Make no mistake about it – Jake McCabe’s 2020-21 campaign has started-off with a bang. As the Buffalo Sabres’ leader in nearly every advanced statistical category (among his contemporaries on the blue line), he’s been instrumental in helping his squad maintain their top-ten team xGA ranking, which currently sits at 1.95.

On top of leading all Buffalo defenders with an overall expected-goal differential of 59.77-percent at even-strength, he is also the clubhouse leader in xGAR by a wide margin at 2.1 on the year to date. Even from a leaguewide standpoint, Evolving Hockey currently has him ranked as the NHL’s 14th-best blueliner in even-strength defense, and 25th in RAPM shot quality-against.

Dating back to the 2018-19 season, McCabe’s defensive metrics have been strong, but his overall impacts were relatively average. From 2015-17, his impacts at both ends were downright detrimental. For the first three years of his career, his highest season expected-goal ratio was just over 47-percent. Even last season, which was measurably his best “defensive” outing, his negative xGF marks washed out his outstanding xGA numbers, to a degree.

Still, from over the past few years, the improvement in his overall play has been increasingly noticeable as the mental lapses in his own zone have decreased in regularity. Said improvement has also taken place alongside a set of common defensive partners who had varying flaws of their own, the most frequent of whom was Rasmus Ristolainen.

Though we are only 10 games into the 2020-21 season with a lot of hockey left to be played, McCabe and Ristolainen have been by far the Sabres’ most effective defensive tandem to date. Interestingly enough, from 2017-2020 McCabe was the only defensive partner with whom Ristolainen produced a positive xG rate at 50.42-percent in over a 1,000-minute sample. Credit to Ralph Krueger for giving this pairing another go this year.

Since appearing together on an almost exclusive basis to start the 2020-21 season, that mark remains very strong at 57.74-percent so far. Even more impressive is the fact that they’ve produced such an outstanding expected-goal ratio despite carrying a five-on-five offensive zone-start rate of just 39.13-percent (a career low for both of them).

So, what changed? Over the past couple years, fans have reached a general consensus pertaining to McCabe’s strength in his own end, but for the first time, his impacts are showing up at both ends of the ice. The most significant factor to consider here might be his slate of most common teammates at forward.

As of right now, no Sabres defensive pairing has spent more time with the Jack Eichel line (i.e. the Sabres’ top offensive trio) than the McCabe-Ristolainen duo. That’s significant in the sense that the Eichel line has simply dominated offensive possession time when they’ve been on the ice. Obviously, when the forwards are maintaining offensive pressure, the defenders are being credited with the on-ice xGF and xGA benefits that come along with it.

As a player who has struggled primarily in transition, playing alongside strong zone-exit and entry assets like Eichel and Taylor Hall has helped mitigate McCabe’s past shortcomings in that area. Essentially, he (and RIstolainen for that matter) is being asked to do less, despite drawing a higher-rate of defensive zone-starts, as well as a modest increase in TOI.

To be clear, this isn’t meant to take away from what has been a noticeable improvement from the McCabe-Ristolainen pairing. In their own right, they have made solid individual contributions in how they’ve helped limit counter-rush opportunities by stepping up, and making intelligent tactical interruptions in the neutral-zone (Chad isolated a few video examples of this in an article he wrote last month).

The key here is obviously sustainability. As I’ve iterated a few times already – there’s a lot of season left. While there is nothing in the data that is suggestive of a performance regression, at 27 years old with six pro seasons under his belt, these metrics (if they hold up) would represent a very noticeable outlier year for a player who has never produced an expected-goal rate over 50-percent in a given season.

For argument’s sake, let’s say the McCabe-Ristolainen pairing continues on their current analytical trajectory, en route to a career season (from an underlying statistical standpoint). Next summer, McCabe is set to hit the unrestricted free agent market. If the Sabres plan to retain him in this case, he’d assuredly seek a significant increase from his current $2.85 million AAV salary.

The good news here is that, despite what would be really excellent underlying numbers, McCabe doesn’t produce points. While analytics are becoming more mainstream, base offensive production is still king when it comes to contract negotiations. As of right now, his three points to date would put him on pace for around 25 points extrapolated over an 82-game season.

It’s not much, but 25 points would still represent a career-high for McCabe. Again, this is all hypothetical for now, but should he keep on his current clip, both analytically, and in terms of base scoring, it wouldn’t be a surprise if his next contract surpassed $4 million AAV. In a world where the NHL salary cap was not subject to its current inelasticity, it would probably be even higher.

As a pending UFA, his performance over the next 46 games will be very interesting to monitor. As of right now, Ristolainen and Colin Miller are the only Buffalo defensemen under contract for the 2021-22 season.

Advanced Metrics and TOI Data courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

xGAR, RAPM, and xG Meatmap Charts courtesy of Evolving Hockey, and Hockeyviz

Photo Credit: Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images