Dan Bylsma is headed back to an NHL bench, agreeing to become the next coach of the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday, per the team’s Twitter account:
Bylsma, 44, has been seen as an option to join Buffalo since the team lost out on Mike Babcock, who spurned the Sabres for Toronto. The former United States Olympic coach spent the 2014-15 season out of hockey while on the Pittsburgh Penguins‘ payroll.
Darren Dreger of TSN reported the Sabres will send a 2016 third-round pick to Pittsburgh for Bylsma’s rights.
Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan welcomed Bylsma to the community, via the Bills on Twitter:
Bylsma previously spent parts of six seasons on the Penguins bench, winning the 2009 Stanley Cup and making the playoffs each year. He was fired following the 2013-14 campaign due to the perceived playoff failures of a high-cost, star-laden roster. Pittsburgh was eliminated in the first round in Mike Johnston’s inaugural season.
The Sabres went 23-51-8 last season under recently fired head coach Ted Nolan, their fourth straight campaign out of the playoffs. They are in the midst of a wide-scale rebuilding effort, which has seen the club dump a number of high-cost veterans in hopes of developing young talent. Wingers Evander Kane and Tyler Ennis and defenseman Zach Bogosian are on board as foundational pieces, but Bylsma inherits a job far more complicated than the one he took over in Pittsburgh.
There is no Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin this time around. The Sabres’ best hope will come in June, where American center Jack Eichel looks like a strong fit with the No. 2 overall selection. Bylsma and Eichel already have a relationship from their 2015 IIHF World Championship experience.
At the very least, Bylsma is an accomplished name who will drive interest into the scuffling Sabres franchise. Given the level of coverage their failed effort to land Babcock received, Bylsma is arguably the best possible face-saving outcome.
Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
The Buffalo Sabres and general manager Tim Murray have begun the team’s first head coaching search since Lindy Ruff was hired before the 1997-98 season.
The circumstances surrounding this search are a bit different than the one that occurred in the summer of 1997.
The biggest difference is where the team stands.
Ruff inherited a team that had won the Northeast Division the prior season and lost in the second round to the eventual Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia Flyers. Ted Nolan also won the Jack Adams Trophy, honoring the league’s best head coach, in 1996-97.
A spat with the front office, however, led to Nolan not being offered another contract and the Sabres landing Ruff.
This time, the Sabres are fresh off of their second-straight 30th-place finish. Nolan was officially fired this time around and Murray is conducting his first-ever NHL head coaching search. The new head coach isn’t necessarily walking into a playoff-ready roster like Ruff did, but there’s a ton of promise.
Who will that promise lure behind the bench?
Saturday night was a complicated night for Buffalo Sabres fans.
The race for 30th was over, but the suspense of whether the Sabres would win the lottery and the right to select Connor McDavid at the 2015 NHL draft was not.
After the ping pong balls were pulled, the Edmonton Oilers emerged as the winners of the first overall selection on June 26, a pick they’ve held four of the last six drafts. It’s probable that many reacted similarly to this gentleman when NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly held up the golden Oilers card.
But to most, losing the lottery was of little consequence because the “consolation prize” is Jack Eichel, the best American prospect since at least Patrick Kane and possibly much further back to the likes of Mike Modano.
But losing still stings, and even the most ardent Eichel fans couldn’t argue with picking first overall.
And then came general manager Tim Murray’s comments.
Seemingly immediately after the results were announced, the cameras turned to Murray to get his thoughts on losing the lottery.
The thought process on the NHL’s part was not sterling here. It goes without saying Murray was likely to be somewhat upset, as he just lost his second lottery in a row when he had the best chance to win. Sure enough, the comments weren’t vanilla.
“I’m disappointed for our fans.”
That seems to be the comment that most are latching on to. Many are interpreting that as Murray being a sore loser and bemoaning the loss of McDavid to the fanbase. If true, that would then be perceived as a slight to Eichel, the set-in-stone No. 2 pick.
But it’s not true.
Context is a wonderful thing, and without it, a lot of what Murray said is tough to swallow, especially if you’re Eichel. But with it, it’s completely different.
The video opens with Murray comparing the Sabres centers to that of the Pittsburgh Penguins with Eichel and Sam Reinhart in the fold. Not what you’d call a negative response about the future of your team.
Then, Murray’s response to the next question is a likely a perfect summary on how he felt about losing the lottery: “It’s not a disappointment in the player; I think it’s just the process for me.”
Murray has been an outspoken critic of the NHL’s move toward a more NBA-esque chance-based lottery and it’s move away from the merit-based system akin to the NFL.
In his post-lottery comments, Murray supported his feelings during the summer.
“I believe the team that finishes last is probably the worst team in the league, so therefore they need the best player, by whomever’s estimation─theirs certainly─to get better quickly,” opined Murray.
This exchange and Murray’s comments about the lottery changes are what many who believe Murray was slighting Eichel are missing. Murray is not irritated about drafting Eichel. Murray is irritated that as the last place team he doesn’t get the first pick.
Now, say what you will about his opinion. It’s obviously a minority one in the NHL with the Board of Governors implementing a lottery for the first three picks starting next season, but it’s not as if it’s illogical.
Yes, tanking is a problem that needs to be combated, and the NHL has effectively done that by lowering the odds of winning for the worst teams and instituting the lottery for the first three picks, but it at least stands to reason the worst team should get the first pick.
But the uproar surrounding Murray’s comments is nothing more than someone not understanding Murray’s standpoint on the process.
Not that it was necessary, but Pierre LeBrun of ESPN.com published an article on Sunday that completely cleared the air on Murray’s feelings about Eichel the player.
In the article, Murray was effusive in his praise for Eichel, saying the Boston University product is not a consolation prize and that both he and McDavid are likely franchise players. Based on that, it doesn’t seem like Murray’s too upset about ending up with Eichel.
Now, many will counter with the fact that this is what Murray should have said on Saturday night and that this was just him covering up for himself.
And while that argument admittedly may hold some water, remember that it’s exactly those kinds of responses that turned Sabres fans against Darcy Regier. Murray is a breath of fresh air in Buffalo. He says what he’s thinking—and sometimes it’s not going to be what most want to hear. Saturday night’s comments likely fall into that category.
But don’t fault the guy for wanting the first pick. And even if you don’t agree with his opinion that the worst team should pick first, don’t fault him for being consistent.
In another showing of respect for Eichel, it was reported that the Sabres signed Evan Rodrigues, Eichel‘s linemate from BU, to an entry-level deal, according to TSN’s Bob McKenzie (h/t ProHockeyTalk). Rodrigues, a Toronto native, was second in the NCAA in scoring behind Eichel this year with 61 points.
This could be a mere coincidence and the Sabres could have been targeting Rodrigues whether they ended up with the first or second pick, but it seems unlikely Eichel‘s assumed arrival to Buffalo didn’t have anything to do with the signing.
The fact remains that Murray has done an incredible job thus far with the Sabres. His core will finally be created, and it will be finalized by doing nothing. By letting the majority of the unrestricted free agents walk, Murray will essentially have a blank canvas that includes a surprisingly impressive top-six forward group and an equally solid defensive core.
The team is moving forward, and Eichel will be a big, if not the biggest, cog in it. What he will bring is a topic that 50 articles could be and likely will be written about this summer, but all that matters right now is that Murray is excited to have him.
And Sabres fans are certainly excited to have him, too.
Follow me on Twitter for NHL and Sabres news all offseason long: @mattclouden.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
Congratulations, Buffalo Sabres fans, the tearing down is over.
After following up their 52-point 2013-14 campaign with an equally atrocious 54-point effort this season, the Sabres are now ready to look to the future—and hopefully toward a much brighter one.
But the Sabres’ future relies on a lot more than just this year’s draft, which has been deservedly at the forefront of many Sabres fans’ minds. Their future will rely on the guys who will remain on the roster moving forward, the guys who will join the roster next season and the new guy who will lead the charge from behind the bench.
Needless to say, Buffalo’s offseason could be one of the most intriguing in the entire NHL.
Of the players involved in the blockbuster trade that sent Evander Kane to the Buffalo Sabres on February 11, the troubled 23-year-old has always taken the spotlight. However, goaltender Jason Kasdorf should receive more attention.
The 6’4” goaltender from Winnipeg, Manitoba, currently plays NCAA hockey for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and is thus somewhat of an afterthought in the Kane deal.
Drafted by the Winnipeg Jets in the sixth round of the 2011 NHL entry draft, Kasdorf has already proved himself in college and could be a key factor for the Sabres’ depleted goaltender position.
Buffalo’s NCAA scout Jerry Forton had tremendous things to say about Kasdorf, explaining the reason for acquiring him. “Winnipeg did a good job identifying and drafting him out of junior hockey,” he told Bleacher Report.
“Jason was one of the best goalies in all of college hockey his freshman year and won ECAC Rookie of the Year. His footwork and butterfly were both very good, and he had good size and presence in the net. I knew from several of his coaches over the years that his work ethic and character were both elite.
“Although he missed essentially all of last year with an injury that required surgery, we were impressed in several viewings early this season at how he came back from the injury. … We’re confident Jason will continue to progress his game next year at RPI and at that time be in a position to compete with several of our other young goalie prospects within our system/organization.”
The key takeaway from Forton’s comments is Kasdorf’s health. After posting a 14-5-2 record, .935 save percentage and 1.62 goals-against average in his freshman season, the future looked bright. However, shoulder surgery sidelined him for his entire sophomore season, and it has taken time for him to fully recover.
Kasdorf’s statistics were not reflective of his rookie season when he returned to the lineup, but he understands that it takes time.
“I think taking a full year off from being able to play definitely doesn’t help and makes things a little tougher to get back into your groove. I also had a minor knee injury right before Christmas which I think set me back a little bit as well. Injuries make it hard to find your groove and get into a rhythm,” said Kasdorf.
Winnipeg’s coordinator of player development, Jimmy Roy, echoed Kasdorf’s thoughts in Mitchell Clinton’s prospect profile on the Jets’ official site:
I think obviously anytime you have an injury that ends your season, it will be a setback in your development. He’s a goalie, and they tend to take a little bit longer to develop. You see goalies in the NHL getting older and older and older. It is a bit of a setback. But for his development, it just gives him more time to develop physically and mentally.
Fortunately for Kasdorf, he still has two years of college eligibility remaining. This could really benefit him when it comes to where he fits in the Sabres’ system after graduation. Nevertheless, neither Kasdorf nor the Sabres organization is looking that far in advance.
“As far as where I fit in, I haven’t really talked a whole lot with them about that yet. They wanted to just let me play and not be a distraction, which I like. I’m sure we will talk this summer about what their plan is for me and where exactly I stand within the organization,” said Kasdorf.
With little to no talk around Kasdorf, he could fly under the radar and be a diamond in the rough for the Sabres.
The Buffalo News‘ John Vogl briefly explained Kasdorf, writing, “Kasdorf fits the mold of big goaltenders that Sabres general manager Tim Murray covets.”
In terms of where Kasdorf positions himself in the organization, he’s in a much better situation than he was with the Jets. The Sabres have been a revolving door for goaltenders this season, whereas Winnipeg’s future is steady in net with Ondrej Pavelec and Michael Hutchinson.
To showcase Kasdorf’s chance in Buffalo, here’s a current look at the Sabres goaltending system:
The Sabres’ goaltenders are incredibly young right now, and according to Hockey’s Future, Kasdorf is the Sabres’ second-ranked goaltending prospect. Compared to his future teammates, Kasdorf’s has been competitive statistically, even during an injury-plagued season.
Also, if one factors in the young RPI team, as well as the fact that it’s the most penalized team in the ECAC, his statistics last season may even be underrated.
During his freshman season when he was healthy and was playing behind one of the best teams in college hockey, he flourished. He’s a big goaltender that covers a lot of the net and he’s very effective with a solid team in front of him.
The veteran squad from the 2012-13 season really helped him transition into the collegiate level, but he’s shown flashes of brilliance ever since.
In a do-or-die game against Clarkson University this season, Kasdorf made 33 saves, while allowing only one goal. With Clarkson attacking throughout the entire third period, Kasdorf was incredibly poised stopping 15 of 16 shots on the road to secure a RPI playoff series victory.
The situation in Buffalo couldn’t be better for Kasdorf, even considering that he was traded by his hometown Jets.
“Obviously, I’m a big Winnipeg fan as I am from there, but I know it’s all part of the business and I want to be wherever I have the best opportunity of making the NHL,” said Kasdorf.
Buffalo may have to wait a few years until Kasdorf plays in its system, but fans should get very familiar with him during the team’s rebuild.
If he can remain healthy and find his collegiate freshman form, the starting job may be realistic sooner rather than later.
Stephen Nixon is a Contributor for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand via interview.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
The Buffalo Sabres had a vision for the 2014-15 season, and they achieved it by finishing dead last in the NHL. They are guaranteed to draft either Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel, and either player will help transform the franchise.
The vision for 2015-16 is going to be different than 2014-15, because 2015-16 will not include Ted Nolan. It is a decision that isn’t fair, but one that had to be expected. The next head coach of the Sabres isn’t going to be a spring chicken, and you can expect it to be someone who has a high profile.
While there are former NHL coaches like Guy Boucher, Claude Noel and Paul MacLean currently without an NHL job, they may not have the full complement of skills the Sabres seek.
Owner Terry Pegula has pockets as deep as the Mariana Trench, and it is fair to say that he will wait until the big-name coaches are fired before making a decision on coaching candidates. The Sabres are bound to make a splash, and here’s a look at the best possible candidates, including those who could become available.
Be thankful, Buffalo Sabres fans: It’s almost over.
At about 10 p.m. ET Saturday night, the 2014-15 season will (finally) come to a close, and Buffalo hockey fans can turn their attention to some hockey that matters for a few months.
While this will not be the Sabres’ worst on-ice season in history, it may have been the worst off the ice by far.
No one expected the Sabres to be contenders this season. If someone did feel that way, he or she is never to be trusted with matters of hockey ever again. However, many saw the writing on the wall and climbed onto the “Finish 30th” bandwagon last summer.
The reasons why are well known: Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel.
There is no debate that McDavid and Eichel are two of the best prospects in years, and, after an offseason that seemed geared toward reaching the salary cap floor, many felt the Sabres’ best chance at a speedy turnaround was to land one of the two in this year’s draft.
This notion has led to what can only be described as a fanbase civil war—one that has progressed as the season went on.
At first it was almost a joke: “Oh, let’s lose every game so we get Connor McDavid,” followed by a laugh that was more a signal that you were really not kidding seemed to be the most you heard of it. It was framed more in a “this is Buffalo and we don’t get anything nice, so why should we expect something really, really nice?” sort of way.
Then things started to become a reality.
The Sabres started off the season 2-8-1 and found themselves at or near the bottom of the standings for most of the month of October. And while they inexplicably found themselves amid a 10-3-0 stretch in mid-December, a stretch of 14 games without a point in January left them in 30th, a spot they have not relinquished since.
That is about the time being a Sabres fan became hard.
It’s not because of the on-ice product. That was expected, and, while not easy to watch, it became the status quo very early in the season.
Instead, it was the off-ice vitriol between fans that made it difficult.
The whole tanking conversation has taken on a life of its own, and Sabres fans have rushed to either side of it. Sabres Twitter has been a soul-darkening place as of late, with the radio and newspaper personalities taking their sides and fueling the rest of the populous. The lines have been drawn and it seems you’re either 100 percent pro-tank or 100 percent anti-tank these days.
But there is a middle ground.
There exists a spot on the tanking spectrum where a Sabres fan can be livid with where the team is in terms of the on-ice product, but also can see that getting McDavid or Eichel is one of the best ways for the team to get better in the short-term.
And you can argue how smart it is to put the fate of your team in the hands of an 18-year-old all you’d like, but no matter how valid that argument is, what other options exist?
Free agents cost money. Trades cost organizational assets.
The draft is as close to free as it gets in professional sports. You pick a kid, he hops into your organization, be it immediately or a few years down the line, and there’s generally nothing they can do about that.
Sure, you can attempt to trade for Ryan O’Reilly, a guy who at least has the ability to slot in as your No. 1 center, but the price is going to be extremely high, especially after seeing the Colorado Avalanche would like to keep him.
Now, don’t take this as the only way for the Sabres to get better is to land McDavid or Eichel. That couldn’t be further from the truth. This is to say that the easiest way for the Sabres to get better is to take McDavid or Eichel.
And while that notion is not set in stone quite yet, the Sabres have a single regulation loss—or win by Arizona—between them and clinching 30th for the second year in a row. The odds of accomplishing that feat are at an incredibly comforting 94-percent, according to Sports Club Stats.
So where does all of this leave the Sabres?
In reality, the team has been preparing for a state of limbo since the season began, and general manager Tim Murray has a ton of work to do this offseason.
The Sabres have three defensemen who have played significant time heading to unrestricted free agency. Two of their goaltenders are also going to become UFAs. Patrick Kaleta and Matt Ellis have probably also come to the end of their Sabres journey.
Mikhail Grigorenko, Phil Varone, Johan Larsson and Mark Pysyk headline the list of restricted free agents for the team. Most of the RFAs, and especially the four listed, are expected to be back with the team, with Grigorenko, Larsson and Pysyk, assuming he’s healthy, looking to take on bigger NHL roles next year.
That in turn pushes out guys like Cody McCormick and Zac Dalpe, or guys who have been able to find a home in Buffalo because of the lack of depth on the roster.
You also have a few guys in Rochester looking to break into the Sabres lineup a bit more regularly. Jake McCabe and Chad Ruhwedel have played very well in the AHL and have made a case they belong at the NHL level. With a crowded blue line, what do they do, especially with Ruhwedel who is a RFA at year end?
But the roster is not the only place there will be change.
Many believe Ted Nolan will essentially leave the bench on Saturday night, get into his car and drive off into the sunset.
At the beginning of the season, when the writing seemed to already be on the wall, there was a sizable contingent that seemed to feel that his likely firing was unfair, mainly because he has not gotten a shot with a contending roster.
As the season has progressed, it seems that sentiment has died down. It’s hard to measure, and there are certainly those who still feel Nolan is getting a raw deal, but the Nolan brand of hockey has taken a hit.
It’s no secret that the Sabres have gotten some pretty amazing goaltending from some average-at-best goalies this year. It’s come in spurts, like Jhonas Enroth‘s during the 10-3-0 run, Michal Neuvirth‘s right before the trade deadline and Anders Lindback‘s current one, but it seems easy to say that if one of those goaltenders had played consistently at their career average level, the Sabres would be in 30th by a mile right now.
What’s crazier is all three of those goalies have played for other teams and have played embarrassingly poorly. Enroth has a .892 save percentage since going to Dallas, Neuvirth at .881 since being moved to the Islanders and Lindback had a .875 before coming over from Dallas.
Essentially, it’s become clear that Nolan really only finds success when he has a goaltender playing out of his mind, as many can remember this guy doing most nights during Nolan’s first stint in Buffalo.
Not only is that completely unsustainable in today’s NHL, it’s forcing a square peg in a round hole because the roster that Murray is building is shaping up to be a Chicago– or Los Angeles-type possession team. That requires skilled guys fused with big, strong but talented forwards who excel on the forecheck supported by three-zone defensemen who can move the puck.
It’s easy to laugh and say “Where has that been all year?” but if you take a step back it becomes clear, especially when you look the prospect cupboard. With guys like Sam Reinhart, Nick Baptiste, Justin Bailey, Hudson Fasching and J.T. Compher on the way, the Sabres can reasonably become that type of team soon.
But puck possession and Nolan are like oil and water, with the Sabres finishing 30th in the league in Corsi-for percentage and Fenwick-for percentage this year and 29th in the league in both categories last season.
Even overlooking the atrocious possession numbers, the Sabres currently rank 30th in both the penalty kill and the power play this season, even with the Sabres power play looking somewhat reasonable the past 10 games.
So now Sabres fans wait.
They wait to see whether or not they will be guaranteed McDavid or Eichel in June.
They wait to see how much the roster is shaken up this offseason.
They wait to see who will be behind the bench in early October.
But what’s great about it all is that they wait.
After two of the more trying seasons a hockey fan could ever imagine going through, Sabres fans are just as passionate today as they were when Chris Drury and Daniel Briere captained the team.
It’s been a long road, but the future is bright and Sabres fans will bask in it when the time comes.
For now, they wait.
Advanced stats courtesy of war-on-ice.com.
Follow me on Twitter for NHL and Sabres news all season long: @mattclouden.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
The Buffalo Sabres have the smartest fans in sports. There’s no denying it now.
During Thursday night’s game in Buffalo, the home fans were actively, loudly rooting for their favorite team to lose. When the Arizona Coyotes scored the winner in overtime, the crowd cheered as though Pat LaFontaine had just sent the Sabres to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.
This is not an exaggeration. Check it out:
There’s an even better reaction from the stands:
When your team spends an entire season invested in a tank battle, and that battle comes down to two games with the Coyotes, well, fans will be invested in the outcome of that game. The franchise wants the team to lose, so the fans are going to hop on board with that notion, especially with less than 10 games to play.
To paraphrase the kid from that anti-drug ad, “they learned it by watching you.”
And really, that Sam Gagner blast may indirectly result in a Stanley Cup for the Sabres, as the Coyotes are now six points back in the chase for 30th, which means Buffalo is just about guaranteed to land either Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel in the upcoming draft.
The fans get this. It’s a beautiful and rare thing.
It’s also a little mean. Just a tad. You can be both correct and a jerk if you’re not careful.
You see, the players on the ice spent two hours having their home fans root against them. That’s not nice or fun. This gets lost sometimes, but hockey players—and trust me, this was crazy when I learned this too—are people. Like most humans, they are in search of emotional connections with other humans, and as an athlete, many feel one with fans.
Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News was on the scene Thursday, and let’s just say players were simply devastated by the two-hour vocal knife in the back, especially Mike Weber, who was in the penalty box for the winning goal. While Weber is angry, those cheers were indirectly for him, as his infraction allowed for Gagner to score the winner.
Strangely enough, he didn’t take it that way. Weber explained:
It’s tough to get momentum when your fans are rooting against you. That’s the unfortunate part. I’ve never seen that before. I’ve always spoken extremely high of our fans. I don’t even know if disappointed is the word. They scored that first one, our fans are cheering. Delayed penalty, they cheer. They cheer when they score to win the game. I don’t know. I don’t even know what to say.
Weber lost me at momentum. The Sabres are the worst non-expansion NHL team in a very long time. All the momentum in the world isn’t changing the fact this team will go down as one of the worst in history.
But here’s where Weber needs to open his eyes: These fans get it and know losing now will help win later, and since Weber is only 27 years old, he has a chance to be part of that future winning. If Weber has a problem with fan morale, maybe he should direct his frustration toward management, or even the players in the locker room, as there is a reason fans have reached the point where they are wisely cheering for losses.
Think of the Sabres as a sick grandmother that isn’t suffering from anything fatal, but she needs to take her medicine to get better. The medicine tastes like a cross between sour milk and unwashed feet, so she hates it even though it’s making her better. She grimaces with every spoonful. Her family (the fans) are really happy she’s swallowing her medicine not because they are mean-spirited, joyless idiots; it’s because they know she will feel better.
This entire season, especially Thursday night, is the Sabres taking their medicine. It will make them better.
Weber had more to say:
This is extremely frustrating for us. We don’t want to be here. We understand where we are. We understand what this team is doing, what the organization is doing, the place we’ve put ourselves in. I’ve never been a part of something like that where the away team comes into a home building and they’re cheering for them.
For a quote that has “understand” in it twice, Weber doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening.
And cry me a river, but sports has become a cold, sanitized business over the years—years that not coincidentally include three NHL lockouts. If you want to passive-aggressively question fans’ loyalty, it’s best if you’re not an NHL player when doing so, questioning fans that return in droves every time, fans that fill that building in Buffalo game after game to watch a glorified AHL team.
Fans now have a cold-blooded perspective about the sport of hockey? Man, where did they learn that, I wonder?
If you have a problem with the NHL’s lottery system that allows for this to happen when there are two potentially franchise-changing players available in a draft, that’s another issue.
If you have a problem with fans with eyes wide-open cheering their team’s loss like the geniuses they are, then much like Mike Weber, you need to grow up.
All statistics via NHL.com and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Cap information via Spotrac.
Dave Lozo covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @DaveLozo.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
“All year we’ve been taking penalties at the wrong time, and tonight it killed us.” That was the quote from Tyler Ennis during his postgame scrum after the Buffalo Sabres‘ 4-3 shootout loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs last Wednesday.
The loss gave the Sabres five in a row and kept them (at that point) three points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers in the race for 30th place.
But the Ennis quote deserves some further discussion.
The notion that penalties have killed the Sabres this season on its face seems logical. The Sabres are 11th in the league in penalties taken and are a particularly undisciplined game away from being in the top five. In other words, they have taken a lot of penalties this year.
Couple that with their 30th-ranked penalty kill, and the narrative almost writes itself: “Man, if they could only stay out of the box they would give themselves a better chance.”
And that, of course, is 100 percent true. If you’re giving up a power-play goal over a quarter of the time, the best way to fix that is to not take penalties.
Ted Nolan was also asked about his team’s penalties in the first question of his postgame scrum after the Toronto game. The interviewer alluded to the penalties hurting the Sabres’ rhythm during the game, and Nolan eventually acknowledged that they may have made a difference.
But looking at the penalties and the penalties alone is extremely flawed.
Avoiding penalties is not a new discovery. Youth hockey players have had those words in their vocabulary since they were five and with good reason. Penalties put your team at a disadvantage, and you never want to be at a disadvantage.
But to look at penalties alone is ignoring the ultimate causation of the Sabres’ woes: their even-strength play.
For the sake of the ensuing argument, it will be assumed that the majority of penalties occur while both sides are at even strength, be it five-on-five or four-on-four, and that most penalties result in a power play for the opposing team and not a four-on-four situation resulting from coinciding penalties.
With those assumptions in mind, also consider when most penalties are called.
It’s not much of a jump to say that most penalties are taken due to various breakdowns by the offending team. Whether a defenseman doesn’t rotate back quickly enough and has to hook a free player on an odd-man rush or a forward gets beat on the wall in the defensive zone and trips up an opponent, these are the common penalty-taking situations.
Yes, it has now boiled down to a percentage of a percentage of a percentage. But without the tracking of these sorts of stats in the NHL yet, this is unfortunately the best that can be done for this sort of argument. Also, many would likely agree that the combination of assumptions made above still make up a good majority of penalties called in the NHL.
So how do these assumptions help shine a (negative) light on the Sabres’ even-strength play exactly?
The Sabres have obviously struggled in all facets this year, and their special teams ineptitude has gotten a ton of attention given that both their power play and penalty kill are ranked 30th in the NHL. But the special teams have overshadowed the special kind of awful they have also been at even strength.
In the 68 games the Sabres have played this year, they have won the even-strength Corsi percentage battle just four times. Of those four, three came in a four-game stretch in December in which they won in a shootout twice against the Florida Panthers and Ottawa Senators and lost 5-1 against the Colorado Avalanche. The fourth was last week against the Leafs.
The following table outlines the Sabres’ performance in these four games, of which three were at home:
| Opponent | Date of Game | 5v5 Corsi Percentage | Result |
| Florida | 12/13/2014 | 50.5 | 4-3 W (SO) |
| Ottawa | 12/15/2014 | 52.7 | 5-4 W (SO) |
| Colorado | 12/20/2014 | 51.4 | 5-1 L |
| at Toronto | 03/11/2015 | 57.3 | 4-3 OTL (SO) |
While the Sabres needed the skills competition to earn their five points, they fared pretty well in their four games winning the even-strength possession battle. But on the flip side, the Sabres have generated a Corsi percentage of less than 30 percent four times in the last 15 games.
That’s right—the Sabres have had an even-strength Corsi percentage in the 20s as many times in the last 15 games as they have won the Corsi battle at even strength for the entire season. To stress this point even more, the Sabres went 33 games between even-strength Corsi wins. They have more games under 20 percent than over 50 percent in that stretch, which is extremely hard to do.
Logically enough, that has not boded well for the Sabres’ overall even-strength Corsi percentage this season, which currently sits at an embarrassing 37 percent. That is over 6 percent less than last year’s train wreck and also over 6 percent less than the 29th-ranked team.
Simply put, the Sabres on average allow about two shot attempts for every one they have. Needless to say, it’s hard to win games like that.
And this all plays into the overarching discussion on penalties.
If you are getting thumped at even strength and you’re hemmed into your defensive zone for long stretches, the likelihood of a penalty being called increases. It’s common hockey knowledge that a good forecheck is a team’s best weapon—just ask the Los Angeles Kings how it’s worked for them the past four years.
So with the Sabres conceding almost two-thirds of the possession battle on a nightly basis, that means the team will inherently take a lot of penalties.
Yes, as discussed earlier, the penalties themselves do hurt, especially when you kill them at less than a 75 percent clip, but it’s all about causation.
The penalties are caused by the poor even-strength play, plain and simple. Penalties just don’t materialize from the ether; they are “earned.” And it’s much easier to “earn” a penalty when your play at five-on-five is equatable to a chicken with its head cut off most nights.
So when Tyler Ennis says that penalties have killed the Sabres all year, that is an extremely shortsighted thought.
Realistically there have been four games the Sabres can say they lost because of penalties this year, and those are the four they won the even-strength possession battle. Of those four games, they won two, so penalties ultimately did not hurt them. That means there have been two games the Sabres can say penalties hurt their chances at two points.
That likely was the case last Wednesday against the Leafs. The Sabres had their best game at five-on-five all season—albeit against a weak, disinterested team. A few late penalties definitely helped shift some momentum to Toronto, and it tied the game late while Mike Weber sat for delay of game.
But to be completely fair, the Sabres lost the third period even-strength Corsi battle 15-10, which is not awful, but it’s enough to create some havoc in the defensive zone and in turn a rich penalty-taking environment.
So the Sabres can say they need to take less penalties all they want, but their penalties are mainly a byproduct of their bad even-strength play. Beyond that, penalties happen, and sometimes you can’t control them. Referees are subjective, and as a potential infraction ranges closer to the fringe, different refs will call it different ways. You cannot control something that is not—at least entirely—within your control.
What the Sabres can control is their even-strength play.
And yes, it goes without saying that the roster isn’t made up of dominant possession players, but at some point you have to look behind the bench at the head coach and wonder.
By no means should the Sabres be winning the possession battle night in and night out, but they should be winning it more. Colorado has an overall Corsi percentage of 43.6 at even strength right now, and it’s won the five-on-five possession battle four times in the past 15 games and 14 times all season.
Now, 14 games out of 69 is not a great ratio, but it’s 10 more games than the Sabres have managed. To be competitive the Sabres need to look long and hard at their even-strength play and not at the time they spend in the box.
That’s because the odds are if the team rights the five-on-five ship, the penalties will take care of themselves. No team can or will avoid penalties altogether, but it can help itself by having the puck more.
For Sabres fans’ sakes, one can only hope Buffalo has the puck a whole lot more next season.
All advanced stats courtesy of war-on-ice.com.
Follow me on Twitter for NHL and Sabres news all season long: @SwordPlay18.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
The NHL trade deadline has come and gone, and the Buffalo Sabres and their general manager Tim Murray were once again big players in the occasion.
After dealing some significant players at last year’s deadline and a few weeks before this year’s, the Sabres were left with mostly role players with expiring contracts as trade pieces. As one can imagine, the return for those pieces was far less than what the Sabres have received in the past, but the departures of four roster players will have a significant impact on the remaining 19 games of the Sabres’ season.
Here is a breakdown of all four deals Murray and the Sabres made Monday.
