For the better part of the last year, fans of the Buffalo Sabres have wanted to see some of the organization’s young defensemen play NHL minutes. Will Borgen and Jacob Bryson were the primary desired call-ups, but the franchise’s perpetual logjam on defense was too restrictive for them to get a look.

After the Sabres lost several blueliners (including Borgen) as a result of both long-term injury, and COVID-19 ravaging the Buffalo locker room, Bryson finally got his first taste of NHL hockey, and he’s done an admirable job through ten games.

While the 23-year-old’s skating speed and fluidity in transition have perhaps created the perception that he’s experienced a seamless transition, there are still familiar warts in his game that were previously observed in his 66 contests with the Rochester Americans dating back to last season.

When Bryson was first called up, Chad DeDominicis took a dive into his AHL metrics, so we won’t go too in depth here. In general, he was an excellent puck-carrying entity, that produced high-event metrics at both ends of the ice.

Prior to said call-up, I compared him to the mold of a Brandon Montour. Fast transition player, who did his best work in the neutral zone. Through 11 games with the Sabres, that is still true to an extent. He has maintained his proficiency in transition, and tends to get hemmed in his zone once the opposing offense establishes pressure.

The key difference between he and Montour however, is the fact that Bryson is producing positive offensive metrics to help offset his poor defensive numbers (to a degree). That is obviously the very definition of a “high-event” player, something Montour is often mistaken for. Again, this misconception tends to occur when a player is fast and slick with the puck. In Montour’s case, he legitimately does nothing else of value.

To be clear, referring to Bryson as a “better version” of Montour doesn’t mean that he’s a positive impact player at this point. The Sabres’ offensive production (xGF rate) does experience a seven-percent improvement while he’s on the ice at five-on-five. That said, the team’s xGA rate struggles badly, allowing chances-against at a 24-percent higher rate with Bryson deployed.

That’s less than ideal. Fortunately, he’s young, and with the right coaching, that part of his game is fixable. As with anything analytics related, it’s also imperative that we put his xG metrics in the proper context on what is a very poor Sabres team overall.

Let’s start by looking at deployment. In this regard, Ralph Krueger’s choice to use Bryson in a 44-percent OZS rate is correct, in theory. Transition defenders’ best skills can’t be optimized with high OZS rates, but there’s a catch. If this approach is going to work, the correct type of defensive partner needs to be in place beside them.

Most importantly, we need to acknowledge the fact that defensively responsible partners (like Borgen and Jake McCabe) are usually ideal for these high-event style defenders. Unfortunately, McCabe and Borgen are both out with long-term ailments, leaving no true “defensive defensemen” left on the Sabres’ depth chart.

As a result, Bryson is stuck playing with the aforementioned store-brand veteran version of himself in Montour, with whom he’s spent the vast majority of his even-strength ice time (nearly 100 minutes). Montour’s has a track record of posting sub-par metrics at both ends of the ice.

Here is where Krueger has failed in a sense (though his options are very limited in this regard). Bryson’s current xGF rate of 42.5-percent is being negatively exacerbated by the fact that he playing defensive minutes alongside another blueliner who struggles re-establishing possession in his own zone.

Despite the fact that the front office had their hand-forced by injury (and probably would have foolishly kept Bryson in the AHL for the whole season otherwise), it’s good that he’s getting minutes right now. The Sabres’ season is over in terms of being competitive, and it’s the perfect time to let a young player make mistakes and experiment at the next level.

It’s also nice that he’s essentially made Montour’s skill set expendable (as if it wasn’t already). For the remainder of the year, it might not be a bad idea to give him a higher degree of offensive-zone starts, just to get a proper gauge as to what it does for his xGF impacts.

Either way, Bryson is proving that he isn’t out of place in the NHL and deserves consideration for the team’s defensive top-six in 2021-22. A third-pairing of Borgen (who was the Sabres’ xGA/60 leader at 1.15 prior to his injury) and Bryson next season could provide positive overall metrics, as well as cost-effective production.

This is yet another case study as to why it’s so important to see young players move up and show whether or not they can produce at the NHL-level in lieu of perpetually cycling out veteran depth pieces via free-agency (looking at you, Matt Irwin). Otherwise, the philosophy of “development from within” is rather pointless.

Heatmaps courtesy of Hockeyviz

RAPM Graph courtesy of JFresh Hockey

TOI, Teammate Metrics, and Advanced Data courtesy of Natural Stat Trick & Evolving Hockey

Photo Credit: Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images