In Latin the name Felix means lucky, or happy. I like the name Felix. Remember Felix Potvin? That’s a sweet name for a goaltender. Felix the Cat, they would to call him. I think out of all the players on the Sabres, the one who the name Felix would work best for is Drew Stafford. It fits his personality and he’s too enigmatic of a hockey player to have a name like Andrew.
I really want to like Stafford. He’s a big forward that’s surprisingly quick on his feet and has a pretty nice set of hands. Why can’t he put it all together? He hasn’t even really been getting scoring opportunities lately. He has a goal and three assists in his last ten games.
This is his fourth year with the Sabres. When can we start to expect him to settle in and contribute a little more regularly? Every year he scores something like 15-20 goals and 40-50 points. This year isn’t shaping up to be any different and that’s just not good enough. He shouldn’t be a project anymore. He’s past having to prove himself as an actual member of this team. It’s time for him to start being a player that does more than just tap in the occasional rebound and collect secondary assists off Vanek’s goals.
Sometimes his body language suggests he isn’t totally engaged. That might be true on some level but I think he battles hard on the ice for the most part. My beef is that Stafford doesn’t always play very smart. He tries to do things that you just can’t get away with in this league. Everyone is good and everyone is skilled. The few players that lack in physical talent like speed, strength, and coordination, make it because they play smart. Stafford is extremely gifted but he’s not Rick Nash; he needs to play smarter.
This means having a little better timing when he makes decisions with the puck. Sometimes he needs to be more patient other times he needs to move it quicker to the open man. He attempts too many high risk passes and he needs to cut that out.
Stafford can and should be doing all those things and more. He protects the puck pretty well and he can create opportunities when he carries it. I don’t see that side of him as often as I’d like at this point in his career. He strikes me as someone playing a little too conservative when you consider what he’s able to do offensively. It’s not the way he should be playing because he’s almost always on a line with either Roy or Vanek, and often both.
When Vanek and Roy were most effective during even-strength play in their careers, they were playing with Afinogenov. At his best, Max was a dynamic playmaker but he was also a scorer, capable of finding open spaces for Vanek and Roy to feed him the puck. You don’t see the latter from Stafford regardless of who he’s playing with. His role is such that he’s often working along the boards, but he’s not exactly a shoe-maker either; Stafford can shoot.
These are some of the things that the Sabres coaching staff should be reminding him. Players like Vanek and Stafford are not grown from the same tree as any of the other forwards the Sabres have. To maximize their talent and offensive production they need synergy with their linemates and the guidance/encouragement to use their natural abilities even if it means breaking free from the teams’ system. Clearly, their skill set doesn’t align with what the coaching staff expects from every one of their forwards. That really shouldn’t matter as far as I’m concerned. Stafford might be playing more responsibly and so fewer goals are probably being scored on the Sabres while he’s on the ice than what otherwise would be if he really opened his game up but he’s giving you nothing offensively the way he plays now.
Something needs to change because the Sabres need Stafford to become more of a difference maker on the offensive side of things.