Previously, I looked into some public projection models for the 2021 Sabres, which mostly centered around an expected 56 point in 56 game season. Today, I’m looking for some further details from HockeyViz and Charting Hockey to get a further understanding into what went into Micah Blake McCurdy and Sean’s Tierney’s respective projections.

HockeyViz – View the rest of Micah’s 2021 season preview here and the supporting graphs from the 2019-20 season here. Note that last season’s shot map will be on the left, and the projection will be on the right for each of the four groupings.

The Sabres powerplay projects to be much closer to league average this season. It’s easy to look at the highest volume spots on the heat map and recognize the darkest orange spots as Jack Eichel and Victor Olofsson’s offices and be okay knowing that those shots will usually have a higher expected goal number given the typical powerplay pass to set up a one timer that forces the goalie to move from side to side in the crease. The net front is still projecting a below average number of shot attempts, but the heaviest colors are much more condensed compared to last year’s finish. If teams begin denying the wing passes to Eichel and Olofsson, it’ll open up more opportunities for Taylor Hall and Sam Reinhart down low to produce shots from the net front.

The Sabres 5v5 defense tended to give up more shots than the offense produced in most games, but they did a good job of spreading those shots out in their own zone, as seen with the lack of locations that stray too far from league average. So with the same personnel returning on the defensive end this year, why does the projection have such a high volume of high danger chances allowed? My guess is the reputation of half of those defensemen being the reason for the locations of those shots, while the decrease from -2% for xGA/60 to +2% mostly has to do with losing Johan Larsson and Zemgus Girgensons and them being replaced by Cody Eakin and Tobias Rieder on the projected defense-first line.

I don’t have much to offer on the penalty kill because of the wait and see that will exist with some new names on the roster. Their biggest goal will be to make sure that dark orange monstrosity in the middle of that heat map doesn’t happen again, and with that, I don’t see it passing league average until their longest tenured defensemen aren’t the primary penalty killers.

Charting Hockey – Using Sean’s Lineup Creator

The Lineup Creator on Charting Hockey produces the number of goals per game each line and d pairing would be projected to score and allow in a game against a league average opponent. A number less than 1 can be interpreted as the probability that said line or d pairing is on the ice will be on ice for a goal for or goal allowed, depending on the context, while the xGF% is calculated as a season-long total as opposed to a single game against an average opponent. I took a stab on the TOI% numbers mostly expecting a heavy amount of playing time for the top 6 and a fairly even distribution of the d pairings at even strength.

There are no surprises on any of those lines. The top 6 will be the primary offensive contributors. I plugged in last year’s LOG line into line 3 and the xGF% was 49%. When I entered the Average placeholder between Rieder and Okposo, their GF% rose from 42% to 47%. If you were curious why Chad and Anthony have low expectations for Cody Eakin, that would explain it. Since it looks like Cozens is going to make the team and Sheahan will be in and out based on the early Lazar/Okposo injuries, I placed him in the fourth line position on the right wing. Sheahan had that line at 45% xGF%. For curiosity, swapping Olofsson and Skinner put line 2 at 50% and line 4 at 46%.

I definitely did a double take at the Miller-Jokiharju pairing at a 55% xGF%. The right shot defensemen on the top 2 pairs are what anchor those pairs to a 43% xGF. Since Kruger has shown to like to tinker with D-Pairs, I figured I’d plug each combination in to see each of the percentages, hoping to find which pairs would give the highest team xGF% for the defense. The position left vs right doesn’t change the result.

Left Defenseman	Right Defenseman	xGF%
Miller	Jokiharju	55
Dahlin	Miller	52
McCabe	Miller	52
Dahlin	Jokiharju	50
McCabe	Jokiharju	50
Dahlin	McCabe	47
Miller	Montour	47
Miller	Ristolainen	47
Ristolainen	Jokiharju	46
Montour	Jokiharju	45
Dahlin	Montour	43
Dahlin	Ristolainen	43
McCabe	Ristolainen	43
McCabe	Montour	42
Montour	Ristolainen	38

Left Defenseman	Right Defenseman	xGF%
Average	Average	47
Average	Jokiharju	50
Average	Miller	52
Average	Montour	43
Average	Ristolainen	43
Dahlin	Average	47
McCabe	Average	47

Well the Miller-Jokiharju and Dahlin-McCabe pairings would mean running back a Montour-Ristolainen pairing, so that goes down the drain. There is a clear divide where the bottom nine pairings have one or both of Ristolainen or Montour, so this exercise forces a need to separate them (or, you know, trade one and give Will Borgen a full time role). I did check Matt Irwin too and his xGF% with an average partner is also 43%, so that would not help the cause. And that brought me here as a solution with these six:

While I’d prefer to play Dahlin and Jokiharju together to continue the success that they had together last season, since a playoff contending version of the Sabres is probably led by them on the top blue line pairing, but I think I would trust Jokiharju more to play with Montour and be used as much as possible on offense. There has to be some room for hoping against low expectations somewhere, and I’ll choose to put those hopes in the skates of the younger of he and Ristolainen that they can develop something with Jokiharju. It also would allow Dahlin to play with Borgen if Krueger uses Miller in and out of the lineup like last season, and if Miller does have a full time place in the lineup, he is more steady to play with Dahlin than Montour. While McCabe and Ristolainen aren’t projected to perform too well together again this season, I’ll hold out as much hope as possible that they won’t be assigned the bulk of the tough defensive zone matchups and have that smooth out their numbers.

Goalies: Voodoo, but they both need to be better.

Conclusion: Every group has room to grow, and they must make those steps if the Buffalo Sabres are going to find themselves in the playoff mix. Thanks for reading!