Before we get started here, let’s address the elephant in the room – Taylor Hall isn’t scoring. To a lot of fans on Twitter, that has translated to the perception that he’s playing poorly, but that’s really not the case. That being said, he is probably being used improperly (for the most part).

Through ten games this season, Hall ranks second on the Buffalo Sabres’ roster, carrying an xGF rate of 66.99-percent at five-on-five. He also ranks first among Sabres’ forwards with a GAR mark of 1.90. As a result of how much time his line spends in the offensive zone, his team currently carries an even-strength xGF/60 rate of 2.78 while he’s on the ice. Despite all this, he has yet to register a single tally at even-strength this season.

(check out Eddy’s article for a more in-depth look at the scoring)

Your first instinct might be to presume those marks are a direct result of playing primarily alongside Jack Eichel. In examining the underlying numbers, however, this likely isn’t the case. In fact, their simultaneous on-ice presence could be argued as a detriment, but we’ll get to that momentarily.

According to the data at our disposal, it would seem that the most optimal move for Ralph Krueger to make would be to place Hall on the second line. Apart from the argument against “line stacking” there is meaningful data to suggest a strong “trickle-down” correlation as it pertains to teammate impacts as well.

First, let’s examine Hall’s impacts on the Eichel line (i.e. the Sabres’ top forward trio). In the 115 minutes Hall has spent alongside Eichel so far this season, they have produced an xGF rate of 68.50-percent together. That’s a phenomenal number, but it’s not even the interesting part.

In the 36:28 Eichel has skated without Hall, the captain’s on-ice xGF rate actually increased to 72.27-percent. As for Hall, his impacts did experience a modest regression when the two of them were separated, but the positive effect he appears to have had on second-line center, Eric Staal was significant.

In the 100 minutes Staal has skated without Hall this season, his on-ice xGF mark is pretty pedestrian at 41.32-percent. In the 27:33 he’s spent with Hall however, that rate skyrocketed up to 61.06-percent. The data is limited, but it does go a certain way toward confirming what we already believed – Taylor Hall is a line-driver and should be used as such.

This idea can be further explained by the respective styles of centers like Eichel and Staal. Eichel has a lot of similarities to Hall in the sense that they both like to orchestrate possession by having the puck on their stick. Fans have even commented that, at times, it appears as though the two of them are playing on top of each other in the offensive zone, and in transition. To a certain extent, that observation is correct.

Despite his undeniable skill set, there is reason to believe that Hall’s presence (and aforementioned stylistic redundancy) is actually making Eichel less efficient. As for Staal, he is a bit of a slower, more positionally rigid entity. At one point in his career, he too was a line-driving presence, but at 36-years-old, that ability has diminished. What hasn’t changed is his positional consistency.

As a player who doesn’t do a lot of work along the boards anymore, Staal would immediately benefit from being flanked by Hall, who is still proficient in that area. The idea here is that Hall’s presence on the second line would give the Sabres a complete top-six that can provide two waves of possession and expected goal-share dominance.

This approach would also allow Jeff Skinner to return to the de facto third line, and continue to help drive possession there (which despite his lackluster individual base numbers, is actually the best GF/60 line on the team so far). As a team, the current xGF rate disparity between the top line, and the remaining lines is problematic. Quite frankly, it’s because there are currently two line-driving entities on the top line, which isn’t ideal for a team that has so few of them to begin with.

In a scenario where Krueger bumps Hall down on a more permanent basis, even if the second line doesn’t benefit from the same level of zone-time dominance as the first trio, it wouldn’t be a big problem. Despite his flaws, Staal has produced very strong defensive metrics amid an OZS rate of 43.66-percent (which would be a career-low ratio, if it were to hold). Increasing his OZS rate as a result of having an offensive entity like Hall on his line could even help to improve said xGA metrics, in theory.

As for the right side of a theoretical Hall-Staal tandem, Dylan Cozens could make a fair bit of sense there. As an additional asset in transition, his presence would go even further toward helping cover up the fact that Staal is no longer fleet of foot (to put it politely). With two wingers who excel along the boards and are capable as both puck-distributors and shooters, it would seem like an ideal way to maximize offensive production while reducing the veteran centerman’s scope of responsibility.

Victor Olofsson could also work in lieu of Cozens, but that approach may require the second line to carry a higher OZS rate to help mitigate some of the 25-year-old’s defensive shortcomings at even-strength. Hall would also the the only transition entity on that line. As you can see from his 2019-20 transition data, one of his greatest strengths comes in his ability to aid both zone-exits, and entries.

Comparatively, Hall-Staal-Cozens combination probably wouldn’t need to be sheltered at all. Something close to a 50-50 zone-split seems like a more viable approach in that scenario since Cozens is capable of assisting Hall in transition.

Closing Thoughts

Leading up to the 2020-21 season, we all felt it was a foregone conclusion that Hall would spend a majority of the campaign alongside Eichel. That idea was probably a significant selling point when the Sabres courted him to a one-year UFA contract. Still, he’s here, and from what we have seen in a modest 10-game sample, there is enough evidence to suggest that Hall might be best utilized alongside Staal on the second line.

We said it ad nauseam leading up to the season – if the Sabres were going to contend for the playoffs, lineup optimization would be critical. Buffalo cannot afford a redundancy on their top forward line and expect to continue producing positive overall xG results.

The data to this point has shown us that utilizing Hall as a line-driving presence could go a long way in expanding the Sabres’ options down the lineup. Following a contest against the New Jersey Devils that saw only one forward line emerge with a positive xG share (the Eichel-Hall line, in case that wasn’t painfully obvious), now is the time to give this revised optimization approach an extended look.

Shot Heatmaps and xG Charts courtesy of Hockeyviz and Charting Hockey
Advanced Metrics and TOI Data courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

Photo Credit: Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images