Thinking about Leafs/Sabres tonight, I decided to check on some statistics at random. Here are the results. This first section is for 5v5:
- Nicolas Deslauriers is the worst CF% player in the NHL who has played more than 20 games. Shawn Thornton is the only player worse than him who is at all close in time on ice.
- Ryan O’Reilly is the best Sabre for CF% at 53.68%, which is 88th for players who have played more than 20 games. That may not sound great, but that’s right were Evgeni Malkin is. Main difference is Malkin has a few teammates (some guy named Crosby for one) a bit higher up the list.
- Johan Larsson and Brian Gionta start in the D zone the most (both over 40%), while Jack Eichel leads the way for Buffalo with starts in the offensive zone, followed by Matt Moulson and Sam Reinhart.
- 52 goalies have played at least 10 games so far, with both Anders Nilsson and Robin Lehner in the top 12 in save percentage. However, the top 5 all have 2.00 GAA or lower, while both Sabres goalies are closer to 2.50.
Now 5v4:
- Kyle Okposo, Rasmus Ristolainen, Ryan O’Reilly, Matt Moulson, and Sam Reinhart are your Sabres with double digit power play points.
- Moulson (7) and Okposo (6) lead Buffalo in PP goals, though Eichel is at 5 in half of Okposo’s power play time.
- Ryan O’Reilly wins 63% of his power play faceoffs. He’s won more power play faceoffs alone than the rest of the team combined (78 for ROR, 77 for everyone else). It’s good to have a role.
And 4v5:
- Giving up the body – Josh Gorges has blocked 21 shots on the penalty kill, 5 more than the next Sabre.
- Buffalo has a lone short-handed goal. Two teams have none, and all the rest have more. The Flames have 7.
- This might have something to do with that last one – the Sabres have been short-handed 129 times, the Flames? 170.
I’m not a stat-head, but these are things that jumped out at me as I clicked around at NHL.com and Puckalytics. What else would you like to see?