The 2021/22 Buffalo Sabres season was actually pretty fun. I never thought I would be typing out that sentence last fall, but here I am.
The wins did not always come in bunches and the season was filled with a fair amount of “hard-to-watch” games. However, this Sabres team did something not many other past Sabres teams have done: win big event games.
They won their home opener, they won in the Heritage Classic, they won on RJ Night, and they won Rick Jeanneret’s final game. This team stepped up when it mattered and that is truly what helped the fanbase form a bond with this current group of players despite another season without playoff hockey in Buffalo.
At the end of the day, the City of Buffalo wants a winner but they also want a group of players who are proud to be Buffalo Sabres. A group of players that make fans proud to support this hockey club. I believe this Sabres team fulfilled that exact purpose.
With all of that being said, I will be handing out four awards in this newsletter: Most Valuable Player, Most Improved Player, Rookie of the Year, and Best Defensive Forward. So let’s have some fun and honor the top players from the 2021/22 Sabres:
Most Valuable Player
Alex Tuch
It’s not easy to give out an individual MVP award for the 2021/22 Sabres team and that’s a good problem to have. However, I think you have to go with Alex Tuch here. The impact he had on both sides of the puck was remarkable and something seemed to click within the organization as soon as he put on a Buffalo uniform.
Tuch truly added another dimension to the Sabres top line, turning a fun Skinner/Thompson duo into a viable top line. He left his mark by using his size to become a puck retrieval machine, allowing his line to shore up defensively while becoming a serious threat on the rush:
While Tage Thompson led the Sabres in the cumulative Goals Above Replacement (GAR) metric produced by Evolving-Hockey, Alex Tuch ran away with the lead in GAR/60. In fact, he was 37th among NHLers in GAR per 60 minutes. When you add a piece like that to a rebuilding hockey team, it does something.
Alex Tuch may not have led the Sabres in point production, but he helped change the organization’s outlook from a “hopeless rebuilder” to a “builder.” If there were a metric for vibes then I am sure that Tuch’s numbers would have been off the chart. The intangibles are as good as the tangibles with this player.
Most Improved Player
Tage Thompson
I should call this the “Captain Obvious” award as nobody on the Sabres really came close to making the jump that Tage Thompson made in the 2021/22 season. If the NHL had a most improved player award, Tage would likely be a finalist, if not the winner.
Let’s just talk about the box score stats real quick: Thompson scored 8 goals in 38 games in the 2020/21 season (17 goal pace over 82 games) and went on to score 38 goals in 78 games in the 2021/22 season (39 goal pace over 82 games). His shooting percentage jumped from 8.3% to 15.0%.
If you dive into his advanced statistics, you will also find great improvement:
The most notable changes that led to this sizable jump: the move to center and complimentary, skilled linemates. The move to the middle gave him more space to work with as he was now positioned off the wall. He also had fantastic linemates that could set up shots for him inside of this space.
While these system changes certainly played a role in Thompson’s improvement, it’s also important to note the individual strides that he made in his game. His 2021/22 season was a perfect storm of a skilled player improving while also being introduced to a role (for the first time in his NHL career) that enhanced those skills.
All I can say is that this guy is going to get paid on his next contract and it’ll be largely due to his 2021/22 campaign.
Rookie of the Year
Owen Power
Yes, I know that Owen Power only played in 8 NHL games this season. No, that will not stop me from naming him the 2021/22 Sabres’ Rookie of the Year. I mean he was really just that good, like ”completely transforms my expectations for the 2022/23 season” type of good.
There is a reason why the 6’6” defenseman went 1st overall last summer and it’s because he is a very talented (and unique) hockey player. Power plays the game as if someone programmed him in a lab to create the most high-danger chances possible whenever he steps foot on the ice.
The Sabres were a significantly better offensive team whenever Power was on the ice. He dragged every defenseman he played with to improve offensive results and slightly better defensive results. Whenever Power is out there, stuff just happens and that stuff is typically in his team’s favor.
A quick look at the advanced metrics show that Owen Power was 2nd on the Sabres in Evolving-Hockey’s Goals Above Replacement metric when broken down into a 60-minute rate. He also came in 2nd on the Sabres in average GameScore using Dom Luszczyszyn’s metric:
Anyway you shake it, the 19-year-old defenseman made an NHL team a better hockey team and that is worthy of praise (even though we only got an 8-game sample).
Oh and he is still eligible for the NHL’s Calder Trophy next season.
Best Defensive Forward
Rasmus Asplund
Think of this award as the Sabres’ Frank J. Selke Trophy if you will. I love a good defensive forward as they possess a valuable skill set, yet are often overlooked. The Sabres happen to have a very good one in Rasmus Asplund.
Asplund is a winger by trade but has the spatial awareness of a center. He has the trait that all great defensive forwards have: reading where the puck will be before it gets there. Simply add him to any line and expect improved defensive play.
The rise of advanced hockey statistics has given us a new lens to evaluate defensive play in hockey with. In a very goalie-dependent sport, actual goals against is not the best metric to evaluate defensive play. Expected goals against (how many goals are expected against when shots are weighted for danger) tends to be the way to go.
Evolving-Hockey has a Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus (RAPM) metric that attempts to isolate a player’s impact on certain areas of the game. Who had the greatest impact on expected goals against (xGA) in the NHL last season? None other than Rasmus Asplund, who came in one spot ahead of Patrice Bergeron.
Blue is good on these charts and Rasmus Asplund was oh so good defensively: