After reading Terry Pegula’s comments in the Buffalo News Friday morning, I decided to see figure out exactly what the Sabres lost from injuries, in terms of offensive production.
They have had 18 players go down, but how much has that hampered the offensive production from this team?
I’ve compiled a couple of charts to determine what would happen if none of the Sabres got injured. Of course, all of this couldn’t be done without a little help from Brittany at Sabres In Seven.
In this first chart below, you will see a list of 15 starters who were injured at some point this season. I have listed their stats for this season, along with their projected totals for the games that they missed.
Example: Tyler Ennis has played 15 games this season, and missed 27 due to injury. If he would have been healthy and played in those 27 games, he is projected to have scored nine points.
| What Buffalo Has Lost From Injuries: | ||||||||
| Season Stats | GP | G | A | Pts | Projected | G | A | Pts |
| Tyler Ennis | 15 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 27 Games Missed | 5.4 | 3.6 | 9 |
| Jochen Hecht | 16 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 26 Games Missed | 6.5 | 4.9 | 11.4 |
| Tyler Myers | 22 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 19 Games Missed | 2.6 | 3.5 | 6.1 |
| Brad Boyes | 29 | 3 | 7 | 10 | 13 Games Missed | 1.3 | 3.1 | 4.4 |
| Cody McCormick | 30 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 12 Games Missed | 0 | 0.8 | 0.8 |
| Nathan Gerbe | 31 | 4 | 10 | 14 | 11 Games Missed | 1.4 | 3.5 | 4.9 |
| Ville Leino | 31 | 3 | 7 | 10 | 11 Games Missed | 1 | 2.5 | 3.5 |
| Patrick Kaleta | 26 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 11 Games Missed | 0.8 | 0 | 0.8 |
| Andrej Sekera | 36 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 6 Games Missed | 0.3 | 1 | 1.3 |
| Christian Ehrhoff | 37 | 3 | 14 | 17 | 4 Games Missed | 0.3 | 1.5 | 1.8 |
| Paul Gaustad | 39 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 3 Games Missed | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.6 |
| Jordan Leopold | 39 | 7 | 9 | 16 | 3 Games Missed | 0.5 | 0.7 | 1.2 |
| Derek Roy | 40 | 8 | 16 | 24 | 2 Games Missed | 0.4 | 0.8 | 1.2 |
| Drew Stafford | 41 | 7 | 15 | 22 | 1 Game Missed | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.6 |
| Robyn Regehr | 41 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 Game Missed | 0 | 0.05 | 0.05 |
| Total | 236 | 24 | 41 | 65 | 150 Games Missed | 20.9 | 26.8 | 47.7 |
If you total them up, it turns out to be 150 man games lost for these starters, totaling to about 48 points.
Stick with me.
Now, in this 2nd and final chart (I promise), I have totaled up the amount of points from the call-ups and replacements.
| What Buffalo have received from call-ups/replacements: | ||||
| Season Stats | GP | G | A | Pts |
| Zack Kassian | 18 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| Matt Ellis | 33 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Paul Szczechura | 9 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Brayden McNabb | 19 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Corey Tropp | 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| T.J. Brennan | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Colin Stuart | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Joe Finley | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mike Weber | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Marcus Foligno | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 119 | 9 | 12 | 21 |
Remember, we determined that the starters would have put up 48 points in the 150 man games lost. Their replacements put up 21 points in 119 games.
If you want to make it an even number of games played….If call-ups and replacements played 150 games, projected totals would be: 150 GP, 11 G, 15 A, 26 points
In the 150 man games lost to injury, the projected offensive statistics would be: 150 GP, 21 G, 27 A, 48 points.
The verdict: Due to the Sabres injuries, Buffalo lost (remember this is projected) about 10 goals. This leads me to believe that injuries really haven’t been the biggest issue for the Sabres.
While it has obviously affected the offensive production, it has not proved to be a detrimental loss.
I believe the more important problem with this team is the starters underachieving. If you look at players like Ville Leino (10 points in 31 games), Brad Boyes (10 points in 29 games) and Drew Stafford (22 points in 41 games), that’s where the help is needed. That’s 42 points in 101 games from three starters, which is unacceptable.
“They know that more than you do,” Pegula said. “I hope you don’t think Drew Stafford is happy with his goal production, or Derek Roy, or Ville Leino. They’re pressing. They’ve played pretty well lately. If we get some consistency in the lineup for a period of time, I got to believe it will fall back together again.”
What was the point of all this? To show that while there are massive injuries, they really haven’t hurt the Sabres as much as many people think.
Players are underachieving and it’s caused this team to go into a tailspin. With each win and each returning starter, the Sabres could build up some momentum. It’ll be tough to break out of this slump, but they did do it last year.