It’s no secret that the Buffalo Sabres’ offense left a lot to be desired this season (and the eight or so that preceded it). While the first season of Ralph Krueger’s system did bring about positive impacts defensively, the team’s offensive futility remained. Though many recognize this, the reality behind how the Sabres once again collapsed down the stretch, is perhaps not fully understood.

Let’s start by acknowledging the type of strategy the Buffalo coaching staff employed in 2019-20. At its core, the approach was to play low-event hockey. The Sabres didn’t give up many scoring chances but registered even fewer of their own. With elite goaltending and special teams, this approach can be successful, but that component obviously didn’t exist in this case.

Most of this is common knowledge. What isn’t perhaps, is the extent of the Sabres’ offensive futility, particularly over the final (presumably) 25 games of the year. It’s somewhat similar and was heading in a similar trajectory to how the team finished the 2018-19 campaign (where they posted a 7-19-2 record to close the season). Let’s examine some of the similarities and differences.

Everyone remembers Jason Botterill’s post-trade deadline utterance about “meaningful games in March”. Cancellation of the season or not, those games were never coming. The additions of Dominik Kahun (which was a very nice deal) and Wayne Simmonds were too little, too late. The offensive black-hole that existed in Western New York was too far-gone, and in reality, the organization was lucky to have a five-percent chance at the playoffs as of February 24.

Let’s first take a look at the Sabres’ offensive metrics on the year as a whole, and compare them to what the same categories looked like to close out the year. When analyzing their expected-goal counts over-time, you’ll notice how much Buffalo struggled to find scoring opportunities. In fact, their second instance with more than two expected-goals at five-on-five (over a five-game rolling average) didn’t come until February (the first came during the season-opener, which really doesn’t count in terms of measuring consistency).

Only the intentionally tanking Detroit Red Wings averaged fewer expected-goals per game at even-strength (exactly 2.0 per-60 versus the Sabres’ mark of 2.05). So how did Buffalo remain on the outskirts of the playoff conversation with such glaring shortcomings on offense? Well, their xGA mark of 2.26 ranked 10th in the NHL, while their even-strength save-percentage of 92.19 ranked 11th. If their special teams’ units were even remotely respectable, they could have perhaps survived a little longer.

On that note, we shift our attention to PDO. Last year, the analytics community was quick to caution fans about the sustainability of the team’s 10-game winning streak in November, citing outlier shooting and save-percentages as the primary reason. Buffalo experienced another similar hot-streak this season when they started out with an 8-1-1 record but did their downfall once again come as a result of PDO crashing back down to average?

Not really.

In this case, the PDO benefit existed early on but wasn’t enough of an outlier to make a significant difference. Not nearly to the same extent as “the streak” from 2018-19. In fact, while team shooting-percentage was down .5-percent from the season average over the last 25 games, the Sabres’ collective even-strength save-percentage remained consistent. 

Unlike a year ago, the story of this downfall isn’t due to a lack of sustainability to what they were doing at five-on-five. In fact, even during the team’s hot start, they underwhelmed in that area from the very beginning. The story of the second-half collapse rests in the hands of the Sabres’ special teams units. 

This isn’t to say that their even-strength metrics were good, but they may have been able to get away with it. The power-play and penalty-kill teams were the keys to both the Sabres’ hot start and their eventual demise. Buffalo’s conversion rate of near 30-percent on the man-advantage to start the season was the one piece of the puzzle that wasn’t sustainable. Even though they were collecting victories at that point, very little offense was being produced at even-strength. Elite man-advantage success was how they kept winning with their paltry xGF metrics early-on. 

Was that ever sustainable? Likely not, especially when the success was mostly predicated on getting the puck to Victor Olofsson on his off-hand for a one-timer. Once opponents figured out that one-trick pony of a plan (along with the coaching staff’s feeble attempts to adjust their approach thereafter), the power-play cratered along with the Sabres’ early playoff footing. Pair it with the league’s second-worst PK unit, and the issue(s) becomes pretty clear.

Simply put, without special teams success, and elite defensive/goaltending play, Krueger’s approach was never a recipe for success. Given what we knew about the Sabres roster heading into the year, many were skeptical (myself included) that it would result in tangible progress. The plan looked even worse during the final 25 games of the year, when the seemingly improved defensive approach started falling back to earth as well, leading to a 10-14-1 record in pursuit of the aforementioned “meaningful March”.

As you can see from the charts below, the Sabres lack of production on offense never really changed down the stretch. It was always bad, and it stayed bad. 

In order to be a playoff team, their defensive metrics needed to be elite. Before the final stretch, they were very good (arguably great), keeping the team somewhat afloat. During it, they were above-average and then bad. That said, the team was still getting saves at even-strength (despite misguided assertions that goaltending was the team’s most pressing issue), mitigating the poor stretch of defensive play to a small extent.

As the defense experienced that mid-February (and onward) downturn in their xGA metrics, the offense stayed terrible, as did the special teams units (in fact, they too got somehow worse). Though there was hope pertaining to early sustainability, those aspirations were dashed in another second-half collapse. 

The reasons for said collapse are simultaneously similar and different. Last year’s Sabres team crashed much harder, and much sooner. This year, they at least waited until February to tumble out of contention which is…. progress?

If Krueger is behind the bench again next season, the organization must address two glaring issues. For starters, they need forward depth. Generating all of the team’s offense from one line failed in 2018-19, and failed once more this past season. Second, they must evaluate whether or not Steve Smith (the man presumably responsible for the special teams approach), should be back in the fold. Krueger must realize that his approach is predicated on good goaltending and good special teams. He had one (though an upgrade over Carter Hutton as the primary reserve would be welcome), but the other left everything to be desired.