The Buffalo Sabres are 3-2-1 over their past six games which equates to a 95-point pace over the entirety of an 82-game season. That's considerably better than the incredibly brutal stretch during the previous 15 games where they won only two contests. With that in mind, it’s time to dig into the numbers to see what has made the difference recently in these six games, starting with the offensive production numbers.
Jeff Skinner – 5 goals, 3 assists
Alex Tuch – 2 goals, 5 assists
Rasmus Dahlin – 1 goal, 5 assists
Tage Thompson – 2 goals, 3 assists
Dylan Cozens – 2 goals, 2 assists
Henri Jokiharju – 1 goal, 3 assists
Mark Jankowski – 2 goals, 1 assist
Peyton Krebs – 2 goals
Jack Quinn – 1 goal, 1 assist
Kyle Okposo – 2 assists
Vinnie Hinostroza – 1 goal
Will Butcher – 1 assist
Anders Bjork – 1 assist
Victor Olofsson – 1 assist
Rasmus Asplund – 1 assist
Mark Pysyk – 1 assist
Robert Hagg – 1 assist
Skinner collected eight points over those six games, and that mini scoring spree has now vaulted him into third on the team in scoring and first on the team in goals. Likewise, new Sabre Alex Tuch has made a splash early on in his tenure with seven points in six games since coming back from a bout of Covid earlier in the month. Dahlin, Thompson and Cozens have all had a strong streak recently as well. The team numbers on defense look equally strong.
Rasmus Dahlin +1
Henri Jokiharju +3
Mark Pysyk +3
Robert Hagg +3
Mattias Samuelsson +3
Will Butcher (Even)
Colin Miller (Even)
The defense has stabilized recently as Dahlin and Jokiharju continue to mesh together and Mattias Samuelsson gets acclimatized to the NHL. Samuelsson has probably already done enough to remain with the big club going forward if/when Colin Miller returns from injury to play for the Sabres again. Samuelsson looks calm and in control in his own zone and he adds a dose of physicality that the backend of the team desperately lacks without him.
Meanwhile in net, it’s been a case of goaltending-by-committee as the injuries continue to stack up.
Aaron Dell: (1-1-2) 3.25 goals against per game, .913 SV%
Michael Houser: (2-0-0) 2 goals against per game, .948 SV %
Aaron Dell has definitely turned it up a notch since returning to the lineup following injuries to Ukko Pekka Luukkonen and Malcolm Subban. A .913 SV% may not seem all they great but it’s been good enough to keep them competitive on most nights and it would be tough to argue that he’s been the primary reason for any of the three losses during his four most recent games. Houser, meanwhile, has been a man possessed in his two games. The fact that the Sabres are getting this from their sixth-string goaltender is frankly unbelievable, and it makes it all the more frustrating that the team refused to give Carter Hutton any competition during the three years he was here and terrible. Water under the bridge, I suppose.
Special Teams:
PP: (0/5, 0/2, 0/2, 1/3, 3/4, 1/4) - 25%
PK: (3/5, 1/1, 4/5, 1/5, 4/5, 3/4) – 64%
Two things stand out here. First of all, 64% on the penalty kill is absolutely brutal. That is heavily influenced by the game against Dallas where the team managed to kill off only one of Dallas’s five power plays en route to a regulation loss. You’re not going to win many games when your penalty kill is at 20% on the evening. The second thing that stands out is the sheer number of penalties the Sabres are taking every game. It is very, very tough to win in the NHL when you’re consistently taking more penalties than your opponent. The power play helped make up for that as it operated 5% above league average while the penalty kill was 25% below league average. The Sabres currently rank 14th in the league in powerplay scoring percentage and 26th in the league in penalty killing.
Lastly, we’ll take a look at the Corsi-for percentage of the Sabres over these past few games.
Vs. NSH: 46% CF
Red Wings 1: 46% CF
Red Wings 2: 41% CF
Vs. Ottawa: 45% CF
Vs. Dallas: 33% CF
Vs. Philadelphia: 42% CF
Cody Eakin’s individual Corsi numbers are awful.
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