Making up for the loss of scoring from JJP (and Cozens among others).

[dudacek]

I think one of the reasons the Sbres offence has been as effective as it has is the amount they generate from the blueline.

This team has three of the top 20 even strength scoring defencemen in the league and Kesselring added another player in the top 50.

Owen power was 3rd on the Sabres, but would have been 1st on 19 teams.

The Sabres top 4 D accounted for 141 points last year. Colorado led the league with 132.

Forwards generally find is easier to score with that kind of support from the blueline and I suspect it will help the new arrivals.

[GASabresIUFAN]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

I think one of the reasons the Sbres offence has been as effective as it has is the amount they generate from the blueline.

This team has three of the top 20 even strength scoring defencemen in the league and Kesselring added another player in the top 50.

Owen power was 3rd on the Sabres, but would have been 1st on 19 teams.

The Sabres top 4 D accounted for 141 points last year. Colorado led the league with 132.

Forwards generally find is easier to score with that kind of support from the blueline and I suspect it will help the new arrivals.

Does that come at much too high a cost?  Is the D too focused on creating offense that they consistently breakdown defensively?  Would ten less goals by the D, lead to 20 less goals against by eliminating a significant amount of high danger chances against?

[dudacek]

21 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Does that come at much too high a cost?  Is the D too focused on creating offense that they consistently breakdown defensively?  Would ten less goals by the D, lead to 20 less goals against by eliminating a significant amount of high danger chances against?

I don’t think so.

I don’t see a team where the D are making a lot of bad offence-first choices and giving up a ton of chances as a consequence. 

I saw (in particular) Clifton, Power and Samuelsson making a lot of poor zone coverage decisions and execution.

And I saw forwards (especially Quinn and Cozens) too often making a lot of bad puck decisions that flipped the ice the other way.