Sabres Woes at KeyBank Center

[inkman]

I know it’s been discussed in GDT and other threads in the forum but I’d like to get a discussion started with some ideas in the poll.  I’ll add any thoughts that seem plausible to the poll.  Have at it. 

[Mb278]

Because they arent allowed to take their Xbox consoles on the road with them, but at home Casey and his couch is home to all night sessions of whatever....insert whatever you want in place of the xbox, but when on the road only thing they have to do is play hockey; comparted to home games and being at home -  too many distractions. Something along the lines of this would be my guess....I have no idea and am just guessing.....

[Contempt]

I don't even understand what being overwhelmed by home ice means. It's not like our rink is crazy right now. Tbh it feels like an empty excuse for another issue. Home ice also has distractions that road ice doesn't have. Them "being young and immature" is more likely to manifest itself as playing too much COD, Chel, and having a social life than being vaguely afraid of the fans.

[Marvin]

I actually think they are too excited to being at home, whence they go on offence (adrenaline rush) too quickly and get too much into the puck pursuit game (another adrenaline rush).  Both defencive awareness and patience waiting to turn up ice are rational processes which are honed with experience.  Bluntly, this team does not practice them enough and it looks like the coaches are teaching offence first.  I expect that next year will see a more thorough commitment to team defence as most teams which rise quickly from the bottom with young rosters did it this way.

Better defencemen and goaltenders would also help immensely.

[Night Train]

They over pass the puck so often at home, IMO.  Just shoot the damn puck and charge the net. 

Quit being cute like it's after practice with no opposition. 

[pi2000]

I covered this topic a few weeks ago, 

 

The conclusion I came to, after digging through stats, is goaltending.

Below stats of Feb 22nd:

Home:  107 GA,  86 xGA, .880 SV%, .777 HDSV%
Away:  85 GA,  92 xGA, .905 SV%, .840 HDSV%

The team actually plays "better" at home....  54% CF at home vs 49% on the road.... that's the 4th best CF% at home.

The goaltending sucks, 3rd worst SV% at home in the entire league. 

Home:
Anderson: 2.87 GA/60, 3.06 xGA/60, .919sv%
UPL: 4.09 GA/60, 2.47 xGA/60, .876sv%
Comrie: 3.76 GA/60, 2.47 xGA/60, .863sv%

Out of 54 goalies who have played >400min on home ice, UPL and Comrie rank 49th and 52nd in save percentage.   Anderson 13th.   

That said on the road, out of 72 goalies who have played >300min (Comrie has played 391 min on the road), UPL ranks 21st, Anderson 24th and Comrie 47th in save percentage.   

Comrie is pretty much trash both home and away.   

WRT save percentage UPL ranks in the top 3rd of the league on road, and nearly DFL at home.     

Why is he so bad at home, where the team is actually playing better in front of him?

On the road UPL faces 34 shots/60, and 14 high danger chances/60... at home he faces 33 shots/60 and 12 high danger chances/60.

And yet his sv% is nearly 4 percentage points better on the road (.912 vs .876). 

[SwampD]

Didn't they crush the Caps at home on Sunday?

[jad1]

5 minutes ago, SwampD said:

Didn't they crush the Caps at home on Sunday?

1-4 the last 5 home games.  Outscored 27-16.

[SwampD]

1 minute ago, jad1 said:

1-4 the last 5 home games.  Outscored 27-16.

I still say it's wings.

[pi2000]

16 minutes ago, SwampD said:

Didn't they crush the Caps at home on Sunday?

Goaltending still sucked tho.

Home games in Feb:

UPL (190min): 5.98 GAA, 3.15 xGA/60, .832 sv%
Anderson (106min): 2.83 GAA, 2.86 xGA/60, .906sv%

The team has a 51.4% CF... 15th best in the league at home during Feb..  not terrible.  

However, they've given up 27 goals in those 5 games, while xGA is just 17.   

That's 10 more goals over expected, in just 5 games...  2 goals/game, that's insane.

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by pi2000

[Scottysabres]

They are motivated on the road, not at home. That's on the coach.

[pi2000]

6 minutes ago, Scottysabres said:

They are motivated on the road, not at home. That's on the coach.

Disagree, they have a better CF% at home (Feb: 51% vs 48%).   

Feb at home .840 sv%, on the road .909%.     That's 6 goals worse every 100 shots at home vs on the road.     

They're giving up 17 high danger chances against per 60min on the road, and only 14 per 60min at home.

They're not playing bad, goaltending on home ice is letting them down big time.   

Edited March 1, 2023 by pi2000

[OverPowerYou]

Too many forwards are passing instead of taking shots. Not every goal is a tip in or a one timer. They get too fancy at home 

[pi2000]

1 minute ago, OverPowerYou said:

Too many forwards are passing instead of taking shots. Not every goal is a tip in or a one timer. They get too fancy at home 

Disagree, in Feb they've averaged 33 shots for per 60min, vs 32 on the road.

 

[Taro T]

5 minutes ago, OverPowerYou said:

Too many forwards are passing instead of taking shots. Not every goal is a tip in or a one timer. They get too fancy at home 

There's something to that thought.

It also seems they give up a large # of bad goals at home that then deflate them.  Wonder if that is part of the issue: that they expect adversity on the road so they are ready to dig down and come back on the road but when it comes at home it's more deflating.  (Just spitballing.)

[pi2000]

18 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

Goaltending still sucked tho.

Home games in Feb:

UPL (190min): 5.98 GAA, 3.15 xGA/60, .832 sv%
Anderson (106min): 2.83 GAA, 2.86 xGA/60, .906sv%

The team has a 51.4% CF... 15th best in the league at home during Feb..  not terrible.  

However, they've given up 27 goals in those 5 games, while xGA is just 17.   

That's 10 more goals over expected, in just 5 games...  2 goals/game, that's insane.

 

 

This is what happens when you let players make personnel decisions.

[Scottysabres]

15 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

Disagree, they have a better CF% at home (Feb: 51% vs 48%).   

Feb at home .840 sv%, on the road .909%.     That's 6 goals worse every 100 shots at home vs on the road.     

They're giving up 17 high danger chances against per 60min on the road, and only 14 per 60min at home.

They're not playing bad, goaltending on home ice is letting them down big time.   

Sounds to me like the goalies aren't motivated at home?

[Thorner]

41 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

I covered this topic a few weeks ago, 

 

The conclusion I came to, after digging through stats, is goaltending.

Below stats of Feb 22nd:

Home:  107 GA,  86 xGA, .880 SV%, .777 HDSV%
Away:  85 GA,  92 xGA, .905 SV%, .840 HDSV%

The team actually plays "better" at home....  54% CF at home vs 49% on the road.... that's the 4th best CF% at home.

The goaltending sucks, 3rd worst SV% at home in the entire league. 

Home:
Anderson: 2.87 GA/60, 3.06 xGA/60, .919sv%
UPL: 4.09 GA/60, 2.47 xGA/60, .876sv%
Comrie: 3.76 GA/60, 2.47 xGA/60, .863sv%

Out of 54 goalies who have played >400min on home ice, UPL and Comrie rank 49th and 52nd in save percentage.   Anderson 13th.   

That said on the road, out of 72 goalies who have played >300min (Comrie has played 391 min on the road), UPL ranks 21st, Anderson 24th and Comrie 47th in save percentage.   

Comrie is pretty much trash both home and away.   

WRT save percentage UPL ranks in the top 3rd of the league on road, and nearly DFL at home.     

Why is he so bad at home, where the team is actually playing better in front of him?

On the road UPL faces 34 shots/60, and 14 high danger chances/60... at home he faces 33 shots/60 and 12 high danger chances/60.

And yet his sv% is nearly 4 percentage points better on the road (.912 vs .876). 

You’ve done an outstanding job here dialing in on the variable here imo

Doesn't tell us why the goalies suck more at home. But we know they do. 

My guess is still small sample size randomness 

[Scottysabres]

We need to trade for players with strong home game numbers!

[pi2000]

1 minute ago, Thorny said:

You’ve done an outstanding job here dialing in on the variable here imo

Doesn't tell us why the goalies suck more at home. But we know they do. 

My guess is still small sample size randomness 

Comrie is bad anywhere.   Anderson is above average both home and away.

WRT sv%, UPL is horrendous at home  and top 3rd in the league on the road.  

That said, UPL has played 44% of home minutes, and 38% of road minutes.

Makes you wonder if the braintrust realizes he has the 3rd worst home ice sv% in the entire league.

[Contempt]

1 hour ago, Marvin said:

I actually think they are too excited to being at home, whence they go on offence (adrenaline rush) too quickly and get too much into the puck pursuit game (another adrenaline rush).  Both defencive awareness and patience waiting to turn up ice are rational processes which are honed with experience.  Bluntly, this team does not practice them enough and it looks like the coaches are teaching offence first.  I expect that next year will see a more thorough commitment to team defence as most teams which rise quickly from the bottom with young rosters did it this way.

Better defencemen and goaltenders would also help immensely.

They didn't look too excited last night. They looked exhausted.

[sabills]

I'm the opposite of some of this, I actually think the problem is that they NEED the energy of the crowd right now. On the road they can get that energy from keeping them quiet or getting booed, at home they need the cheers and chants to keep the vibes going. 

I was at that CBJ game. Team looked flat the whole time. Coming out in the third there the crowd starting getting into it BEFORE they scored (I will point exclusively to this 8 yo kid who was dancing on the Jumbotron getting the crowd going. Seriously.). Once the crowd was going, they started going.

They're young, I think they need that little extra bit of motivation to get their legs going. Its why they score a million goals every black and red game; that crowd is always 1) a sellout and 2) riled up.

[mjd1001]

21 hours ago, Mb278 said:

Because they arent allowed to take their Xbox consoles on the road with them, but at home Casey and his couch is home to all night sessions of whatever....insert whatever you want in place of the xbox, but when on the road only thing they have to do is play hockey; comparted to home games and being at home -  too many distractions. Something along the lines of this would be my guess....I have no idea and am just guessing.....

I think the truth is some version of what you said.  Things are more structured on the road, with more oversite.  Many of us did see that sabres video where the guys do hang out on the couch and play video games alot. Nothing against video games, but again, on the road there is a lot more structure that a young team may benefit from.

[Scottysabres]

I am baffled at why this team has such a hard time in home games. I really am.

[OverPowerYou]

In the early 2010s some people blamed the home ice and that it made the Sabres slower. I feel like even now the Sabres play faster speed on the road and seem to drift at home