Sam Reinhart has become one of the more polarizing players on the Buffalo Sabres roster. Some are staunch defenders of his game and others that believe he doesn’t deserve the contract that could be coming his way this offseason.

After another day of debating his worth on Monday afternoon on Twitter, I decided to go all the way on figuring out if the biggest criticism of his play is true. Can Reinhart produce away from Jack Eichel? I’ve looked into it in the past, but never dove in. What better time to do that than now?

The Data

I went back to the 2015-16 season which was the first full NHL season for Reinhart and Eichel. I only looked at 5 on 5 data here because that’s where people discuss Reinhart’s inability to play away from Eichel. On the power play you’ll usually see the best players loaded up on the top unit on every team, therefore, it didn’t make sense to spend the time looking at those situations.

The data is also broken down into per 60 minutes buckets. Looking at the production numbers when there’s a drastic difference in time on ice doesn’t give you apples to apples comparison. This way we can break the numbers down into rates that you can compare in the two situations we’re looking at here.

We’ll start by looking at the goalscoring at 5 on 5 every season over the last five years.

We already have our first data point that goes against the argument that Reinhart can’t produce without Eichel. In three of the last five years, he has scored more goals per 60 minutes away from Eichel than he has with him. It should be noted that the 2019-20 season is a rather small sample size in time on ice for Reinhart without the Sabres captain. Regardless of that, throughout his career, Reinhart has scored at a higher goals per 60 minutes rate at 5 on 5 away from Eichel.

Let’s move onto the helpers and see how that stacks up over the last few years.

The assists shake out differently than the goals. In every season, Reinhart’s assists came at a higher rate when he was on the ice with Eichel. This is an interesting data point that we’ll get back to a little later.

Lastly, let’s take a look at the points.

Again, you see here that Reinhart had a higher rate of points per 60 minutes away from Eichel’s wing in three of the five years. However, overall for his career, he has produced at a higher rate with Eichel than without him.

Over the length of his career, Reinhart has spent 52% of his time at 5 on 5 playing on Eichel’s wing. The interesting part is that over the last two seasons his ice time with him has grown significantly.

In the first three years of Reinhart’s career, he never spent more than 50% of his time on ice at 5 on 5 with Eichel. As you see in the charts above, he didn’t have a problem producing away from Eichel so the drastic change in philosophy is an odd decision. Especially when you consider that the team had limited talent offensively and you’d want to split that talent up if possible.

On-ice Data

One reason that would make sense for the Sabres to insist on playing Reinhart with Eichel is to help improve the defensive side of the game for that top line and still maintain a high level of offensive output. Over the last three years, Eichel has had better defensive numbers when he’s played with Reinhart. His 5 on 5 shot quality against (xGA/60) improves from 2.42 to 2.28. Actual goals-against improve from 3.31 to 2.57, according to Natural Stat Trick.

The offset here is that the offensive numbers in both shot quality and actual scoring go down when Eichel plays with Reinhart. We could keep going down this rabbit hole but it can lead you off the path when you start getting deeper into WOWY’s (without/with you) data.

An interesting data point I noticed going through this exercise that ties into Reinhart’s assists that I referenced I’d get back to above. I had a theory after seeing how his assists jumped while playing with Eichel. It was confirmed when I looked at Eichel’s production with and without Reinhart.

It appears that throughout his career Eichel becomes more of a goal scorer when he’s on a line with Reinhart. His goals per 60 minutes at 5 on 5 go from 0.72 to 0.85 and his assists go from 1.28 down to 0.97. Reinhart taking over the role of a playmaker for that line is a reason that we see the jump in assists in the data above when he’s on the ice with the Sabres top-line center. It also could be that Reinhart is getting helpers from jump-starting Eichel’s transition game in the defensive zone. Another part of his game that is underappreciated when the two are on a line together.

Conclusion

At this point, we’ve established that the belief that Reinhart can’t produce without Eichel is incorrect. He produces at a higher rate in total points, but can still be productive on his own. Reinhart shouldn’t be punished for the coaching staff’s decision to continually play him on a line with Eichel.

Going forward, if the Sabres do improve the team, they can keep these two together on the top line. The main reason that many, including myself, believed that they should be split up is that they had few players that were offensive threats. Loading up your top line without sufficient depth behind them makes it too easy for the opponent.

With an improved roster, Ralph Kreuger can continue to play Reinhart and Eichel together. At the end of the day, good hockey players play with other good hockey players.

Data via Evolving Hockey and Natural Stat Trick