Expectations were high for Brandon Montour when he was acquired from the Anaheim Ducks back in February of 2019. In a year and a half with the club, he has failed to live up to them. Now, we’re looking at a situation where Montour has probably played his last game with the Buffalo Sabres.

The 26-year-old defender will be a restricted free agent in the offseason and there was already a lot of chatter that he would be used as a trade piece. Then on the 31 Thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman mentioned that the Sabres may not even give him a qualifying offer, which would make him an unrestricted free agent.

In the middle of a discussion about RFA’s not receiving qualifying offers this year Friedman said: “you know who I heard is going to be that guy too maybe? Brandon Montour in Buffalo.”

I find it hard to believe that the Sabres would let an asset walk away for nothing, but at the very least this confirms that Montour will likely not be back in Buffalo. It’s disappointing we’ve come to this point with a player that cost a first-round pick and a prospect 18 months ago.

Misuse

The frustrating part is for the majority of his time with the Sabres, Montour has been misused or deployed in a situation that made it difficult to have success. That’s on-brand for them over the last decade, but I digress.

When he was brought over from the Ducks his biggest asset was his transition ability. Montour is an excellent skater that is playing his best hockey when he moves the puck from the defensive end of the ice to the offensive zone. When possession is established at either end of the ice he’s not that effective.

You can see above in CJ Turtoro’s chart using Corey Sznajder’s tracking data, how effective he was in transition with the Ducks, and his first 20 games with the Sabres under Phil Housely. When Ralph Krueger took over as the head coach he put into place a system that restricted the transition ability of his defense group that was built around those types of defenders.

Montour arguably took the biggest blow from that change and his game began to suffer. You’ll see below that his transition data regressed significantly this past season, especially in zone entries.

The coaching staff doubled down on this mistake by deploying Montour in the heaviest offensive-zone start rate of his career of 56%, according to Natural Stat Trick. The three years prior, his offensive-zone deployment was at 49%, 46%, and 50% respectively.

This is significant because as I mentioned, he’s not that effective offensively when possession has been established in the offensive zone. You’re also reducing his ability to use his key asset of transition when he’s being utilized and an offensively deployed defenseman.

It was a clear misunderstanding of the player’s strengths and weaknesses. His offensive impact came from his ability to generate offense on the rush. That is where he’s the most dangerous by joining the play and sneaking into openings with his speed.

It gets worse.

On top of all of that, they asked him to play on the left side when he’s been a right defenseman his entire career. Oh yeah, they also asked him to do that while playing top pair minutes with Rasmus Ristolainen, arguably the most difficult partner on the roster. Don’t forget they had him play forward for a game too.

He Is Who We Thought He Was

A handful of people in the analytics community tried to warn fans about the type of player that Montour was when they made the move. His impacts were not great and the transition game was the best part of his toolset. I believed that getting him away from Randy Carlyle would result in improved impacts at both ends of the ice.

Turns out he is who we thought he was…sort of. He was a replacement-level player before the trade at 5 on 5 and he’ll leave Buffalo no better than that, as you can see above in Evolving Hockey’s expected goals above replacement model.

You can also see the regression to his game at even strength in Micah McCurdy’s model and how he struggled in Krueger’s system.

The plan to move on from Montour is the correct decision, but the Sabres have done an effective job of killing his trade value. He’s one year away from unrestricted free agency as an arbitration-eligible RFA. Teams around the league also know that he hasn’t reached his potential and is past his prime age of 24.

Having said that, there still should be some interest in the league for a player of his ability. There’s no need for the Sabres to not qualify him and leave without recouping any assets. He’s a piece that Kevyn Adams needs to do his best to maximize value to improve his club with only a handful of tradeable assets.

Data via: Corey Sznajder, Hockeyviz, Evolving Hockey, and Natural Stat Trick

Photo Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports