The Sabres just skated off on the short end of a 1-0 result in Game 3 against the Ottawa Senators and find themselves looking up the steep walls of a 3-0 hole in games.
What's happened to Buffalo?
The Sabres won the President's Trophy in the regular season, largely on their ability to score goals -- they led the league in scoring. But there is a deception in that. Buffalo is a very balanced team, a characteristic that could wear down lesser teams. But they lack a certain high-end skill level. There really isn't a true "elite" player on their roster. Daniel Briere has had a nice year, but he might be in the best possible setting for his skill, too. Chris Drury is one of the true "clutch" players in the league, but he's never been a point-a-game player. The Sabres have almost an entire squad of what amount to 3-4 defensemen instead of a real "top pair" type. It was more than enough, in the regular season, to mask a weakness...
...special teams.
Buffalo was second (to Detroit) in the NHL in 5-on-5 effectiveness during the regular season. They lead the playoffs in that measure this spring by a wide margin. But in the regular season the Sabres special teams were rather average -- 17.4 percent on the power play (tied for 17th) and 81.4 percent in penalty killing (20th). The "special teams index" (power play success plus penalty killing success) of 98.8 was virtually identical to that of Boston (98.9), which did not make the playoffs. That weakness has been magnified and exploited in the playoffs. While the Sabres dispatched the Islanders quickly in the opening round, they struggled with the Rangers in the second round in a six game series. The last five games of that series were of the one-goal variety, and two of them went to overtime. Ottawa is not dominating the Sabres in this third round series, but they have been the better team over most stretches of play.
It is at this time of year when Buffalo's balance at the expense of high-end skill might be working against them. They have no consistent answer -- either on offense or on defense -- for the Senators' top line of Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza, and Dany Heatley. This is reflected in a difficulty in special teams play at both ends, which has been a problem for the Sabres in this tournament -- a carry over from the regular season.
Look again at the idea of the "special teams index." Buffalo's mark of 89.0 so far in the playoffs is 14th among the 16 playoff teams -- only Atlanta and Minnesota are worse. In this series, that index stands at 76.5, including a big "o-fer"(0-for-18) on the power play. Compare that 89.0 number with the other three teams remaining in the playoffs:
Anaheim: 123.7
Ottawa: 114.6
Detroit: 107.9
Special teams are killing the Sabres, but it's a slow death that really began in the regular season.
Aside from those stats, the answer to the question 'What happened to Buffalo' is the same answer as what happened to Pittsburgh and New Jersey.
ReplyDeleteStudy those series and none of Ottawa's opponents has really looked like themselves. Ottawa's played an excellent team game, sucked all the time, space and energy from two rather up-tempo teams with their own speed, depth and puck possesion.
Aside from the obvious that Buffalo's PP has failed them, credit Ottawa for blocking a crap-ton of shots and keeping most everything to non-scoring areas.
I still feel like Ray Emery's never been tested, thanks to the way they're playing in front of him, and given the remaining WC teams he might not have to be.
Ottawa's done a terrific job going from 'chokers' to being in almost absolute control of every period of postseason play. Aside from the shutdown defense and speedy depth they've got a #1 line that no one's had close to an answer for.
Since I am still hating on the Sabres for shutting out the Caps at the end of the season, I am glad Buffalo is going down.
ReplyDelete