HockeyRhetoric

What was the concept of the 2011-2012 Buffalo Sabres?

When the losses started to accumulate, I started to read and hear people say things like the Sabres don’t have an identity. I never agreed with this characterization. My position prior to and throughout the season was that the Sabres defense, particularly their mobility, is the team’s greatest strength. That unit’s collective ability to skate and move the puck changed the dynamic of the team, in my view.

Miller is the face of the franchise. As long as he remains a part of the team he’ll be a part of its identity but, prior to and early in the season, he was not mentioned in the beginning of my response to people when asked what makes the Sabres a contender. Goaltender is essential for every team, not just the Sabres. As I saw it, if the Sabres were going to do something special it would happen by way of the skaters on defense — Myers, Ehrhoff, Sekera, Leopold, and Gragnani. I wrote about it in early October.

Whatever your feelings are on the injuries and games missed by the players in that unit, whether you pejoratively call them an excuse for the team’s failure or a circumstance that partially explains the team’s failure, there’s little question they are a part of the story of this Sabres season.

Get ready for some numbers.

First, let’s establish that the seven best defenders on the roster are Tyler Myers, Christian Ehrhoff, Robyn Regehr, Andrej Sekera, Mike Weber, Jordan Leopold, and Alex Sulzer (who replaces Marc-Andre Gragnani on this list). This excludes Brayden McNabb, TJ Brennan, and Joe Finley — the only other defensemen who appeared in the Sabres line-up this season.

When six out of the Sabres seven best defenders were in the line-up, the Sabres record was 31-14-5. When one or more of McNabb, Brennan and Finley were in the line-up — meaning that at least two of the Sabres top seven defenders were unavailable — the Sabres record was 8-18-6. I tracked this figure after one of the Sabres PR reps, Ian Ott, tweeted his numbers after the game on February 8. I assume his are correct. Sorry if the presentation of this data is difficult to follow.

Of course, this doesn’t account for the importance of individual players. Tyler Myers and Christian Ehrhoff are widely considered to be the two most important defenders on the team and both missed a significant amount of time. I agree they’re each very important; both are highly skilled and both play a lot of minutes. I was really impressed with Ehrhoff this season. I didn’t expect he’d be so reliable in the Sabres zone. When he was out of the line-up, the Sabres record was 3-10-3. When Myers was out, it was 8-11-8. The cross-over is small. They were both scratched for the same game in exactly six occasions (2-2-2). If you wanted to argue that the injuries to the defense, specifically Myers and Ehrhoff, directly cost the Sabres a spot in the playoffs, these are the numbers to use:

(Aside: Yesterday, Mike Harrington, Sabres beat reporter for the Buffalo News, tweeted some statistics on Myers and Ehrhoff. Those numbers were used in a report the News published this morning. Most of his figures are wrong. Harrington’s statistic about the Sabres record when Myers is out of the line-up (8-11-7) supposes that Myers missed only 26 games. Myers missed a total of 27 games. It’s also incorrect that the Sabres record was 9-18-8 when one or both Myers and Ehrhoff were out of the line-up, as was tweeted and printed. The correct figure is 9-19-9. The overtime/shootout loss mistake is a reflection of the incorrect Myers stat. The extra regulation loss supposes Myers and Ehrhoff were out of the line-up together for 3 regulation losses and 7 games in total, which is incorrect. They were out of the line-up together for exactly six games: 12/31, 1/3, 3/31, 4/3, 4/5, and 4/7. Only 3/31 and 4/5 were regulation losses. Everything is on the NHL’s website.)

Participants in the injury conversation often treat it as though it were a binary issue; it’s not. Injuries affected the Sabres and made them a weaker team. Everyone should be in agreement on this. They’re part of the overall explanation of the season for every team, every year, whether they qualified for the post-season or not.

Here’s the distinction I want to make clear. Would the Sabres have made the playoffs if they hadn’t lost so many key players to injury? Probably. The injuries were a legitimate problem. Should those injuries have prevented the Sabres from qualifying for the playoffs? No.

The Sabre were 9-19-9 when one or both of Ehrhoff and Myers was out the line-up. Let’s focus on those 37 games. Should the Sabres be able to win a big majority without either player? Probably not. But shouldn’t the Sabres at least manage to be okay without either player? Shouldn’t the rest of the team, without Myers or Ehrhoff or sometimes both, be strong enough to win more than one out of every four games? I think so.

Again, I’m the person who says the defense was the key to this team. I thought the reduction in defensive-zone turnovers would make it easier on the goaltenders. I thought the puck control and timely pinching at the offensive-zone blue-line would really boost the offensive output. I thought this defensive unit would do those things. When they were healthy, they did those things. If anyone should be arguing how crippling those injuries were, it’s me. I don’t want to take it that far.

There’s plenty of people saying the rest of the team needed to be better. I suppose I’m revealing myself as one of those people here. I believed several players who had very poor statistical seasons would have strong or at least decent seasons. I don’t want to rationalize those individual player failures as byproducts of injuries sustained to teammates.

The lesson should be that the Sabres roster from top to bottom was weak. They were probably more skilled than in past seasons but their execution was wildly inconsistent and below average in comparison to the rest of the league. I don’t have reasons for why talent and skill failed to deliver. There’s plenty of ambiguous words and sports clichés people like to use in these types of moments: no-heart, soft, fragile, immature. I don’t know. None of those words are as convincing as the result: 9th place. The results are more compelling than some grafted title ever could be.

The Sabres are led by a group of veterans who, collectively, are only modestly talented. It’s hard for me to imagine this group of leaders taking them very far. I think we’ve all known this for awhile. This season should have removed any doubt.