While being thankful for family, friends, food and hockey yesterday I was thinking about what’s wrong with the Sabres. Instead of the obvious answer of “everything” I decided to see how the team’s scoring depth was hurting them relative to performance of the top skaters. In other words, to what extent is the lack of bottom-6 and defenseman scoring hurting the team vs. performance of the team’s high scorers relative to the rest of the league. Intuitively, I think we know that the former is worse than the latter.
I looked at goals in all games through Thanksgiving. Obviously teams have played a different number of games and there have been trades and injuries on each team so I could poke holes in my own simple analysis here, but I thought this would give a good first pass look at the scorers vs. grinders & D-men gap.
Total Goals Scored per Team:
Range is 49 to 82
Buffalo at 52, ranking 30th
Number of Goal Scorers:
Range is 12 to 21
Buffalo at 12, ranking 31st (SJ has 13, everyone else at 14 or more)
Number of Scorers with 2 or more goals:
Range is 10 to 16
Buffalo at 10, ranking 31st (CAL, LA, PIT all at 11)
Goals Scored by Top 5 scorers
Range is 29 to 51
Buffalo at 37, ranking T-14th (Tied with CHI and MIN)
Thoughts:
1) Although I feel that Jack and Reino are not playing anywhere near their potential, it’s helpful for me to remember that the top players (Kane, ROR, Eichel, Pouliot, Eichel, and even Reinhart who is 6th on the team with 5 goals which wouldn’t rank badly for 6th goal scorer on each team) are not the fundamental problem so far.
2) I am less inclined to deal Kane if he can be re-signed before the deadline. However if he is moved, JBot should consider not only top flight prospects or #1 picks, but also deals bringing in multiple assets with a chance to contribute down the line to build up depth. Sort of like Colorado did with Duchene.
3) The lack of defenseman scoring is not just an interesting anomaly…it’s part of what’s killing this team. Even the lowest scoring D corp’s have 4 or 5 goals this season, most are more like 7 or more. 5 additional goals from the defense would probably be another 3 points in the standings.
4) I think the lack of forward depth scoring can be broken down into two components:
a. None of Okposo, Girgensons, and Larsson are scoring anywhere near a 10-15 goal per season pace, with significant ice time. We need one or two of them to do so.
b. The inability of any of Griffith, Baptiste, Bailey, or anyone else in the ‘emerging’ category to elevate their play and become consistent scorers. We needed at least one of these guys to step up.
(I don’t think anyone was counting on Moulson, Nolan, or Josefson to score so I don’t consider them problems in that sense. At least Nolan provides toughness and Josefson 4th line faceoff and PK capability)
So maybe I am Captain Obvious here but the numbers really point out how much the lack of bottom-6 and Defenseman scoring are killing this team.
Scoring Data 11-23-17.pdf
