun line and this new core they've brought in to support guys like Quin and Benny,Cozens can bring the stick he used in the world championship s watch out for the fun line ,we dont need Savoie we have Benson it would suck if he did become a Briere type il admit that but u can't blame Kev he knows what he got with Savoie its like a scratch off ticket im tired of waiting and it's nice to see all theese smart moves I think we need to put Krebbs on our 4th give him another year please he's gonna break out like Casey but a year quicker wich is this year right ,if our bottom 6 produce and I believe we have 3 pieces to add in now, new dimension we haven't seen this in 11 + years over a decade and we have no issues in net fingers crossed no injuries ,I would think maybe Ugmark might regret choices he's made I can't believe he signs with Otawa it make no sense to me he's a Hall Lets sit back and watch Levi and Lu take care of it we are in such a good spot

Thank you Wayne! Keep preaching the hits. There are so called fans, vocal ones, who are against hitting. Many are on a certain woke fan website. They are awful

We were starting to play how the buffalo beauts played with no checking etc

Does it concern you that New Jersey was in the bottom five teams in hitting those seasons as well, all of which Lindy Ruff was their coach. Just a thought, I'm not necessarily concerned.

Payback time!

Sure felt like they didn't hit much last year. There were a few games that were exceptionally good, I think one was against Detroit, and you think, OK, they CAN actually do it. Then didn't. Weird.

If you look at the film from last year, you can see so many hits that were there to give that just did not happen. Fear of the coach benching players that hit?

Not happy to see the devil's on the low hit list when Lindy was coaching. Hope that doesn't carry over