2011/12 Team Stats--October

At 6-4 on the season, the Buffalo Sabres sit in third place in the N.E. division, 7th in the Eastern Conference and 12th in the league with 12 points.

After a very hot start which saw them go 3-0 then 5-1, the team took a bit of a nose-dive by going 1-3 to finish off the month.

Overall, though, the team has shown a marked increase over last season in all areas. Perhaps the most definitive improvement has been on the faceoff dot. Last season they never ended the month higher than 26th in the league and finished 27th at 47.7%. This year they're over 50% and sit at #11 in the league.

Another area to look at is shots against/goals against. It would seem as if the they're playing a pretty good team defense keeping teams to the perimeter. And when their d breaks down they have a pretty good goaltending tandem as the last line of defense. They rank 22nd in the league in shots against but are tied for 5th in goals against. In addition, the penalty has been helped immensely by the addition of defenseman Robyn Regehr. They are presently 2nd in the league.

The Sabres shots per game total last season never dipped out of the top-five at the end of any month, yet this season they end October 18th in the league. But on the positive side, while last year they were doing a whole lot of shooting with not much scoring until the 2011 calendar year, this season they're already 8th. 
Lindy Ruff has had to integrate three new players into his system. It will take some time to get them playing as they should, but the 6-4 record and marked improvement across the board point to a pretty solid season.

Their Premier Series debut vs. Anaheim in Finland was about as complete a game as they've played all season. The Sabres haven't really come close to that as evidenced by their Jekyll/Hyde performance thus far. But that game vs. Anaheim shows how dominant this team can be.

It's a long hockey season, and invariably there will be ups and downs, but the key for this team will be to use the overall speed up-front to generate quality shots--and finish--while on the back-end they'll need to continue to force a perimeter game.

Here's how the Sabres fare league wide after the month of October.

Wins:

• October--6 (T-9th)

Points:

• October--12 (12th)

Eastern Conference Standing:

• October--7th

Northeast Division Standing:

• October--3rd

Goals/Game:

• October--2.90 (8th)...(#1, Wash-3.78)

Shots/Game:

• October--29.4 (18th)...(#1, Det-35.7)

Goals Against/Game:

• October--2.20 (T-5th)...(#1, Edm-1.46)

Shots Against/Game:

• October--31.9 (22nd)...(#1, Stl-25.9)

Five-On-Five GF/GA Ratio:

• October--1.43 (2nd)...(#1, Wash-1.64)

Powerplay:

• October--21.9% (8th)...(#1, Ott-31.0%)

Penalty Kill:

• October--91.9% (2nd)...(#1, Pit-92.3%)

Faceoffs:

• October--50.8% (11th)...(#1, Col-54.7%)