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The Sabres may need to get Peyton Krebs to the NHL soon

by Chad DeDominicis - 0

The news broke today that Casey Mittelstadt is going to be out a while after undergoing surgery. Don Granato indicated to the Buffalo media that he’s hopeful that Mittelstadt will return at some point this season. It’s unfortunate that the 23-year-old center hasn’t been healthy most of the year. He was going to be relied on as an offensive impact player on a developing club.

With Mittelstadt out of the lineup, the center spine looks bleak again. Tage Thompson and Dylan Cozens are the top two centers on the roster. The bottom six will be filled out by Cody Eakin and recently signed Mark Jankowski. This puts a lot of stress on Thompson and Cozens to carry the offense.

I wouldn’t expect a lot to come from the bottom of the lineup with the two aforementioned players as the centermen. After a strong start, Eakin has slid back into the player we watched last season.

You can see in Micah McCurdy’s expected goal model above how much better the Sabres are offensively when he’s not on the ice. Even his defensive numbers have begun to slip.

Jankowski is a similar type of player to what the Sabres are hoping to get out of Eakin. He’s strong defensively, but he’ll give you next to nothing offensively.

In my opinion, it’s counter-productive to have both in the lineup. You’re putting so much stress on your top two lines to generate all of the offense because you’re not going to get it out of the other half of your lineup. The Sabres are already one of the worst teams in the league with their 5 on 5 shot quality. They’re ranked 30th in xGF/60 in Evolving Hockey’s model. They’re getting by on shooting above expected, but they may come down at some point. They need someone else in the lineup to create more offensive opportunities.

Peyton Krebs

The good news is that Alex Tuch maybe a few weeks from returning, but they need to do something in the meantime. It may be time for Peyton Krebs to get an opportunity to play some NHL games. I understand that they would like to keep all of the younger players in the AHL. The difference with Krebs over Jack Quinn and JJ Peterka is that he’s one more year into his development. He has already played a handful of NHL games with the Vegas Golden Knights.

The 20-year-old has settled into his game playing with the Rochester Amerks of the AHL. He has 10 points in 11 games with the Amerks this season. Over the past three games, however, he has seven points.

He has been a player that has created offensive opportunities since joining the Amerks. Our Amerks tracking data tells the story of that in the numbers. Entering Wednesday’s game, you can see below that he was the second-best forward in primary shot contributions per games played. The majority of those contributions came in the form of primary shot assist.

His playmaking ability translates into the data once again when we pull out high-danger passing.

He’s second on the team in high-danger passes per game at 5 on 5. I’ll calculate high-danger passes as pass that meet the following criteria:

  • Pass from below the red line to the slot that result in a shot
  • Cross-ice pass through the slot that result in a shot
  • Pass that results in a breakaway or odd-man rush opportunity
  • Pass that directly results in a high-danger shot

This is on the power play, but the clip below is an example of what would be classified as a high-danger pass.

Krebs could inject some life into the Sabres lineup and give them another offensive threat. It’s not as though the Sabres have to keep him up the remainder of the season if he’s recalled now. They can send him back once the team is healthy again and that could be as soon as when Tuch enters the lineup. This would be a move that also gets their fan base back into the games when it seems like interest is starting to slip again with recent team performance.

Let’s get to Peyton Krebs szn.

Data via: Evolving Hockey and Micah McCurdy
Photo Credit: Rochester Amerks/Facebook
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