Buffalo Sabres Individual Goal Percentages

The other day I read a great post at The Copper & Blue regarding individual players point percentage and this morning I read a similar post at the great advanced stats site Behind the Net. It made me wonder what the Sabres point percentages and goal percentages were for this season. 

After doing the research I was surprised by the wide variance in the results. The results of the experiment did not yield the expected results which prompted me to wonder about past seasons as well. I saved the past seasons for another post and I will share the results for this season.

This chart will show how each individual player fares in their time on the ice. It is interesting to find out how much a player actually contributes in comparison to other players that are on the ice at the same time.

This chart immediately makes me wonder if Patrick Kaleta could be more of an offensive force if he played on another line. He has scored 50% of the goals that have been scored while he has been on the ice, could a playmaker help him be more of an offensive player? I don't think it would work, he is getting offensive chances and scoring goals because he is playing against lesser competition from the opponent.

Kaleta is the perfect fourth line player. He plays a physical style, gets under the skin of his opponent and with nine goals he has shown he can contribute offensively. A good fourth line can be the difference between a team that is eliminated in the first round or a team that can challenge for the Stanley Cup.

I wasn't satisfied by looking at the goal scoring percentage because the power play can heavily influence those numbers. Just like Behind the Net did in their post, I broke down the Sabres scoring numbers while they are even strength and shorthanded.

There wasn't a big change in the numbers when comparing the total and the even strength numbers. There were some subtle changes but not a glaring difference. The forwards obviously have better percentages than the defense and I don't think it is a surprise that Andrej Sekera and Tyler Myers have the best numbers on the defense.

I obviously couldn't include Raffi Torres in the charts above so I did separate charts for him.

Torres immediately becomes the best player on the team with the numbers above. He had a different atmosphere in Columbus but I expect he will contribute offensively in Buffalo as well after he gets comfortable with his new teammates.