Did the Sabres Bad Losses Submarine Last Season

by Zachary Zielonka on Aug 27, 2009 12:58 PM EDT

A few weeks ago, Ryan Kennedy from the Hockey News wrote a small piece that basically stated that the Sabres have no one to blame but themselves for not making the playoffs. His justification for that was that they threw away a few games at the end of the season against teams that on paper they should have beat, Atlanta and Ottawa. These extra points would have made the difference between making the playoffs and not.

The question this brings up is, how many points did the Sabres "throw away" last season. Basically, how many games did the Sabres lose against teams that they should have beaten. In this case, we can generalize a "bad loss" as a loss against a team that finished out of the playoffs and hence a "bad win" would be win against that same type of team. On the flip side a "quality win" and "quality loss" would be wins and losses against teams that made the playoffs. Therefore the table below shows the percentages of wins and losses were categorized as such.

2008	Wins	Losses
Quality	26.8%	29.2%
Bad	23.1%	20.7%

From the table we can see that the majority of the losses the team had came from teams that made the playoffs but the majority of the wins came from teams that made the playoffs as well. This tells us that the Sabres did not capitalize on the games that they had against teams they should have beaten. In fact, they did not capitalize on much considering that the percentages are so close. In fact, looking back at 2007 we can see that the team has made some progress

2007	Wins	Losses
Quality	24.3%	35.3%
Bad	23.1%	17.1%

Last season, the teams that made the playoffs were the main reason why the team did not make the playoffs. The Sabres lost 35% of the 82 games against teams that made the playoffs, that is 29 total losses on the season. Compared to the 24 losses this season, it is showing that the team is starting to make progress and that they very well may make that final leap to get themselves back into the playoffs. As a claim of where they should be here are the charts for the two playoff seasons, 2005 and 2006.

2005	Wins	Losses
Quality	28.0%	23.1%
Bad	35.3%	13.4%

2006	Wins	Losses
Quality	28.0%	17.1%
Bad	35.3%	19.5%

These two charts show snapshots of teams that took advantage of teams that should have won.

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Comments

Thanks for providing the statistical analysis about how the Sabres “play down” to their competition. It always nice when the statistics back up what you see happening.

The population of Pominville keeps rising!

by Blackcapricorn on Aug 27, 2009 2:52 PM EDT reply actions

The Sens

Interesting stats… You know what was painful to watch last season? Buffalo play the Senators. One win in the whole season and only one of the five losses went to overtime. Sure we could beat other non-playoff teams last year, and did… but we sure had a tough time against the Senators.

by clownfat on Aug 27, 2009 3:39 PM EDT reply actions

Bad Losses

The only team other than the Sabres that kept them out of the playoffs was Ottawa. They were an easy team to beat for everyone but the Sabres. The point is that you can’t let any one team own you and you have to take every game seriously.

Unfortunately, last year’s team took too many nights off.

Oh! Did I mention that this year’s team is the same as last year’s team. There is no reason to expect them to not continue the tradition of the past two years. They have knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Again! No playoffs.

by Geolover on Aug 27, 2009 3:49 PM EDT reply actions

growth

The same team… mostly… there were a couple changes… but what about young teams actually getting better the more they play? Do you think people enter the NHL and don’t get any better? They have been on the cusp the past two years after having their older talent removed from the team. I’ll be surprised if they DON’T make the playoffs this year, not if they do.

by clownfat on Aug 27, 2009 4:49 PM EDT up reply actions

You cant keep going off last years playing, just because they have old players doesnt mean the new players or the players comming up from Juniors or the AHL wont play their hearts off and that wont rub off on the rest of team. Didnt you read at all on some of the main reasons they brought Grier back?

by mitch400214 on Aug 27, 2009 10:36 PM EDT up reply actions

Another take on the data

Interesting post, but I think the stats are skewed by the fact that they played
more games against quality teams than bad teams. Looked at another way,
in 2008 they were .478 against quality teams and .528 against bad teams. This would seem to say they did take advantage of bad teams. As a comparison in 2007 they were .407 against quality teams and .575 against the bad ones. So last year they improved against the good teams and got worse against the bad ones.

by SabresFanInMA on Aug 27, 2009 9:37 PM EDT reply actions

I think that the stats actively reflect that as well. In 2008, they were 20.2% of bad losses and 29.2% of quality losses. In 2007, they were 17.1% and 35.3% so it does show that they were better against quality teams and worse against bad teams.

In 2008, they played quality opponents for 56.1% of the season as compared in 2007 where they played 59.8% of the season.

Die By The Blade - An SB nation destination for Sabres fans everywhere

by Zachary Zielonka on Aug 28, 2009 7:42 AM EDT up reply actions