It’s no secret that the Buffalo Sabres‘ defense has struggled so far this season.
In the past three games, the team has allowed 14 goals, and very few, if any, can be attributed to Ryan Miller’s play.
So going into tonight’s tilt with the Ottawa Senators, the Sabres need to get their defensive corps straightened out to have a shot to compete in the offensively stout Northeast Division.
So what is the Sabres’ problem?
Realistically, a Lindy Ruff coached team is never expected to be defensively weak. Ruff’s system is defense-first, and teams with far less talent on the blue line than this one have been extremely tough to score on in the past. So what’s different now?
The long and the short of it is the passivity with which the Sabres’ are playing in the defensive, and especially the neutral zone.
For example, take the second and third goals from Sunday’s loss to the Florida Panthers, and break them down. The second goal was a cluster of issues, stemming from a shallow offensive zone turnover by Alex Sulzer. Marcus Foligno made the correct positional play, rotating in for Sulzer and covering the blue line for him, but Sulzer was stripped and the puck was easily chipped by a flat footed Foligno.
The rush was on with Stephen Weiss and Tomas Fleischmann leading and George Parros trailing. Sulzer skated back and engaged Weiss, but Christian Ehrhoff kept retreating back toward Miller, creating a lane for Parros who was free due to Tyler Ennis being low in the Florida zone when Sulzer turned it over. The result: Parros scores.
If Ehrhoff had been more active and had stayed on his feet, taking the passing lane away with positioning, he would have been able to step up on Parros, possibly causing a turnover, or at least forcing him to pass to Fleischmann who was in an innocuous position on the side of the net.
The third goal was extremely similar.
The puck started from just inside the Florida zone, with a pass to to Peter Mueller that he tapped to Drew Shore right around the Sabres-side faceoff dot in the neutral zone. Tyler Myers and Ehrhoff began retreating into the Sabres’ zone immediately upon the pass from Tomas Kopecky to Mueller, and did not engage in the slightest when Drew Shore received the Mueller pass and drove into the zone.
Myers took away the lane to the net, but Shore was able to play a bounce pass of the end boards back to himself, which turned Myers around, allowing Shore to dump a pass across the slot to Mueller who shoveled in the backhand for the goal.
Myers and Ehrhoff simply cannot give the Panthers‘ transition a free pass into the zone like they did. Despite the solid in-zone positioning from Myers, he gave Shore plenty of room to make a play for himself. Ehrhoff was soft on the break-in and then even softer on his coverage on Mueller as he drifted to the top of the crease without paying him any mind until Shore makes the pass, which is of course too late.
In short, Ruff needs to get his defensive corps attacking rather than reacting in the defensive zone. While the reactionary style allows for better positioning, it gives the other team more time to set up in the zone and create plays, especially on any kind of rush, be it odd-man or even numbers.
Myers and Jordan Leopold are struggling right now and that’s because they are not actively defending. They are letting the play come to them, and at the NHL level that is not a successful formula. Brad Marchand’s first goal against the Sabres last Thursday is a perfect example of Myers simply not closing a gap that needs to be closed and getting beat to the net.
Mike Weber has been the best Sabres defenseman the past few days because of his willingness to quickly close gaps and his tough play in the neutral zone. If the rest of the Sabres’ defenseman can start to do this, the defense will shore up in no time, but if they do not, look for Miller to be hung out to dry a lot.
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When Patrick Kaleta went down with a neck injury against Toronto on Tuesday night, he may have helped the Sabres in the long run. Buffalo will miss Kaleta’s physical presence until he returns from a neck injury, but losing a forward forced Lindy Ruff to mix up his lines.
Coming into the 2013 season, the line of Tyler Ennis, Drew Stafford and Marcus Foligno was put together because of the success that it had in 2012. In just 14 games, Foligno alone had 13 points playing with Ennis and Stafford.
The Sabres had been struggling for offense this season outside of Thomas Vanek, who leads the NHL with 15 points. Ruff moved Ott to center with Ennis and Stafford on the wings and put Foligno with Mikhail Grigorenko and Jochen Hecht on the third line.
It only took six minutes until the new Ott-Ennis-Stafford line found the net against Toronto, and Grigorenko scored his first NHL goal against Toronto as well. Luckily, Ruff saw the new lines clicking and decided to give it a shot again against the Bruins. The new third line was on the ice in Boston when Buffalo tied the game 4-4.
The styles of the new lines look like a better fit. Ott playing in the middle with Ennis and Stafford gives the two skill players a center who will crash the net and crash bodies. Ennis and Stafford also have some protection on their line now because opposing teams know that they will have to deal with Ott if they get too physical.
It’s possible that Ott’s physical play could rub off on his linemates, and he could be a positive influence on Stafford, who was shown actually finishing off a hit against the Bruins, of all teams. Maybe a new Drew Stafford can emerge in 2013.
The change also gave Grigorenko another player with more offensive skill to feed off of in Foligno. I would expect Ville Leino to be with Foligno and Grigorenko when he returns from his hip injury, but Hecht will provide veteran leadership for the two young players until then.
The next line shuffle that Ruff needs to make is to only have one defenseman on the ice at a time who doesn’t play any defense. In other words, don’t have Tyler Myers and Jordan Leopold together. Myers and Leopold were given the fewest minutes against Boston among the Buffalo defenders. Leopold let Matt Frattin get around him for the game-winner in overtime in Buffalo’s loss to the Maple Leafs instead of pulling him down to take, literally, a two-second penalty.
Unlike the forwards, there has not been any discovery of a new pairing due to Robyn Regehr’s injury. Buffalo can’t get him back fast enough. Myers has especially shown a lack of hustle so far this season. At this point of his career, he is becoming another soft, underachieving Sabre.
Ruff isn’t the most experimental coach in the NHL, but it looks like he made the right switch with Ott and Foligno. Buffalo can’t expect the kind of production that it has been getting from its first line all season, and there plenty of games where the other three lines need to score.
With the slow start that the Sabres got off to, there are some players who have some scoring to make up for.
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When the Buffalo Sabres acquired Steve Ott from Dallas last summer, it was the most important of several moves to make this team tougher to play against. Plain and simple, fans had to endure a squad that was spineless last season. But is the 30-year-old veteran going to be more than just a grinder for Buffalo?
Ott proved with the Stars that he could contribute offensively. He’s not a guy that’s going to ever net you 30 goals, but players who can give you 15 with 150 PIM are few and far between.
That’s especially true in Western New York, where the Sabres have rarely had someone capable of numbers like those.
Incumbent ultra-pest Patrick Kaleta has never had more than 15 points in a season. In essence, Ott is a better version of Kaleta.
Ahead, we’re going to look at three reasons why No. 9 will flourish in his first year with his new club.
