Without Tage Thompson, the Sabres dropped a 4-3 shootout decision to the Canadiens. It’s time to dig into
BUFFALO — Let’s be frank for a moment: Shootout games are total ass no matter which way the decision goes.
Shootouts are essentially an occasionally showy coin flip means to give one team an extra point in the standings. The league has done everything but eliminate them completely to prevent them from having a total effect on the standings. They stink.
The 65 minutes prior to them, however, are the actually telling part of the game and for the Sabres, the eye test says it was a game they should’ve won. They had a 3-2 third period lead that went away on Brendan Gallagher’s 200th career goal, they took a questionable penalty in overtime and had one of their best penalty kills of the season nullifying it, even producing a scoring chance once it ended.
The teams traded goals, Eric Comrie made some sensational saves (with some iffy goals allowed), Riley Stillman scored his first goal since April of last year and first as a Sabre, and rookie Lukáš Rousek had two points including his first NHL goal. There were reasons to have smiles after the game, except for that whole winning the game thing.
“We battle hard every single night,” Comrie said. “I respect the hell out of these guys. They work hard every single night. They truly give it their all. I love playing for these guys. It’s unfortunate. That’s a tough one to swallow tonight. That’s a really tough pill to swallow.”
There was some footlocker slamming and equipment being roughly deposited on their shelves in some stalls postgame, which is to be expected when the margin for error is razor thin with so few games remaining. But what actually worked well and what did not? It’s time to judge the eye test against the nerd test when we take a look at how our eyes may or may not be fooled by the results on paper.
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Did Mittelstadt do well on the top line?
Let’s start at the top with the guy who took Tage Thompson’s spot on the top line, Casey Mittelstadt.
Judging by the eye test, it seemed to take the trio of Mittelstadt, Jeff Skinner, and Alex Tuch a while to feeling things out and get to their collective games. Singularly, they were able to produce some chances, and Mittelstadt hit a post late in the game, but as a unit it appeared to be going through it.
Sabres coach Don Granato rated Mittelstadt’s performance with the group as “good” and cited how these guys have played together as a team for a while, so they know each other. But it just felt like there was something missing (aside from Thompson!) with the group.
The numbers say…
According to NaturalStatTrick.com, at 5-on-5 the line of Skinner-Mittelstadt-Tuch had 65.4 percent of the shot attempts while they were together on the ice and 41 percent of expected goals. They neither scored nor allowed a goal while they were out there, and shots on goal were even at seven. The biggest difference was they were out there for four high danger chances against and had but one of their own.
This…isn’t terrible? The expected goal numbers are definitely affected by the difference in high danger chances, but at least when they were out there, Comrie shut it down and kept them off the board.
By the numbers they did well, but perhaps it was more of a Monet painting kind of game. From a distance (like on a statistics website) it looks good, but less so in action. C’est la vie, non?
The Youth Movement line was bad, right?
Since the trio of Dylan Cozens, J-J Peterka, and Jack Quinn were reunited, they’ve been a rejuvenated group. Their collective pace and creativity have been incredible, and they’ve generated chances and shot attempts steadily. It’s what you want to see from a young group like that on the regular and they’ve been superb.
Against Montréal, while the pace was still there, it seemed like they were spending more time in their own end of the ice than sailing up ice and creating on the fly. When they’re playing at the same speed but it’s all going against them, it makes for a rough night. That’s how it looked throughout the game, although Peterka did score a ridiculous goal on the power play banking one in off Jake Allen’s back.
But it’s the 5-on-5 play we’re most concerned with, and it did not look like they were having a good time out there.
The numbers say…
Buckle up because the eye test and nerd test are in full agreement.
Cozens, Peterka, and Quinn had 25 percent of shot attempts when they were together at 5-on-5 and had 12.7 percent of the expected goals. They generated zero scoring attempts and faced seven against and had four high danger chances against on top of that. They were also out there when Gallagher scored the game-tying goal.
Not. Good.
It’s one game so it’s not a damnation of them, and they were able to get a goal on the man advantage, but whenever they were out there not on special teams, they had a tough go of it. Young guys will have nights like that sometimes and I know a lot of people will say, “Dude, it’s Montréal, they suck,” but it’s still the NHL and they can still do things like own a line for an entire game.
Is Riley Stillman a guy now?
Being a third pair defenseman on a team that has two outstanding defensemen taking up residence on separate pairings means not seeing a ton of ice time. Since coming to Buffalo, Riley Stillman has been a third pair guy and while he’s expected to be a physical presence on the blue line, perhaps expectations were low for what he would bring to the lineup.
Against the Canadiens, Stillman and defense partner Jacob Bryson saw less than 10 minutes of ice time. Listen, it’s how it’s going to go for anyone on the third pairing from now until who knows when as long as Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power are wearing Sabres uniforms. They key for players getting fewer minutes like that is to not be a drag and cause headaches for forwards and goalies alike. Do your job, manage the puck well, don’t hand out turnovers like Halloween candy.
Easy right?
The numbers say…
Stillman took care of business in 8:59 of ice time on Monday with being out there for 60 percent of shot attempts and 59.2 percent expected goals. Oh, right, he also scored a goal when he gladly took a wide-open lane to the net in which no Habs defenders went to him until it was too late, and he had Allen swimming trying to stop him.
Stillman said a blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while (it was his first goal since April of last year) and that his first instinct was to take a shot from where he received the pass. Good thing he fought that urge because it was a nice effort to score.
With the Sabres this season, in over 128 minutes at 5-on-5, the Sabres have 60.7 percent of the shot attempts when Stillman is out there as well as 53.6 percent of expected goals for. More chances and better-quality chances when a third pairing defender is out there is really nice to have.
This isn’t necessarily a call for him to get more ice time, you don’t want to take minutes away from Power or Dahlin obviously, but that he’s fit in as well as he has is a pleasant turn of events. It would’ve been (and may still be) disheartening to see Buffalo miss out on adding Jakob Chychrun, but for what Kevyn Adams was looking for to give the third pairing some toughness, to also get a guy that’s helping them control the game better is great.