Barring something unforeseen as it pertains to the currently suspended NHL season, the Buffalo Sabres will carry a nine-year playoff-drought into 2020-21. Recently, fans have re-lived days of postseason lore in the form of reruns on the MSG Network. Obviously, the 2005-07 Sabres experienced a great deal of playoff success, but publicly available advanced metrics in hockey were essentially non-existent at that point.

While analytics has certainly evolved since the Sabres’ last playoff appearance in 2010-11, many of the same metrics we use today were available then. Because they were the last discernibly “good” team we’ve seen in Western New York, we wanted to take a look at which players from that team had the best (and worst) regular season impacts.

The goal here is not only to see which players produced better underlying metrics than fans may realize but also, point out a few outlier occurrences that may help debunk (or perhaps confirm) popular theories about specific players that year.

The Good: Underlying Standouts

Despite their standing as the seventh-seeded team in the Eastern Conference, the 2010-11 Sabres had quite a few positive impact players overall. In this section, we’ll focus on which of them produced the most impressive underlying metrics on the year. While a few of these players didn’t exactly make waves on the score sheet, their overall on-ice impacts were evident.

Jochen Hecht

Let’s kick things off with the Sabres’ leader in both relative Corsi, and xG that season in forward, Jochen Hecht. Though his base numbers don’t jump off the page (29 points in 67 games), the German-born utility player contributed significant positive impacts both offensively, and defensively.

There are a few interesting contextual points to highlight when it comes to Hecht’s deployment in 2010-11. For starters, his offensive zone-start rate of 58.94-percent was the third-highest ratio among Sabres forwards that year (and by far the highest of his career to that point). That change seemed a little odd considering how well he tended to fare historically as a defensive forward. Fortunately, his well-rounded skillset adapted nicely to the alteration.

Due to lindy Ruff’s balanced approach to rolling forward lines, his average TOI of 12:50 per-game at even strength actually ranked third-highest as well (though the TOI gap between the Sabres de-facto first and fourth lines was marginal).

While he was no stranger to posting positive impacts during his career in Buffalo (albeit somewhat sporadically), Hecht’s relative-Corsi of 5.83-percent, and xG of 5.61-percent would both end up being career-high marks. Offensively, the Sabres’ team-wide xG-percentage shot up significantly when he was on the ice, and their high-danger concentration increased in tremendous fashion.

On top of his apparent success at even-strength, Hecht served as a go-to penalty-killing forward, logging 130 minutes shorthanded on the year. As a result of his salary ($3.5 million that season), there were times when fans lamented his lack of base scoring production, but the way his play facilitated offensive opportunity cannot be overstated. The contributions weren’t always sexy, but he was quietly one of, if not the most valuable Sabre in 2010-11.

Paul Gaustad

Fans sometimes confuse physicality for defensive competence. That’s not to say they’re mutually exclusive concepts, but they certainly aren’t one and the same either.

During the 2010-11 campaign, Gaustad possessed both defensive acumen, and physicality. The blue-and-gold faithful tend to remember him as a defensive forward, but the dominance he exhibited that season was on another level. As a result of his team-leading xGA/60 impact of -.56-percent, his overall xG ratio of 4.97-percent ranked second only to Hecht.

Interestingly enough, it would be the last time in his career (which continued through the 2015-16 season) where he posted positive overall xG metrics. Still, that doesn’t take away from the year of absolute defensive dominance he displayed the last time Buffalo was a playoff contender.

On top of the already dramatic xGA/60 mark we noted above, Gaustad was asked to start in the defensive-zone a team-high, 56.34-percent of the time. So, not only was he mitigating shots and chances against, but he was producing a positive Corsi percentage of .32-percent to boot.

On the year, the Sabres allowed a two-percent higher xG rate than the league average. When Gaustad was on the ice however, that metric decreased by a whopping 18-percent. Like Hecht, his 31 points in 81 games weren’t anything to write home about, but if you hold that production up against his deployment, and consider how few opportunities-against he gave up, it’s actually very impressive.

In the ensuing years, Gaustad would never again match that level of play. Fortunately for the Sabres, Darcy Regier swindled the Nashville Predators out of a first-round pick for him less than a year later. Talk about selling high.

Thomas Vanek

As the Sabres’ leader in both goals and overall points in 2010-11 (32 and 73, respectively), Vanek’s presence as one of the team’s top impact performers probably doesn’t come as a shock. While his relative Corsi and xG marks of 1.34 and .88, respectively aren’t dramatic, his offensive prowess was too significant to ignore.

Upon first glance, the underlying metrics are good, but unspectacular without added context. When you look at what Vanek was able to produce at even-strength, you’ll find that his offensive GAR production was near the top of the league (and second only to Drew Stafford on the team, which we’ll get to later) in that regard.

Between his five-on-five production and his power-play productivity, no one on the Sabres produced more of an offensive impact than Vanek. While he certainly gave some of it back defensively, his positive effects far outweighed the negative.

His offensive-zone presence was actually somewhat comparable in magnitude to Hecht. On the year, the Sabres’ offense averaged an eight-percent higher xGF mark (which stood at 2.59 per-60) than the league average. When Vanek was on the ice however, that mark jumped an additional 15-percent.

The great part about this is that Vanek and Hecht were seldom on the ice together, meaning their respective offensive-zone impacts were coming via two separate forward lines (doesn’t that sound nice?).

Another interesting point to note is the impact he and Jason Pominville had on one another that season. Both players saw nearly a four-percent dip in their relative expected-goals metrics without the other (each of them falling into the negatives when that was the case). In terms of offensive chemistry, it could be argued that this section should belong to both of them.

The Sekera-Myers Pairing

It only felt right to give these two credit for what they did as a duo, as neither was as effective without the other. Ruff was wise to place Tyler Myers alongside Andrej Sekera for a majority of the 2010-11 season, as they likely were his most complimentary defensive pairing.

As a duo, they posted the highest relative xG mark (8.84-percent) of all Buffalo devensive tandems who spent more than 200 minutes together on the year. Fresh off a Calder Trophy-winning rookie season the year prior, Myers didn’t quite match his inaugural point-production, but at 20 years old his individual Corsi mark of 4.43 wouldn’t be matched until his 2016-17 campaign with the Winnipeg Jets.

In Sekera’s case, he was always a bit underrated in Western New York. He would go on to best his 2010-11 individual xG mark of 1.12 several times in the years to follow. Still, his replacement of Henrik Tallinder as a ‘”veteran” presence beside Myers was virtually seamless.

Only Chris Butler posted higher shot-share metrics alongside Myers in 2010-11, which is actually quite impressive considering the eight-percent reduction in OZS rate Myers experienced when paired with him. Had Butler played the entire season (only dressed in 49 games), it would have been interesting to see how Ruff would have balanced the pairings.

Either way, Myers was better with both of them than without (and vice-versa). The data indicates that in both cases, the pairings were mutually beneficial.

Honorable Mention

Though the above sections outline the most impressive underlying performances in 2010-11, there were quite a few names that just missed the cut. We mentioned Pominville, and his positive impacts alongside Vanek. We also noted Chris Butler’s shortened campaign, and the trajectory he was on, particularly alongside Myers.

Nathan Gerbe produced what was likely his best professional season with career-high marks in terms of relative Corsi, and total points with 31 on the season. Derek Roy was on a point-per-game pace with 35 in as many games before having his season cut short. Though, while he was producing well offensively, he was giving back most of it on defense.

Lastly, Tyler Ennis was third among Sabres forwards in goals above-replacement while posting a career-high 49 points in 82 games. There are a couple of other individual performances that were demonstrably “good” as well, but the metrics behind them were particularly interesting and warranted additional analysis. These cases were assigned their own section to follow.

The Bad: New Arrivals

Following an unceremonious first-round exit at the hands of the Boston Bruins to close out 2009-10, Darcy Regier added three veteran pieces to his young roster that summer in an attempt to push them over the top. Unfortunately, all three of them could have been argued as the Sabres’ worst impact-player for the 2010-11 season.

At forward, 36-year-old Rob Niedermayer brought a wealth of experience and a Stanley Cup ring to Buffalo when he signed a one-year deal as a UFA. It would end up being his final season of NHL hockey.

No other Sabre who played at least half the season posted a lower relative xGF rate than his at -4.31-percent. His relative Corsi mark of -5.47-percent, was also a team-low. Hopefully he provided the locker room presence Regier was looking for, because he didn’t bring much else to the table.

Defensively, Shaone Morrisonn and Jordan Leopold were the Sabres’ least effective defensemen. Like Niedermayer, it would end up being Morrisonn’s last season in the NHL at just 30 years old. Fresh off a two-year UFA contract which paid him $2.5 million AAV, he spent the 2011-12 campaign with the Rochester Amerks before the deal expired.

In 2010-11, no Buffalo defender was as ineffective, in terms of shot-suppression. While he did help limit some danger while getting hemmed in his own end, he did absolutely nothing to aid transition and facilitate counter-rush opportunities.

As the team’s “premier” offseason acquisition, Leopold’s three-year, $3 million AAV contract didn’t get off to a great start. While he wasn’t really bad enough to warrant the same criticism Niedermayer and Morrisonn’s respective performances did, he certainly wasn’t worthy of the three-year, $3 million AAV price tag the Sabres paid.

At best, an argument can be made that he provided a neutral impact in that first season. To be fair, he was the team’s TOI leader at five-on-five, and was forced into a sub-optimal deployment alongside Steve Montador. Both players posted better results without the other, yet remained the de-facto top-pairing for a vast majority of the season.

The Interesting: Outliers Happen

These next two players could have made a case for the honorable mention section above, but the metrics were noteworthy (bizarre even), and required some added context.

Drew Stafford

There is a narrative that exists suggesting Stafford only played at his best during contract years. In 2010-11, that theory was fortified on the surface, given his 31-goal performance en-route to doubling his salary with Buffalo that summer.

But did he actually pick things up, or was he really just lucky?

On the season, Stafford converted shots at 17.3-percent. At five-on-five his individual expected-goals mark was just over 9, but he ended up with 20 at even-strength. It’s actually remarkable that he sustained that level of base production.

The disparity he displayed between his expected and actual production that season was mind-blowing. Aside from benefitting from a career-high on-ice PDO mark of 1.047 that year, there was nothing Stafford really did that was different than years past (besides shooting with unprecedented accuracy). He didn’t pick up his game in any demonstrable way, the shots were just going in at an incredible rate.

Steve Montador

As most Sabres fans are aware, Ruff’s strategies weren’t always of the “high-event” nature. That said, Montador was probably the most high-event performer on the 2010-11 roster. Overall, his impacts were good, and he likely doesn’t get the credit he deserves for just how effective he was in blue-and-gold.

As mentioned above, he and Leopold let up a lot of shots-against, but did a decent job of mitigating the danger of said shots. Individually, Montador did a lot more to make up that gap by helping create offensive opportunities the other way. Though you might not realize it based on his base statistical production (26 points in 73 games), he was an early iteration of the modern offensive defenseman.

Interestingly enough, when paired primarily with Toni Lydman the year prior, Montador’s RAPM numbers were much more defensively sound, but he created a lot less offense. This would indicate that the Montador-Leopold pairing was a bit of a boom-or-bust duo, despite being deployed in almost identical fashion (OZS rate of 56-65-percent in 2010-11 versus 55.59-percent in 2009-10).

Advanced Data courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, and Hockeyviz