Die By The Blade · Sep 12, 2019
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Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesLast week, members of the analytics community began posting their anticipated team point totals for the 2019-20 season. The most widely-discussed projection came from Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic when he pegged the Buffalo Sabres at 80.2 points (though most of the others also had the Sabres landing in the 78-82 point range).
As is tradition, fans in Western New York began discussing the factors that could result in a potentially brighter outlook than what is being forecast by the data specialists. The popular intangible that many fans turned toward as a beacon of optimism was the arrival of a new coach (and assuredly, a new system) in Ralph Krueger.