The Sabres defensive stats were abysmal in 2021

It is safe to say that the 2021 Buffalo Sabres did not really have many aspects of their game that were very strong. But the Sabres defense was probably the worst of them all. Compound the lack of goal scoring with how awful their defense was; it should be no surprise that they were as bad as they were.

The Sabres gave up 3.5 goals per game last season. That is more than a goal a game more on average than how many they scored, which was 2.29. Buffalo’s 3.5 goals allowed per game put them in a tie for 29th place in the league. It is easy to point out that the lack of healthy goalies and just overall lack of quality goalie depth is primarily responsible for this, but that really isn’t the case.

Although goalie play does have a lot of effect on how many goals are allowed, there is a lot of responsibility on the skaters as well. Buffalo gave up the most shots on goal per game in the league this season with 33.7. The goalie has no power to prevent shots on goal; they can just stop them when they get there. But with the Sabres defense allowing so many shots to reach the net, they were equally responsible for how many goals were scored on them as the goalies were.

When Linus Ullmark went down with an injury, you would have thought that the Sabres would have tightened up on defense to help out some of their less experienced goalies, such as Dustin Tokarski and Michael Houser. But it never really made much of a difference who was in net, the Sabres always seemed to give up an abundance of shots on goal each game.

Obviously, the injury to Jake McCabe led to some defensive issues in Buffalo, but the defensive unit is more than one player. Some blueliners that were struggling to begin the season did pick it up and play better once the coaching change occurred in Buffalo. A perfect example of this was Rasmus Dahlin. So hopefully, he can string an entire year of quality play together next season.

This is a big issue for the Sabres that needs to be addressed this offseason. It won’t ever matter who is the starting goalie for them if they are giving up over 30 shots on goal per game. That will always be a recipe for a losing season.