The Buffalo Sabres took a nice first step last month by acquiring Eric Staal to slot-in as their second-line center. Now, they must adjust their priorities and find a strong two-way asset to pivot the third line.

On paper, soon-to-be free-agent, Mikael Granlund might seem like the man for the job, but the acquisition cost might be prohibitive. He also hasn’t played primarily at center since 2015-16. Though his metrics were still solid before that, they were much improved after he started spending more time on the wing. It’s important to note that he has still played some center over the last few seasons, but he’s definitely spent more time on the wing.

In his eighth professional season, 2019-20 was a down year, statistically. In fact, since producing at nearly a .84 point-per-game pace during his final three seasons with the Minnesota Wild, his scoring rate hasn’t been nearly as impressive since coming over to the Nashville Predators at the 2018-19 trade deadline. In 79 games with Nashville, he has managed just 35 points.

At 28 years old, fans would be fair to wonder if we’re beginning to see a downward career trend begin to take place. Given that he’s likely to seek out a long-term deal on the open market, that concern is exacerbated even further. Let’s take a look at his underlying impacts and see if they too have experienced any sort of impact regression.

Historically, Granlund has been effective as a shot-suppression entity. Paired with his past scoring numbers, this made him a very well-rounded asset down the middle. As a player who has posted extremely positive xG metrics every year after his rookie season in 2012-13 (in a wide variety of zone-deployments no less), his versatility is pretty evident.

Since coming over to Nashville, his xG rate has remained positive at around 52-percent, but it does represent a notable reduction from his previous rates of 59.37 and 57.01 during his final two years in Minnesota, respectively. The question now becomes whether that regression is a result of age, changing systems, or both.

The initial thought was to look at ice time, but there was hardly any disparity between his five-on-five TOI/GP between his days in Minnesota compared to Nashville. His power-play usage was also similar in terms of usage, but his indicated impacts in that area don’t exactly match his production.

During Granlund’s final two seasons in Minnesota, 37 of his 116 points came on the man-advantage (nearly 32-percent).  In Nashville, he only managed eight points on the power-play despite being deployed on the power-play for a similar amount of time (average of 185 minutes per season with the Wild from 2017-19, versus 182 with the Predators).

That’s significant, and part of the reason his base point totals saw such a drastic reduction. Impactfully, Granlund’s xG effect on the power-play was surprisingly outstanding last season with the Predators, indicating that his ability in that area didn’t decrease, but his team as a whole just did a worse job of finishing while he was on the ice.

None of this explains the changes to his even-strength metrics, but it does shed some light on his recent scoring woes, to an extent. Circling back to his play at five-on-five, Granlund’s most common linemates in Nashville were Matt Duchene and Filip Forsberg. As a trio, they spent 225:25 together at even-strength. Their collective xG rate of 56.78-percent in that span was outstanding, and on-par with what Granlund had produced during his time in Minnesota.

Interestingly enough, that rate increased to 59.55-percent in the 318 minutes Granlund and Duchene were deployed sans Forsberg. Without Duchene (roughly 217 minutes total), however, Granlund’s xG rate plummeted down to 43.24-percent. A lot of that time away was spent flanking Kyle Turris, which was less-than-ideal, and contributed to the aforementioned overall xG reduction on the year.

Since Granlund started playing less down the middle and more on the wing, there is perhaps an increased degree of linemate dependence. That issue didn’t exist in Minnesota where he almost exclusively flanked Mikko Koivu and Eric Staal from 2016-19. His metrics with both of them were outstanding, but they’re impactfully strong centermen who would have likely found success alongside a wide variety of wingers.

The concern here is that, without a top-six caliber centerman, Granlund might struggle to get back to the numbers he posted in Minnesota. As a player who is projected to command a seven-year, $6.5 million AAV contract on the open market (according to Evolving Hockey), that’s a red flag for a team like the Sabres. For that price, you should expect to receive an indisputable line-driving entity, and there isn’t enough evidence to suggest Granlund would fit the bill.

At the end of the day, despite some nice overall career metrics, handing out such an expensive contract to an aging winger is risky. If Sabres were indeed willing to make such an expenditure on the wing, pursuing a player like Tyler Toffoli (expected to command a similarly priced deal) or Craig Smith (projected at a much less expensive deal), would perhaps be the more optimal approach.

Charts courtesy of Hockeyviz and Evolving Hockey

Teammate Data and Advanced Matrics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

Photo Credit: Danny Murphy/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images