Effective and inexpensive help in the bottom-six. That’s what the Buffalo Sabres’ front office targeted in the offseason with six incumbent forwards from the 2019-20 campaign set to hit free-agency. While a few of Kevyn Adams’ signings were perhaps misguided (mainly overpaying for Cody Eakin, and handing Tage Thompson a three-year extension), he gets full marks for extending Curtis Lazar, and signing free-agent forward, Riley Sheahan following his PTO opportunity.

Those two players have effectively replaced assets like Johan Larsson (now a member of the Arizona Coyotes), and Zemgus Girgensons (out for the season with a lower-body injury) on the Sabres defensive forward line. Lazar and Sheahan have spent a majority of the year together with a couple different wingers cycling in beside them. In terms of deployment, Ralph Krueger is utilizing them similarly to how he used the infamous “LOG Line” of Larsson, Girgensons, and Kyle Okposo in 2019-20.

With an offensive zone-start rate of 35.86-percent at five-on-five last season, the LOG Line managed to produce an expected goal rate of 52.09-percent. No other forward line in Buffalo managed to create a similar defensive success rate. Allowing an xGA/60 rate of 1.77 is impressive on its own, but when you consider how often Larsson, Girgensons, and Okposo started together in the defensive zone, it becomes even more noteworthy.

Leading up to the 2020-21 campaign, there was concern that Krueger would try to use Eakin to replace Larsson at center, and use him in a similar role. Given his historically poor defensive metrics, that would have probably been an ill-sighted move. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and instead it’s been Lazar down the middle of the team’s new de facto “shutdown trio” up front.

Together, Lazar and Sheahan have started in the defensive zone at a near identical rate (35.14-percent) as the LOG line in 2019-20. Amazingly, they’ve produced even better xGF results than their predecessors at 55.43-percent through exactly 123 minutes at five-on-five so far this season.

What’s unique here is how they’ve managed a similarly effective xGF rate. The LOG Line obviously did an outstanding job of suppressing chances-against, but they didn’t really produce anything offensively with an xGF/60 rate of 1.92 last season. Conversely, Lazar and Sheahan are allowing a bit more defensively (xGA/60 rate of 1.94), but they are out-performing the LOG Line in expected goals-for with a rate of 2.41 per-60. Ultimately, the overall xG impact results are similar, but for different reasons.

Another interesting note here is the fact that Lazar and Sheahan’s baseline results (as a duo) are actually reflective of their underlying expectations. Currently holding a raw GF-percentage of 55.56 through 16 games, their line is the only one on the Sabres that has actually out-performed their “expected” rate (albeit marginally).

Part of the reason for their strong xGF contributions, and tangible offensive impacts has to do with their most common linemate(s) on the left side of the line. As previously noted, Lazar at center, and Sheahan on the right side have been mainstays together. On the opposite wing, there has been some degree of a rotation, primarily served by Jeff Skinner (87 minutes at ES) and recently, Casey Mittelstadt (25 minutes at ES).

It goes without saying that these two players aren’t historically known for their respective defensive acumens. Though Lazar and Sheahan have done a great job as offensive forecheckers in their own right, part of their offensive success probably has something to do with having two scoring forwards rotating as their primary left-wingers.

It may also come as a surprise that Skinner has posted great individual defensive metrics on top of his underlying offensive numbers on this line. In fact, his presence has actually caused a significant decrease in the line’s xGA/60 rate (1.62) compared to what Lazar and Sheahan have experienced on average this year (in a similarly defensive zone deployment rate to boot).

Now here’s where things get wild. While Skinner has been positively impactful on this line, they’re a much more “high-event” unit without him. Though the sample size is still very small, Casey Mittelstadt’s effect on this line has been bizarre to the point where it can’t be ignored.

In the four games where Mittelstadt has appeared with Sheahan and Lazar at five-on-five, they’ve produced a ridiculous amount of expected offense with an xGF/60 rate of 3.09 (up .68 from their total average as a pair). Similarly, this line is giving up more on defense with Mittelstadt in place of Skinner, producing an xGA/60 rate of 2.61.

Oh, and did we mention that the Mittelstadt-Lazar-Sheahan line has been deployed at an OZS rate of 23.53-percent together? And that’s not even the best part. Despite these dramatic changes in xGF and xGA rates per-60, their overall xG percentage has remained extremely positive at 54.18 percent.

So, what does this all mean? Realizing that you’ve been hit with a whole lot of numbers here, allow me to recap the findings. Regardless of how they’ve been deployed, and who serves on their left side, the Lazar-Sheahan line has managed to dominate expected goal shares. Depending on who is skating with them, there is evidence to suggest that they are capable of adapting their game based on their linemates’ strengths.

This is evidenced by how they’ve managed to produce relatively unaltered overall xG impacts despite the vastly different skillsets of Skinner and Mittelstadt (which are made very obvious by the aforementioned xGA and xGF per-60 disparities that this line experiences between the two of them).

Adaptability and versatility. Those are the keys to Sheahan and Lazar’s success on this year’s iteration of the LOG Line. As previously acknowledged, these samples are still relatively small, but they are promising, nonetheless. Being able to plug in forwards of varying skill levels beside these two players gives Kruger flexibility without sacrificing xG share, or his ability to have them absorb a majority of the team’s defensive zone-starts.

Should their xG success continue, the Sabres may have found themselves a very cost-effective set of defensive forwards. Lazar is signed through the 2021-22 season at an AAV of $800K. Sheahan on the other hand is a pending UFA, but he should be relatively inexpensive to maintain, given his lack of base statistical production.

Charts courtesy of Hockeyviz, Evolving Hockey, and Expected Buffalo

TOI, Zone-Start, and xG Metrics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

Photo Credit: Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images