The Buffalo Sabres haven’t just been a bad hockey team in March. They have been historically bad, as the following numbers show.
During the Buffalo Sabres latest embarrassing loss, I think when they were down 6-1, I sat there….and laughed. Then, because I was so tired of writing doom and gloom pieces, I decided to nitpick the Blue and Gold to find three positives (if you can call them that) that came out of the loss to Nashville.
Of course, it took a good half hour just to pen three positives, given how bad this team continues to play. But if you’re someone on the outside, looking in, you may not realize how historically bad the Sabres have been in March 2023. So let’s look at three major statistics.
Just how bad have the Buffalo Sabres been in March 2023?
1 – Opponents have outscored them 39-19 in the last seven games
Do the math, and that’s an average of 5.57 goals allowed, compared to 2.71 goals for. At this point, the Blue and Gold have been so bad, that it wouldn’t surprise me if the 2020-21 team led by Ralph Krueger could put up 10 goals on them.
And it wasn’t like the Sabres were facing elite opponents every time they turned around. The Nashville Predators, Philadelphia Flyers, and Washington Capitals were all teams they should have either hung with or beaten, yet they allowed four or more goals (five if you count the shootout loss to Washington) against each.
2 – 26 goals allowed at home from March 9th, onward
On March 9th, the Buffalo Sabres suffered their infamous 10-4 loss to the Dallas Stars. From that game and onward, 26 of the team’s 39 goals allowed have come at home.
This is a franchise record, and snapping the previous 24-goals allowed mark they set in 1992, per Mike Harrington of Buffalo News. I would say the only good news is that the Sabres have nowhere to go but up from here, but every time I’ve said that lately, they’ve grown progressively worse, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s once again the case.
3 – 19 goals allowed in last three games
Yeah, this team has allowed over six goals per game from the loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, and onward. There are a plethora of reasons this has been going on, but you can sum it up by saying the team has simply been playing bad hockey.
They’re slow in transition, despite speed supposedly serving as this team’s greatest strength. Defensively, they’re always out of position, allowing open portions of the ice for opponents to take advantage of.
They pass the puck in the offensive zone when they should be taking shots. Buffalo’s sloppy with those passes, which lead to turnovers and easy odd-man-rushes and breakaways, and I’m sure you can name about 100 more issues…no exaggeration.
Overall, they have been a historically bad hockey team no matter which way you look at it. But the numbers listed above don’t lie.
Source: Observations: Horrendous home play continues as Sabres hit more wrong notes in ugly loss to Nashville by Mike Harrington, BuffaloNews.com.
(Data provided by Hockey-Reference)