Two in the Box

It’s been hard to find many silver linings in the Sabres season thus far. A seemingly unending drip of injuries has kept the team’s lineup in flux for virtually the entire season and their inability to sting wins together has been fueled by a maddening pattern of inconsistent play. 

It feels like another season is circling the drain and while goaltending was one of the primary reasons the 2022-23 season ended without a playoff berth, special teams is making a strong push as the chief antagonist of the 23-24 edition of the Buffalo Sabres. 

Buffalo’s penalty kill had some flashes early in the season and had the look of a unit that was galvanized by personnel changes and tweaks to their strategy. But time has not been kind to the penalty kill unit (nor have injuries) and the Sabres have slid to the bottom half of the league in penalty kill percentage with a 78.5% success rate at the time of this posting. 

But it’s been the power play that’s been especially ineffective. The Sabres’ 14.2% power play is better than only five other teams and only three teams have scored fewer than Buffalo’s 17 power play goals this year. Buffalo’s extra man unit isn’t immune to any ailment either. Their zone entries are erratic, they regularly turn the puck over in-zone due to sloppy passing and their lack of in-zone movement makes life exceptionally easy for the opposing penalty kill. Though, these issues aren’t unique to this season. In fact, it’s an issue that chased Buffalo’s power play for much of last season as well, they were just lucky enough to have such an impressive finishing rate. 

Lance Lysowski recently pointed out that the Sabres power play was 29th in the NHL dating back to the 22-23 season, so any notion that the team’s extra man unit only tailed off at the very end of last year is misguided. 

Just looking at the raw goal scoring paints a pretty ominous picture for the Sabres. Of their 63 power play goals scored last season, they scored 33 before December 13. The Sabres scored three goals against the Kings that evening, bringing their power play goal total to 33 in just 29 games. They only went more than one game without a power play goal on three occasions during that stretch, each time enduring a two-game drought. Over the following 53 games? The Sabres scored 30 more power play goals with eight separate stretches of two or more games without scoring on the man advantage. 

It has been my contention that the success from Buffalo’s power play wasn’t driven by strong strategy but by good fortune and excellent shooting talent. This felt particularly evident in the latter half of the season, and certainly throughout the first half of 23-24. To verify if my opinion was valid, I went back and watched all 63 of the team’s power play goals from last season and tagged them as either set, in-zone plays that succeeded thanks to an effective power play strategy. For example, a Tage Thompson one timer goal would qualify as a set, or clean play. I also tagged goals scored on the rush or off broken and unsettled plays where the pure talent (or good fortune) of the players on the ice was the cause of the goal, not the Xs and Os of the power play’s strategy. 

This wasn’t going to be a perfect evaluation since some goals that came from rebounds or retrieving the puck before the penalty kill could clear the zone could often be attributed to the team’s system either due to what was done immediately prior to a shot or thanks to the way the staff coached the players to retrieve the puck prior to the penalty kill clearing the zone. Similarly, goals off effective zone entries could be credited to the staff as well since the zone entry is a vital part of an effective power play. But in order to bring some clarity to what the Sabres did well last season, it was necessary to make some sort of distinction between a “clean” power play goal and a “dirty” one. Therefore, rush goals when no in-zone time was established were counted with the unsettled tallies. For what it’s worth I gave the benefit of the doubt to the system on any plays I felt were in a grey area as I didn’t want to unfavorably skew the results. 

Even just looking at the tail end of the year when the power play had lost some of its luster, the results weren’t as stark as I expected. From January 1 on, the Sabres had 26 total power play goals. I charted 16 of those 26 as clean, or set, system-focused goals. The remaining 10 either came off the rush or an unsettled, broken play. The review is slightly less favorable when you consider only six of their first 33 power play goals weren’t off some sort of set, in-zone design. Overall, the majority of their goals came from some sort of successful work done in the attacking zone. 

What has been an exceptionally frustrating aspect of Buffalo’s power play over the last two years has been the lack of movement from the unit and their inability to create mismatches off good passing plays. Too often the Sabres seem content to fire the puck around the perimeter of the zone without creating any openings to get the puck to the slot or other high-danger areas. Both issues tend to feed the other. Buffalo’s inability to make creative, high-skill passes keeps the unit from moving and shifting the penalty kill. And their lack of movement makes it harder to find passing lanes beyond the typical wing-to-point-to-wing hand offs. 

For example, the clip below from a home contest against the Canadiens earlier this year. 

The Sabres have a successful entry and establish their structure in zone. There is even a bit of motion as Dylan Cozens and Casey Mittelstadt swap positions. But the sum total of this possession are a handful of passes between the top of the circle and the top of the zone where Rasmus Dahlin quarterbacks the power play. Montreal effectively shuts off Tage Thompson and the Sabres fail to create an open look from what becomes a 4-on-3. The sequence ends with a fairly low threat jam from Jeff Skinner that results in a whistle. 

In that same game, an abbreviated 5-on-3 fails to press the penalty kill unit, has a pair of misfired passes and ends with another failed jam play along the goal line. 

Part of this is predicated by Buffalo’s desire to feed Tage Thompson for one timers. So much of Buffalo’s focus and prior success (Thompson had 20 power play goals in 22-23) came from that strategy that it’s hard to blame them for leaning on their most talented shooter. But when that option fails, the lack of another shooting option on either unit and no truly special passing talent leaves them with limited options. Add in their apparent inability to probe the penalty kill and create 2-on-1s and it leads to a toothless attack. 

As I reviewed their goals from last season, one stood out to me in particular. It came against Pittsburgh, with the goal coming from a Thompson one timer. But it was the movement and passing that created the opportunity which I want to highlight. 

You may notice that a majority of the movement on this play still comes on the perimeter of the offensive zone with Jack Quinn, Skinner and Alex Tuch running an exchange down the right side. That movement helps to pull Kasperi Kapanen and Drew O’Connor and create the passing and shooting lane for Thompson. A well timed screen from Tuch prevents Casey DeSmith from finding the pass and it’s an easy goal for Thompson to fire home. Even with the perimeter movement, the rotation of the fowards is enough to create a lane that wouldn’t have been there had they remained stationary.

Another Thompson goal that stood out came against Arizona and with Thompson firing home from the right wing. The play is triggered from below the goal line which results in the penalty kill sinking lower in the zone before the puck is cycled up to Dahlin at the point. Thompson swoops in on the right wing, a move the Sabres have leaned on the last two years, and he has a mostly open lane to shoot from. This play stands out for the shift in focus by pushing the puck high from below the goal line, forcing the penalty killers below the tops of the circles and opening the space Thompson needs to pick his spot. 

It wasn’t an especially creative play, but the sort of variety needed to open up lanes for Buffalo’s shooters. Too often a stationary set of five skaters with no threat in the slot has left the Sabres power play listless. Factoring in new thinking and a different approach than the 1-3-1 that relies on big one timers is pivotal for this unit. Just recently, the Sabres picked up a pair of power play goals against the Canadiens thanks to two primary assists that came from the goal line. Just this week against the Sharks, Alex Tuch scored from the bumper on a play that began below the goal line. Tuch snuck into open space as the puck came up the boards to Jack Quinn from Casey Mittelstadt. Eventually, this commitment to creating opportunities away from Thompson should open him up for one timers. 

The Sabres might also consider a shift in personnel, but Jack Quinn’s insertion on the top unit could be the sort of shot/pass threat that group has been lacking. Should this group of Dahlin, Thompson, Mittelstadt, Quinn and Tuch find success, it will be hard to justify putting Jeff Skinner back on the top unit, even as the team’s leading power play goal scorer. 

Whether it’s a personnel change or a better commitment to anything besides funneling one timer attempts to Thompson, the Sabres power play badly needs to improve. They’re well over 12 months past their best play as a group and if this season is going to be salvaged, the power play will need to play a major role in the rescue.