After nearly 10 months of waiting, the Buffalo Sabres finally commenced regular season action last week. While the blue-and-gold fell short both of their contests against the Washington Capitals, there were both positive, and negative takeaways.

Obviously, there is a lot of hockey left to be played this season. It’s tough to glean very much from two games against the same opponent. Still, it will be interesting to track our observations from the opening week of play, and see which of them remain consistent as more games are added to the sample.

The Good News

Let’s begin with the good things we observed, shall we? Though the first two games of the shortened season confirmed several of our preexisting fears about this year’s Sabres, there were a few pleasant surprises.

Strong xGA Metrics

Like last season, it appears as though Ralph Kreuger’s system will put a large emphasis on goal-prevention. While both the Sabres and Capitals played very low-event games, Buffalo did an excellent job of shutting down a very offensively capable Washington squad.

As it stands, no team in the league did a better job at opportunity-prevention than the Sabres over the first two games of the year. In fact, they were so proficient at it that they currently rank as the fourth-best xG team in the NHL at 59.71-percent, despite sub-par xGF/60 production.

Now, this is a bit of a double-edged sword. While goal-prevention is obviously a good thing, Buffalo had almost no offensive production to speak of. With a team that will likely need their offensive top-six to carry them, this approach might not be a recipe for success (at least not sustainably so).

We’ll see if Kreuger and his staff elect to open things up a little bit more as the season marches on.

Surprise Bottom-Six Performances

To this point, the Sabres’ top forward line, in terms of expected goals, featured Jeff Skinner, Curtis Lazar and Riley Sheahan. It goes without saying that Skinner’s offensive acumen would be better served somewhere in the top-six, but his line posted some surprisingly positive results against Washington.

Individually, newcomers Tobias Rieder and Cody Eakin also posted impressive results. Rieder currently leads all Buffalo forwards with a Corsi rate of 60-percent. Eakin was one of the nine Sabres forwards who posted a positive xG impact at 53.74-percent.

Though the de facto fourth line was by far the least successful expected-goal prevention line at even-strength, Rieder and Eakin both exceeded expectations while carrying difficult OZS rates of 42.86 and 46.15, respectively.

The Second and Third Defensive Pairings

In order of time-on-ice at even-strength, the Sabres second and third defensive tandems experienced a great deal of success in a small sample. Jake McCabe and Rasmus Ristolainen excelled in an unprecedented way against the Capitals, posting xG percentages of 78.45 and 73.54, respectively. Obviously, that type of gaudy dominance won’t be maintained, but with each of them skating less than 17-minutes per-game at even-strength, the reduced workload seemed to be helpful.

McCabe and Ristolainen have a history of moderate success together. In just over 500 even-strength minutes as a pairing last season, they carried an xG rate of 50.49-percent. If they can continue to produce positive xG impacts in second-pairing minutes, it will go a long way toward cementing faith in a Sabres’ blue line that appears weak on paper.

Unsurprisingly, the duo of Henri Jokiharju and Colin Miller crushed third-pairing minutes against lesser offensive opponents. As the pairing with the lowest combined OZS rate (43.75-percent), their xG mark of 57.21-percent was all the more impressive. Kreuger would be wise to incrementally increase their workload if these results continue.

Causes for Concern

Goaltending

This was oh so predictable, wasn’t it? The Sabres’ consensus weak-link heading into the 2020-21 campaign was their goaltending tandem of Linus Ullmark and Carter Hutton. Fans lamented the fact that Kevyn Adams neglected to address the team’s weakness in net during the offseason, and through two games, their concerns were immediately realized.

The most frustrating part about all of this is that with even replacement-level play in net, Buffalo would have likely won both games against the Capitals. Hutton carried a mind-blowingly bad GSAx per-60 rate of -3.53 in the opening contest. For those who don’t know, that means he allowed 3-4 more goals than he was expected to in relation to the shots he faced… In a single game…

Though Ullmark wasn’t nearly as troublesome in net during the second contest, he faced very little danger and didn’t face to deal with the Capitals power-play at all. Though he wasn’t the problem, he wasn’t part of the solution either.

Special Teams

Another big reason the Sabres were defeated in both games against Washington was their futility on special teams (particularly with the man-advantage). With a combined eight power-play opportunities between the two games, Buffalo converted just once. Given the amount of offensive talent across both units, that rate is unacceptable.

One of the moves I criticized this offseason was the over-prioritization of acquiring experienced penalty-killing forwards to fill-out the bottom-six. Buffalo was let off the hook in this regard on Friday, given that they committed no penalties. In the first game of the back-to-back however, the newly renovated PK-unit struggled.

Again, the sample here is so small, and this is a group of players, many of whom have never played together. On top of that, a truncated training camp probably didn’t help iron out the details that would make either of the Sabres’ special teams units immediately effective.

Still, if Buffalo plans to break their playoff drought, both the power-play and penalty-kill will need to be strengths, not weaknesses.

The Dahlin-Montour Pairing

In what was his first look as a cornerstone defenseman, Rasmus Dahlin struggled mightily alongside Brandon Montour on the top pairing. In 27 minutes of five-on-five play, they posted an xG rate of 38.08-percent as a pairing.

In his third season, fans are hoping to see Dahlin become the type of defenseman who can not only produce strong individual metrics, but also be able to carry a less talented partner (like Montour). Despite the fact that their skill sets aren’t really complimentary, Dahiln’s struggles last week were largely his own.

If Dahlin continues to fall short of expectations on the top pair, it’s only a matter of time until Krueger makes Ristolainen his highest TOI asset, and we’ve all seen that story (too many times). We’ll see if the coaching staff shakes things up as they get ready to face the Philadelphia Flyers next week, but either way, they need a lot more from the 2018 first-overall pick.

Opponent Takeaway

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll reiterate and say it’s early. No conclusions can be drawn from two games. That said, playing a back-to-back against the same opponent did lend some insight about how these two squads will match-up for the remainder of the season.

In the early going, both seemed to take low-event approaches, more concerned with prevention than offensive aggression. In the end, goaltending was the major determining factor between two teams who posted largely similar results at even-strength.

It will be interesting to see if that trend continues. Buffalo travels to Washington for another two-game tilt this weekend.

Data via: Charting Hockey