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The Sabres offseason moves suggest a change in playing style

by Chad DeDominicis - 0

As of now, we’re about a month and a half from the NHL season getting underway. We’ll see if that actually happens, but it’s more likely than not that the Buffalo Sabres are finished significantly altering their roster. In Kevyn Adams’ first offseason as general manager, you can comfortably say they targeted particular traits in players.

They focused on speed, penalty killers, and short-term commitments. The Sabres have been a club that has lacked speed and offensive creativity throughout their lineup for a few years now. On paper, they have the semblance of a roster that can boost their poor shot quality numbers at 5 on 5.

Poor Offense

As a reminder, the Sabres have been the worst shot quality (xGF/60) team in the league offensively over the last three years. They finished last season as the second-worst team in the NHL in that category.

In year one under Ralph Krueger, they played a dump and chase style of hockey the majority of the time at 5 on 5. You may recall me writing about how the defensemen on the roster that were known for their transition game had their wings clipped in the system last season.

The chart above from Corey Sznjader and his tracking data gives you an idea of where the Sabres matched up with the rest of the league last season. A dump and chase type approach can work to generate offense as we saw with the Carolina Hurricanes and Philadelphia Flyers. The issue was they didn’t have the players that could retrieve the puck on the forecheck with enough consistency.

When they did establish possession in the offensive zone last season, they didn’t generate quality scoring chances with their puck movement. Again, we look to Corey’s data below to see that the Sabres moved the puck low to high a lot with a reliance on point shots over high-danger passing plays.

Change in Approach

With the offseason moves in the books for the Sabres, signs point to the club preparing to play a new style at 5 on 5. They’ve added two top-six forwards that are strong transition players in Taylor Hall and Eric Staal. You could say they’ll be adding a third in Dylan Cozens.

You can begin to see the writing on the wall when you tie this in with the Sabres, as of now, returning their transition heavy defense group. It appears as though they want to be a team that plays with pace and is a dangerous forechecking club.

I looked into Corey’s tracking data and noticed another similarity in the acquisitions of the offseason. They targeted players that can move the puck to high-danger areas on the ice. The Sabres were not good in offensive zone with possession established as we discussed above. Adding players with the ability and willingness to move the puck to high-danger areas of the ice will improve their offense in all situations.

Over the last four years, in Corey’s tracking data, Staal was one of the best forwards in the league in high-danger passing.

Staal is known for his ability to set up below the net and protect the body with his puck and get it to his wingers out front as you’ll see in the video clip below.

Hall falls into a similar category as Staal in the tracking data.

Hall is a player that is the most creative on the rush and that is where his dangerous passing ability comes into play. Another example in the video below.

Even Cody Eakin has had some history of high-danger passing ability during his time with the Dallas Stars.

It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out under Ralph Krueger. The club will have the offensive talent that they no longer will need to play a safe game and try to win low-scoring contests.

All signs point to a change in playing style and that could result in an exciting offense for the fans. Which is something that we haven’t seen around here in a long time.

Data via: Corey Sznajder
Photo Credit: Norm Hall/NHLI via Getty Images
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