We have talked at length about how the Buffalo Sabres improved their 5 on 5 play under Don Granato. They scored more and were a more exciting team to watch at 5 on 5.

While Granato was in charge, what did fly under the radar was his club’s poor special teams’ performance. Both the power play and penalty kill regressed while he was behind the bench for the second half of the season.

It is important to note that the circumstances were not that of a normal season while Granato was the head coach. He had very little practice time with the condensed schedule. As result, it would have made it difficult to establish and practice a new system. Having said that, if the coaching staff is going to remain the same as it was to end the season this is an area we need to watch.

Power Play

It also should be noted that Granato had a small amount of time with Taylor Hall on the power play and no time with Jack Eichel. Those are two key players that were missing from that unit. If they scored less with man advantage without those two players, you can understand that. However, other concerns go beyond not having those two players. Also, it’s probably safe to say neither of those players will be on the Sabres roster next season.

Under Granato the power play ranked 18th in the league and under Ralph Krueger, it ranked 10th. That’s not a significant drop, but it’s the details on the team performance with the man advantage that was concerning.

First and foremost, the Sabres had a difficult time entering the zone with possession under Granato. According to Corey Sznajder’s tracking data, they had a 48.72% carry-in rate on entry attempts with the man advantage. That was down from 56% under Krueger.

It was frustrating to watch them continuously fail to establish possession in the offensive zone against their opponents on the power play. Failing to enter the zone with possession over 50% of the time is a recipe for disaster on any power play unit. Even when they did enter the zone with possession, they struggled to set up their structure and create chances. Their scoring chance set up rate off of controlled entries dropped from 37% to 25% under Granato as a team.

The other significant change with the man advantage was the lack of cross-ice passing on the man advantage. We’re seeing how dangerous a cross-ice passing power play can be with the Tampa Bay Lightning. As you’ll see above in Corey’s data, the Sabres went from 11% of their passes on the power play being cross-ice passes to 4% under Granato. This makes it easy for the opponent to take away shooting lanes if they only have to follow the puck moving around the outside of the defensive box.

The clip above is an example of how simplistic the Sabres power play was. It was slow developing with little movement that relied upon puck movement on the outside. This sequence resulted in a low-quality shot for Olofsson.

The on-ice data reflects the results of the poor microstats under Granato. You’ll see below in Evolving Hockey’s data that shot quality (xGF/60), and actual goals (GF/60) per 60 minutes all decreased under the new coaching staff.

The team also had a reduction in unblocked shot attempts per 60 minutes. Under Krueger, they had a rate per 60 minutes of 71.7 and it dropped to 55.1 with Granato behind the bench.

They’ll likely still have Victor Olofsson and Rasmus Dahlin to anchor their power play unit without Eichel. They’ll need to rely on other players like Dylan Cozens, Arttu Ruotsalainen, and any new players they acquire in a new power play system. Granato can’t rely on a system that everyone in the building knows is just trying to force shots to Olofsson. They should rely on quick movement to get the defense out of place and create passing lanes.

Penalty Kill

The power play numbers may be ugly, but the team overall took a bigger drop on the penalty kill. Under Krueger, the Sabres ranked 12th in the league. With Granato in charge, the Sabres were 27th in the league on the penalty kill.

My first thought was this is a case of the on-ice save percentage regressing while shorthanded under Granato. Turns out that was indeed part of the story. In the first 27 games of the season, the Sabres had an on-ice save percentage of 89%. The remainder of the season the save percentage dropped to 87% while shorthanded, according to Evolving Hockey. While the drop doesn’t seem significant it was an overall league ranking change from 6th to 19th.

I would be willing to accept that the penalty kill wasn’t as bad as the overall team rankings indicate, but the underlying numbers were poor once again. Under Granato, the Sabres allowed the most unblocked shot attempts and highest expected goals against rate per 60 minutes in the league while shorthanded.

In the Krueger part of the season, they ranked 13th in the league in unblocked shot attempts and 6th in expected goals against per 60 minutes while shorthanded.

The Sabres lost their best penalty-killing defenseman in Jake McCabe, but that an inexcusable drop with the majority of the players on the unit in the lineup.

Both of these units need a drastic improvement going into next season. As I mentioned at the beginning of this, certain circumstances could have prevented Granato from working on these areas of the game. While understanding that, we also can’t overlook how poor both units looked under his watch.

We have a good idea of the type of 5 on 5 hockey he wants his team to play, but I’ll be curious to see if this new coaching staff can put together improved special teams units.

Data via: Corey Sznajder and Evolving Hockey

Photo Credit: Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images