The Buffalo Sabres are getting defenseman Mark Pysyk back this week – and now, they have more options to consider.
That’s great news indeed for the Buffalo Sabres, who just snapped a six-game losing streak on Sunday with a win over the Winnipeg Jets.
Pysyk appeared in 18 games at the start of the season. In that time, the Buffalo Sabres went 8-9-1 but were outscored 49-39 by their opponents.
Without Pysyk in the most recent 24 games, the Sabres have gone 9-13-2 and were outscored 66-56.
Mathematically, they won 44% of the games while Pysyk played, but only 37.5% of games when he didn’t.
I could delve further into the statistics and expand on why Pysyk’s return to the lineup is a fantastic sight for the Buffalo Sabres, but that isn’t meant to be the focus of this piece.
Now it’s about what the Buffalo Sabres will do from this point on.
With Pysyk’s return, that means the Buffalo Sabres now have eight defensemen to (for lack of a better word) play with: Josh Gorges, Rasmus Ristolainen, Jake McCabe, Zach Bogosian, Mike Weber, Cody Franson, Carlo Colaiacovo and Pysyk himself.
So what’s their next move?
Colaiacovo has been a scratch as of late as the team’s seventh defenseman, and it seems likely that he’ll remain a healthy scratch for the time being.
Minus him, that leaves the Buffalo Sabres still with seven defensemen and only six slots to play them in.
So the question is – who comes out?
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Is it Bogosian, who’s a dreadful minus-10 through 25 games this season? Not likely. Bogo has the second-highest time on ice among Buffalo Sabres defensemen, second only to Ristolainen. He’s been a regular part of the Sabres’ second defensive pairing and it’s highly unlikely that the team pulls him out anytime soon.
How about Ristolainen, who, although offensively productive this season, has been somewhat stifled lately? Risto was a minus-7 in the six games prior to Sunday’s win, when he was a plus-2. He’s been eating huge minutes all throughout this season and leads the Buffalo Sabres with 12 power-play points. Though he’s a minus-8 overall this season, it’s unlikely the team pulls him.
Gorges has regularly been in the Sabres’ top two defensive pairings as well.
That really leaves the Buffalo Sabres three options for players they could scratch in favor of Pysyk: Weber, Franson and McCabe, and it seems like Weber could be the favorite to sit.
McCabe is young and has generally been part of the Sabres’ second defensive pairing this season. It could also be intriguing to see him and Pysyk as a pairing; we’ve already seen that they have good chemistry.
Of course, the Sabres also have the option of sending McCabe down to Rochester if they decided to go that route, which might be the easy move for them. The Amerks would probably like that move, especially considering they’ve lost Chad Ruhwedel for weeks to a broken arm.
Other than McCabe, the likely move seems to be to put Weber as a healthy scratch.
Though he’s a team-best plus-2, and the only Buffalo Sabres defenseman to carry a positive plus/minus at the moment, Weber has constantly been the scapegoat among Sabres fans. His small mistakes that often lead to turnovers or shoddy plays certainly make him the fan-favorite to be scratched.
He also has the lowest average TOI among Sabres defensemen, with 15:11 played per night – almost ten minutes less than Ristolainen’s 24:45.
Next: Rasmus Ristolainen Midseason Report Card
What move(s) would you like to see the Buffalo Sabres move in order to accommodate Pysyk’s return to the lineup?