At this point, it’s probably fair to say that most of the Buffalo Sabres fanbase understands Rasmus Asplund’s value. That said, the sheer extent of his impact is still not fully acknowledged, largely due to a lack of box score appearances.

Though it’s early in the 2022-23 campaign, the 24-year-old’s underlying numbers to this point are fairly equal to what they were last season (a year where he received a few third-place votes for the Selke Trophy). Even more impressive than his raw analytics, however, is the flexibility his presence has provided Don Granato throughout his forward lines (which we’ll get to in a moment).

Let’s take a dive into the numbers and try to paint a picture of just how important Asplund’s contributions are for a young team on the upswing.

Baseline Analytics

We’ll start by establishing Asplund’s prototype as a player. As a tenacious forechecker, he was the Sabres’ strongest “dump-and-chase” retriever last season. On a counter-rush team that held a very low dump-in rate last season (among the lowest in the NHL, in fact), that skillset could be easy to overlook.

Defensively, Zemgus Girgensons is the only other Sabres forward who holds a candle to Asplund’s individual contributions. In 2021-22, his xGA/60 rate of 2.08 was the best on the team. Girgensons was just behind him at 2.11.

In the very small 2022-23 data sample, we have so far, those xGA numbers have increased, but there is a reason for it (which again, we’ll get to). After starting the first couple of contests alongside Girgensons and Kyle Okposo on the team’s de facto “shutdown line” (a line that produced an xGF rate of just over 61% in those two games), Asplund was moved up the lineup.

Once the Sabres’ Western Conference road trip began, he was asked to serve alongside Casey Mittelstadt and Victor Olofsson, two players who have, historically speaking, benefitted from Asplund’s presence.

Teammate Impact

Perhaps no one player has experienced a more significant performance boost alongside Asplund than Olofsson. Since the start of the 2020-21 season, the two of them have spent just over 443 minutes together at even strength. In that time, they posted a solid overall xGF rate of 50.10%.

The real impact is seen when Asplund is taken away from Olofsson’s side. Without his Swedish cohort, Olofsson’s xGF rate drops down to 42.95% whereas Asplund’s metric remains virtually unchanged (50.02%) sans Olofsson.

In terms of raw GF, the two benefit similarly from one another. The real delta in the metrics, however, is the immediate xGA improvement that occurs when Asplund is present on Olofsson’s line.

In addition, while the TOI sample from last season isn’t quite as large (just under 237 minutes at even strength), Mittelstadt has also experienced a similar (and perhaps even more dramatic) WOWY impact in relation to Asplund’s presence on his line. Sans Asplund, the Minnesota native struggled, posting an xGF rate of 40.36%. Once Asplund was placed on his line, however, that rate skyrocketed up to 52.69% thanks in large part to a massive xGA improvement.

A lot of fans are still having trouble understanding why an xGA uptick on a scoring line is so important. Though Asplund does his part to help boost xGF metrics as well, the xGA disparity is the foundation for his success alongside more offensively gifted forwards.

This is beneficial simply because it reduces the amount of time offensive entities like Olofsson and Mittelstadt need to spend in the defensive zone. Without Asplund, they both have a historical tendency to get trapped in the D-zone, which means that they spend less time doing what they do best (i.e. creating offense).

While Mittelstadt is a strong transition player in his own right, he struggles at positioning himself in the defensive zone. Asplund’s puck retrieval ability helps facilitate zone breakouts, which is an area both Mittelstadt and Olofsson tend to thrive.

Deployment Flexibility

For the most part, I’ve argued in favor of placing Asplund on a “scoring line” rather than using him as a redundancy on a defensive shutdown line. This is especially the case on a team full of young forwards with varying degrees of defensive shortcomings.

Player-on-player impacts like the examples referenced above get lost when putting all your shutdown forwards into one basket. That said, I’ve changed my tune to a degree on this philosophy.

Let me first establish that I’m speculating to a degree, but hear me out. I feel there is reason to believe Don Granato is doing is deploying Asplund in various ways to capitalize on home and away matchups. During the Sabres’ two home contests so far this season, he’s used Asplund on a defensive shutdown line. He’s leveraged his last-shift ability on home ice to try and completely thwart his opponent’s top-scoring lines by matching them up with his Girgensons-Asplund-Okposo trio.

In that venture, Granato has been successful. As mentioned above, that line carried an outstanding overall xGF rate through those first two games, and effectively extinguished all opposing scoring chances, while producing some offense of their own. At this point in the season, the sample size is absurdly small but still provides a benchmark for future results.

On the road, Granato does not have the same ability to choose his line matchups. It might be why he’s done a better job of distributing his defensive forwards (i.e. moving Asplund up the lineup) to ensure some xGA stability across the lineup and make his squad more difficult to match up against.

The extent to which this approach has worked is up for debate. The Asplund-Mittelstadt-Olofsson line has failed to produce a positive xGF impact during this West Coast road trip (again, we’re talking about a three-game sample), but the line is producing baseline offense, and it has helped facilitate opportunities for other forward trios in terms of zone-deployment (which we’ll touch on shortly).

Again, I am speculating and basing this hypothesis on a very small sample. In looking at the linemate TOI numbers from last season, Asplund’s distribution between “shutdown line” and “scoring line” minutes was relatively even across both home and away matchups. So, if my theory is correct, it would be a relatively new tactical development from Granato.

To further the intrigue, the zone-deployment Granato has placed on Asplund hasn’t tilted offensively at any point, regardless of his linemates. While skating with Girgensons and Okposo, he held an OZS rate of literally zero percent (lending further credence to my home/away theory). Alongside Mittelstadt and Olofsson, that rate increased to 31.8% but still leaned heavily defensive.

What this did was allow Granato to “shelter” the zone deployment of his younger, less experienced forward assets, likely in the hopes of maximizing their outcomes. Regardless of whether or not fans appreciate Asplund’s value as a utility winger, it seems like the Sabres coaching staff certainly does.

Closing Thoughts

Whether it be doubling down on a defensive shutdown line, or usage as a defensive entity alongside two offensive forwards, Asplund tends to provide a positive impact on just about everyone. Frankly, there is no “bad” deployment strategy with a player of this nature (outside of cutting his minutes, of course).

We’ll see how Granato’s approach continues to evolve. In the early going, it seems like he’s trying to leverage Asplund’s defensive impacts to not only bolster offensively-inclined forwards (something he did last season as well) but also create an extremely effective shutdown line in games where he feels it will give him a tactical advantage.

Either way, his willingness to adapt his personnel and strategic approach in different scenarios (while recognizing the value of a player who provides positive impact despite not registering a lot of points) is a breath of fresh air. His recognition of how valuable his defensive forward entities can be is even more refreshing.

Advanced Stats and TOI Data courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Evolving Hockey
Charts Courtesy of Hockeyviz and All Three Zones

Photo Credit: Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images