Recently Jerry Sullivan tweeted the above, and I’ve noticed this talking point from many pessimistic Sabres fans. It’s reasonable enough, but completely inaccurate in its approach and I will explain to you why if you are bored enough to make it through some lengthy analysis.

The Problem

The Sabres have lost forwards who scored goals, it stands to reason they would need to replace those goals or they will be worse right?

Not quite.. And I’ll go through some reasons why below,

Do we need to replace 77 goals?

Goals = wins right?: Well, no. In 2022-2023 the Sabres were 3rd in the league for goals scored (293 goals), and finished with 91 pts. But the Minnesota Wild with 239 goals (23rd in GF) had 101 points. The islanders with 242 goals (22nd in GF) had 93 points, the Jets with 246 goals (21st in GF) had 95 pts. So goals don’t necessarily = wins or points or standings or playoffs.

Not all goals are relevant: If Jeff Skinner scores a hat trick when we are winning 6-1, it’s nice for the stat sheet but we would have won just as many games if we won the same game 2-1. Seems obvious but feels like something important to note given the discourse of “replacing goals”. You could also look at how many of those were empty netters.

Hockey isn’t just offence: Another seemingly obvious point but Hockey is more than just goals, it’s about preventing goals against as well. Skinner and Olof were never notorious for being good defensively. In fact Skinner’s notorious for being awful at defence. While I hate plus/minus it’s somewhat relevant in this discussion. Skinner was a -2 last year. He was on the ice for more goals against than for. This isn’t new for Skinner, aside from last year, he’s -14, -11, -22, -27 during his time with the Sabres. And this trend continued for most his time with the Canes. This isn’t just a case of bad teams or linemates or goalies because there isn’t an analytics model out there which doesn’t rate Skinner abysmal at defence. And if you’re old fashioned, anyone who’s watched him knows this so I don’t need to belabor this point. Hockey’s a team sport and I can’t say with certainty how many goals Skinner costs us in a game or a season. But I can say for certain he is not helping us on the defensive side of the game. If the Sabres prevent more goals against it can lessen the need to score more goals.

But Sabres still need to score SOME goals right?: The Sabres scored a lot less goals last year. It’s led many people to conclude (wrongly) that the Sabres were just “having career years” or that it was just an anomaly and last year was a return to their average play. And on top of that we’ve lost Skinner, Mitts and Olof so now we will be even WORSE. This is wrong, for many reasons and I’ll tell you why

Goals, where?

Tage battling injury: Granted he still sleepwalked to 29 goals and still had a solid year, but it was clear Tage was not 100% for most of last year. It’s reasonable to feel nervous about Tage because he seemingly came out of nowhere, but I don’t think last year’s performance is indicative of close to his best level of play. Tage is entering his prime and if healthy will absolutely score more goals next year. And Tage being this kind of threat, makes all our forwards better, helps make room for his linemates like Tuch and JJ, helps our PP, forces the best defenders to target him while giving more room to our other lines.

Cozens had a down year: People throw this around a lot, but it is irrefutably true. Cozens had some awful luck last year, his linemates were inconsistent and generally not great and his shooting % was below average. Watching him at the Worlds, he was one for the best players for Team Canada. There were even discussions that he may have earned some consideration for the Olympic team. Cozens still has a lot to prove next year but at 23 he has a ton of runway to improve. I don’t think it is reasonable to expect Cozens performance last year was a standard and find it hard to imagine him not having a much better year.

Jack Quinn: With all the talk of us not adding a winger, I think people are not respecting the hole Quinn left in our roster last year. The few games he did play, he was IMMEDIATELY noticeable. His 9 goals in 27 games were very impressive considering how challenging it is to start a season late and be in and out from multiple injuries. He’s one of our best shooters and not only will he push for 30 goals, but his presence will help elevate his linemates and the entire team. Many genuinely think he could press for first line minutes next year.

Physicality: Cozens went on a fiery rant at locker clean out that the team was too soft, got pushed around and lacked the guys with a physical edge, guys who were willing to fight, hit, stand up for each other. He also directly pointed at this as a reason for the Sabres’ struggles on offence at times. We are unequivocally a tougher, bigger and more physical team next year due to some of the adds and subtractions.

Defence: The Sabres are a young team, and this is an area young teams often struggle with. It takes years of experience to develop a better defensive game. While the Sabres improved last year, it wasn’t as dramatic as it looked mainly because UPL elevated his play to ungodly levels. There’s still plenty of room for improvement here. Why this matters? Defence can create offence. Not only are many of the younger guys a year older, and more experienced but we’ve also added guys who are notoriously good at defence and flipping the ice. Faster guys who can help with zone exits and zone entries. This helps our team as a whole spend more time in the ozone, and score more goals as a result. Our blue line is also very talented but stacked with youngsters, we know the ups and downs that it can take for a blueliner to develop as seen with Dahlin. Bo and Power along with the rest should see some improvement. I also think Dennis Gilbert isn’t talked of enough. Him and Bryson will absolutely press our top 6 for their jobs next year.

Lindy Ruff and “Playoff style goals”: Lindy has stated a major weakness he saw in the tape he watched was the Sabres inability to score “playoff style goals”. Greasy goals, tip ins, net front tap ins. While we haven’t necessarily added any guys who excel at this as of today, it remains to be seen what an offseason with Lindy can do to reshape the Sabres offensive game can do. I don’t have a crystal ball but I like Lindy’s track record and he’s saying the right things, I think this being a focus can ultimately lead to positive offensive production.

Special Teams: The Sabres PP was downright abysmal to watch last year. I’d audibly groan every time we got a PP, and even though it improved in the second half it was still well below league average. I can guarantee you it will be a focus in this offseason and going forward. Looking back at 22/23 the Sabres were bottom 5 in the PK but last year the PK improved dramatically. So don’t be surprised if we see an improvement in the PP next year. Just being league average will create many goals, and add many extra Ws in the win column. McLeod is a good faceoff guy and that can be an asset on the PP. Tage being healthy as our top PP man should help, having other weapons in Quinn and JJ along with a fresh look from Lindy and Seth should help as well. On a lesser note, while I thought our PK was STELLAR last year the guys we’ve added are almost all great PKers. So this will help even more in lessening the pressure on needing goals.

The Sabres “bad” offence in 23/24

That helps me segue into the Sabres bad offence last year. But was it bad? I don’t think so.

23/24
GF: 244 (23rd)
5v5 Goals: 200 (15th)
PP%: 16.6% (29th)

An average PP in the league is around 20% typically. We were one of the worst in the league but we were around average at even strength goals. If you improve the PP we are at least average in total goals as a team, if not better. So I do think improving the PP should help our total offence, individual players stats, and get more Ws. “But we lost Skinner and Mitts!” TRUE, but how badly will this affect us?

https://i.imgur.com/jYoSYDc.jpeg

Here’s the stat sheet after March 8th, the NHL trade deadline. This is after Mitts was traded. Skinner also spent a lot for this time on the 2nd and 3rd lines in a reduced role after JJ took his spot on the first line.

GF: 59
GF/GP: 3.28 (13th)
PP: 17.1%
Goals from Jeff Skinner: 4

Granted this is a small sample size but a promising one. We see even with Skinner playing reduced minutes, and having minimal offensive production, Mitts being traded the team actually improved on offence. Granted Tage getting healthy, the slightly improved PP and return of Quinn were all positive factors but they will be next year as well.

Closing out games

Those of you unfortunate enough to have watched a lot of Sabres games last year will know that we struggled to close out games, even the ones where we did score lots. We’d blow leads often. If you watched the Playoffs you’ll notice that good teams are able to score a handful of goals and lock down a lead. This is massive, and will lead to more Ws. Even if the bottom 6 isn’t scoring in bundles, we have unequivocally a better group of guys that will help us close out more games on the nights when we aren’t able to blow out teams with 5+ goals. And if not wins, we also struggled to get games to overtime and get those juicy loser points. A couple more loser points can be the difference of playoffs or not.

Starting games cold

On the flipside here is starting games. We were one of the worst teams for getting caved in early on. it seemed like almost every night we were down 2-0 in the first period. Unfortunately NJD wasn’t any better last year and many people blame this on coaching. I think there’s a lot of blame to go around and I can’t tell you if this is an area we’ve improved in. Although I do hope it is. I remember seeing some stat where we won almost every game we scored first. So this is an area with a big question mark for me.

Bonus

Backup goalies: This isn’t necessarily relevant to offence but Eric Cormier was 1-9 last year. That’s 16 pts left on the table. With Levi/Reimer behind UPL we will absolutely have more reliable goaltending outside of UPL. And while this may seem small the Sabres were 7 points out of a wild card spot last year. Better backup goaltending absolutely can help us net a few more points here, doesn’t need to be Vezina level but just average backups should result in more Ws.

Depth: We suffered a lot of unfortunate injuries last year and that sucked. And it is hard to argue even with the reshaped lines that we are a deeper team next year. HOWEVER, we do have some very promising prospects and they are finally at the point when they should get a serious look next year. If we do suffer injuries it may even be an opportunity for one of our many prospects to step up and fill the void.

TLDR/Conclusion

The Sabres right now are better than they were last year. We don’t need to “replace 77 goals” from Skinner et al in order to finish with a better year. A lot has to go right for us to make the playoffs, guys have to be healthy, the PP has to improve, buy-in for Lindy, but an older, more experienced, more physical, faster team that is more defensively sound can still get enough goals and win enough games to be a playoff contender.