Idk how else to say this but, you made 5 trades that somehow make the team worse.

Petry isn't the solution, and ty smith is terrible. Lankinen had a good 5 min run with NSH but he gets 30+ starts and he's the CHI goalie all over again.

Unless we can get Gudas in FA, I dont see a better target than Petry - playoff experience, leadership, 2 year contract. Anyone else in mind?

If you dont like Lankinen, then Allen, Montembeult - i.e. some other goalie with 1 or 2 years till UFA

Interesting trade ideas.
For the Pit trade, it would depend on if Pit thinks Petry will have a bounce back year. I would prefer Smith to anyone else on that list but I could see it happening.

In what way is Smith terrible?

In the way that he does not play hockey well

No one, they wont add a top d-man, theyll replace bryson for 3rd pair. But just cause we cant think of anyone better, doesnt mean they should settle for petry. It doesnt add any wins to next years team and is just another contract on the books for 24-25. Asking him to try and keep up with the style of hockey the sabres play, on a pairing with power or dahlin, is just way too much.

By what metrics are you looking at? Sample size is small because Pit kept him in the minors because the management was incompetent. But, based on 9 games (with rankings for any defensemen over 100 min, so grain of salt):

Expected Goals / 60: 0.46 (8th)
Shots on Goal / 60: 8.91 (4th)
Corsi: 66% (2nd)
On Ice Expected Goals For: 67% (1st)
Off Ice Expected Goals For: 42% (32nd)
Relative Expected Goals: 25% (1st)
On Ice Expected Goals Against / 60: 2.38 (20th)
On Ice Expected Shots Against / 60: 41.58 (4th)
On Ice Expected High Danger Shots Against / 60: 2.31 (39th)

So based on the (limited) numbers, he scores and drives possession and limits goals.

So what is your argument based on?

I would imagine if we can get a 2nd for dickinson (essentially the deal here) Davidson would be pretty happy with that. Hawks accept

A 9 game sample is totally meaningless. We can find 9 games for any nhl player where they may look like a hart trophy candidate. At this point in his career, he hasnt been anywhere near good. Even if I could be talked into believing he still has upside, the Sabres are well past the point in the rebuild where it makes sense to gamble on that.

Played 9 games this past year 4 points in those 9 games and quarterbacked the power play really well. Smith is not terrible in fact we will keep him.

Sorry pal but Victor gave more information

Petry played well for us. He came in and did what he was supposed to imo.

This is all of victor's info, compiled into a model that adjusts for usage, quality of teammate, competition etc.

And perhaps more significantly, features a sample size larger than 9 games

Please keep him. The Sabres only hope of making the playoffs relies on teams around them making bad decisions

So I showed you a bunch of data. You came back with some (appreciated) and while your data is not as glowing as mine, it indicates that Smith is an average ish defenseman.

You claimed he was "terrible". Where is THAT data?

They need a top 4 RD with experience

I would want some retention on Petry to get that 3rd this year and Joker.

This isn't data that would indicate an avg d-man. The percentages are relative to league average. So -6% indicates he's below what the avg d-man creates offensively. And +5% def means he concedes more relative to the average defender.

Per 60 minutes, hes generating 0.17 fewer expected goals than an avg d-man, and giving up 0.12 more expected goals against than the average d-man. Thats pretty bad. Its not Erik Gudbranson bad, I grant you that, but it's not someone I want on my team.

They need a top 4 RD who is good. The experience means nothing to me. Everyone gets a hard on for that but a whole bunch of players who are now "experienced playoff guys" once had no experience when they went on to win cups.

Id rather a guy who is cost controlled and in the prime of his career than on the back nine counting the days to retirement. We already have okposo for that quota

That data has no extrapolation. Now granted, that can have detriments with such a small sample size but it only shows comparison with the team, not the league. So a player on a great team might have a poor xGF because his team talent is better than his talent. It doesn't take away that player being good or poor vs the league as a whole.

It absolutely does idk where you are getting that from. The data specifically accounts for isolating impact away from situations where a player may be stuck on a bad team, for example.

The actual numbers generated are in comparison with LEAGUE average, not team. The -6 and +5, thats all relative to the league, not pittsburgh

The Sabres are a playoff team. Without the experienced guys in your lineup you'll be too young. Okposo and that's it. 85% of this team hasnt seen playoff action maybe more. It's pretty clear they want to be competitive

This team is going to be young regardless of which guys they add on the margins. All their core players are young, theres no working around that. Its more valuable for them to gain experience together than try and manufacture it by adding a bunch of old dudes who arent all that good.

And age/experience are two different things. Dahlin may be young, but hes played 355 games, alex tuch has playesd 379. These guys have been around.

Ok. Now I see the problem. I'm looking over all of his stats with Pit and I'm seeing a really good defenseman.

You data is heavily weighted by his 60 games in NJ last year. He was not great with them and was misused. His numbers with Pit (NHL and AHL) are quite good.

We're talking about 60 games vs 9 games at the nhl level though. Which do you think im going to lean heavily towards? Even if I buy that hes got untapped potential, thats not really a risk the Sabres can afford to take on at this point.