The Buffalo Sabres offense at 5 on 5 finds itself at the bottom of the NHL once again in expected goal models. Entering play last night they were 31st in Evolving Hockey’s model with a 1.93 xGF/60.

We know that the talent isn’t there yet for them to be at least an average offensive team, but most were not expecting them to be at the bottom again under Don Granato. We saw some improvement in their offense after he took over from Ralph Krueger. Unfortunately, it hasn’t translated to this season.

Granato wants his team to play an up-tempo game and get out in transition. The interesting part about this team is that he has them succeeding in being a transition club, but they’re failing on the final execution.

Transition Data

I started to notice a trend of the Sabres being unable to turn their rush attempts into consistent scoring chances. As a result, I went to examine Corey Sznajder’s tracking data to see if lined up with what I was watching. Turns out that the eyes and numbers matched up in this instance.

You can see in Corey’s data above that the Sabres rank seventh in the league in controlled entries at 5 on 5. He has them at a 54% controlled entry rate in the games that he has tracked. This is good news not only for this season, but moving forward into the future under Granato.

We know from research by Eric Tulsky and others that there’s an increased likelihood of a scoring chance when a team enters the offensive zone with possession. At some point, the Sabres should start to see results from this, but it won’t be until they develop the next step.

Entering the zone with possession is one thing, but what you do next is equally important. This is where the Sabres have failed. In Corey’s data, the Sabres are the worst team in the league in scoring chances created off of controlled entries.

You can see above in the data only 15% of their controlled entries result in scoring chances. I was expecting them to show poorly in this part of the data, but not this bad.

The empty calorie zone entries are a problem every single game for this hockey club. There are always a handful of rush plays in a given night that looks promising but amounts to nothing. In most cases, it doesn’t even result in a shot on goal.

Below you’ll see one such example yesterday against the Detroit Red Wings. Peyton Krebs starts a rush up the ice that has potential. Mattias Samuelsson joins the rush in the middle of the ice, but the end result is a Vinnie Hinostroza shot from the corner off the side of the net.

In this next clip, we see another promising rush that results in overpassing and no shot on goal.

Diagnosing the Issue

The question that comes from this is why is it happening? Is it a system issue? Is it the talent? A mixture of both?

While I don’t think the system is blameless in this matter, I lean towards the bigger issue being the players on the roster. It’s not only a matter of the players lacking the talent to execute, it’s that some of the young players on the roster have not developed that next part of their transition game yet.

A perfect example of this is Rasmus Dahlin. In Corey’s data, he is second among all defensemen in controlled entries at 73%. However, he is near the bottom in chances off of those controlled entries at 7%.

It takes a few years for players to understand how to turn their strong transition game into results. Some of the best players in the world, such as Jack Eichel, took a few years to master this. Casey Mittelstadt is another good example of a player that struggled with this early on in his career but started to show signs of it clicking for him at the end of last season.

Dylan Cozens struggles with this at times. He’s a strong transition player and honestly one of the only decent ones at forward on the Sabres roster. However, his rushes more often than not don’t result in a scoring opportunity. The clip below is one such example from yesterday.

He carries the puck through the neutral zone and has an odd-man situation. The result of the play is a low percentage shot from the wall that Alex Nedeljkovic kicks into the corner with ease. It’s all part of the development and maturation of a player.

JJ Peterka is another good example of this in the AHL. He can be a dominant transition player with his speed, but at times he’ll enter the zone at full speed with no solution on what to do next.

As I mentioned when I first began this, we shouldn’t necessarily look at this as a bad thing. You want these types of players and this playing style in today’s NHL. It’s more about understanding why there are offensive struggles occurring and the next step in development that Granato needs to take with his team.

Data via: Corey Sznajder and Evolving Hockey

Photo Credit: Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images