The Sabres look like they’re on the verge of going back on a roll once again, but they’ve looked that way for a while now. On about five separate occasions this season, the Blue and Gold have won three games in a row, only to disappoint their fans and followers. Once, a three-game winning streak transformed into a 13-game losing streak that may have all but sealed the deal for the season.
Or has it? Since the Sabres long losing streak, they’ve since played respectable hockey. But it doesn’t mean they’ve improved in every facet of the game, or else we’d have seen at least one winning streak stretch longer than three games.
And trust me, the Sabres need to string together a couple of long winning streaks if they plan on re-entering the playoff hunt as a legitimate contender. It’s possible, but they’ll make that seemingly insurmountable task a whole lot easier if they improve in the following three statistical categories.
1 - Power Play
Ever since the second half of the 2022-23 season started, the Sabres power play has been nonexistent for stretches. While you can name a few teams that have been worse on the man advantage in the current epoch, a 16.34 power play percentage probably isn’t much better.
Right now, they’re over five percentage points under the NHL average of 21.38. And yeah, you could say that the Sabres are one of the better teams in the league when they’re at even strength or 5-on-5, and you’d be correct.
But, and as you’ll see in the following two sections, the Blue and Gold just don’t play great defensively. While most fans would prefer to see the Sabres play a better game when they don’t have the puck, improving the power play before anything else gives this team a great insurance policy to fall back on. But let’s talk about how bad this team’s been on defense anyway.
2 - Save percentage in all situations
The Sabres save percentage at 5-on-5 isn’t the problem, even if it’s 0.6 of a percentage point below the NHL average. But when you look at their save percentage in all situations, their number tanks to a meager 0.884, over a full percentage point below the NHL average of 0.895.
The fortunate news is that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is a good goaltender (see next section for more), but since the Sabres tend to crumble for long stretches when they don’t have the puck, even the best netminders in the game would have a tough time.
If this were the 2022-23 season, Luukkonen would likely have a GAA of about 3.75 at this point, given the way the Sabres have played. And that leads me to my final statistic that the Sabres must turn around if they wish to make this season an interesting one.
3 - Shots allowed
Through 52 games heading into Tuesday, the Sabres have allowed 1,523 shots on goal or 29.2 per game. The NHL average through 53 games - the Sabres have a game in hand here - is 1,498 allowed, or 28.2 per game, one whole shot on goal less than the Blue and Gold.
This may not seem like a huge deal, but since the Sabres have allowed 176 goals this season, they need to find creative ways to keep opponents from taking advantage of them when in the defensive zone. Unless Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen can become the savior from now until mid-April, stifling opponents more often is perhaps the biggest key to the Sabres success.