Archives for March 9, 2021

‘One of the NHL’s bright young defensemen, Dahlin has grown accustomed to the sometimes overwhelming emotion that comes with failure. He’s experienced more than his fair share during his third season in the NHL. Entering Monday, Dahlin owned a league-worst minus-21 rating – on pace for minus-75 if this were an 82-game season – and advanced metrics illustrate how he’s struggling at times to adjust to a bigger role defensively.’

‘“It’s not a fun time,” bemoaned Krueger. “These aren’t easy times, but truly they are times where you could grow and learn if you take the right lessons out of it. We need to find lessons right now and really evaluate everything that’s within our control as coaches and work together with the players to pull ourselves together. The only way we’re going to get out of this is with a group effort.”’

‘There’s no doubt the Sabres have had poor shooting luck this season, but they have also had a bizarrely difficult time getting to the dangerous areas of the ice with any degree of regularity. Consider where they shoot from on 5-on-5 (in which the team is 31st in rate scoring) compared to the power play (in which the team is third in rate scoring), courtesy HockeyViz…’.