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2021-22 Buffalo Sabres: 1RW – Victor Olofsson (+ Brutal Self-Own?) |
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It’s long been a complaint among Sabres fans and media that the team doesn’t hit on their share of draft picks beyond the first round. The Sabres have actually hit on a few in recent years, but a lot of those players play for other teams now due to trades, free agency or not qualifying the rights of draft picks early in their development. A cursory glance around the league reminds us of a few old familiar names: Brendan Lemieux, JT Compher, Paul Byron, Cal Petersen, Brandon Hagel, Will Carrier and Brayden McNabb are a few of these players who ply their trade for different teams now.
Back on the homefront, the Sabres had an unexpected success story in 2014 7th round pick Victor Olofsson who has taken a long road to get to the NHL but finally made the show two seasons ago, largely due to his accurate and hard shot which he regularly uncorks on the powerplay. The Örnsköldsvik, Sweden native spent five years in the Swedish elite league with Modo and Frölunda before coming to North America and spending a year with the Rochester Americans. The Sabres have rarely shown such dedication to proper development and it clearly paid dividends in turning a late-round pick into a regular in the league.
Olofsson has his warts when it comes to 5-on-5 play, both on the offensive side of the puck where he struggles to generate production, and on the defensive side where the analytics suggest he’s a subpar suppressor of chances against. Olofsson had 15 points on the powerplay this season compared to 17 at even strength which demonstrates both his prowess with the man advantage and his less-than-stellar production elsewhere. It’s to be expected that a 7th round pick has some warts to his game, as most players that late never even sniff the show, but his draft status is largely irrelevant at this juncture now that he’s established in the NHL.
Olofsson can play either wing, but as a left-shot sniper, playing his off wing (RW) allows him to open up his shot and pick either side of the net more easily. A left-shot, left wing carrying a puck down the left side of the ice has the puck on his stick further away from the goalie and thus doesn’t have the whole net available to him. Conversely, a left-shot right wing coming down the right side has the puck closer to the center of the ice and therefore has a cleaner look at the entire net. Thomas Vanek was a right-shot, left-wing who used this technique with fantastic results throughout his career. The downside is that it’s harder to accept passes on the back hand and it’s also harder to shield the puck from defenders playing the middle of the ice. Playing the off-wing is best deployed with higher skilled players who can maximize the benefits while minimizing the negatives.
I’d like to be able to tell the reader that Olofsson improved his numbers following the dismissal of Ralph Krueger, but at least superficially, that is not the case. The winger had 19 points in 26 games under Krueger and only 13 points in 30 games under new head coach Don Granato. Olofsson seems to have bucked the trend that offensively minded players improved following the coaching switch which is something to monitor going into this season. Most players came out of their shell and put some solid numbers after Krueger’s dismissal but it looks as if Granato cut his usage a bit after the switchover: His lowest minutes and highest minutes played under Krueger equated to 13:58/22:46 while the low and high under Granato was 11:44/20:13.
It currently doesn’t appear that Olofsson is a first line talent moving forward but is instead more suited to a 2nd/3rd line role with powerplay usage to allow him to unload that bomb of a shot. Looking around the roster though, there simply aren’t many quality options to take that role away from him: Tage Thompson isn’t an improvement at 5-on-5 over Olofsson, there’s no point in giving big minutes to veterans like Kyle Okposo and Vinnie Hinostroza, and 2020 Sabres’ first-round pick Jack Quinn needs more seasoning at lower levels to hone his craft. Perhaps the solution to the conundrum is to lower the minutes of every line and even out the playing time, or maybe they give Olofsson big minutes and see if they can rectify the even-strength scoring woes.
The good news for Olofsson is that Granato will likely have the defense playing an up-tempo system designed to generate chances for forwards like Olofsson to cash in. If the Sabres defense can back the opposition defense up on the rush then it should open up some space for shooters like Olofsson to find a soft spot and wait there for the pass to come. Everyone knows that Olofsson has the shot to finish opportunities if he receives the puck with room to shoot.
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The Jesperi Kotkaniemi offer sheet drama on Saturday has been the talk of the NHL media over the past two days during a time when the NHL is typically very quiet. On the surface, it’s a hilarious bit of trolling as the Hurricanes gave Kotkaniemi a $20 signing bonus as a nod to the number Sebastian Aho wears. Aho, of course, was offer sheeted by Montreal in 2019 and clearly the Hurricanes were unwilling to let it go.
Instead of simply taking the win from the Aho situation (the end result of which saw the Hurricanes get Aho under contract for five years at $8.4m), Hurricanes management and ownership submitted a ridiculously high $6.1m offer sheet to Kotkaniemi as revenge. Don’t get me wrong: Kotkaniemi is a fine player and has the pedigree of a top-5 pick in the draft, but he hasn’t put up the kind of numbers to justify this contract: he had just 5 goals and 15 assists in 56 games this season and was a healthy scratch for the last two games of the Stanley Cup Final.
As soon as I heard the news, I immediately thought of Chappelle’s Show and his recurring segment “When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong.” I would love to post an example of it, but like most things with Dave Chappelle, it’s decidedly not suitable for work. For the uninitiated, the gist of it is that someone gets wronged and then proceeds to go way over the top to get revenge and the whole thing blows up in their face spectacularly.
Paying 1st and 3rd round picks along with a $6.1m salary for Kotkaniemi just doesn’t seem like good business sense; it comes off as completely personal, which it is. It will be a masterful troll job if the Canadiens end up matching the offer sheet and retain Kotkaniemi for that number, but if Bergevin calls their bluff and lets Kotkaniemi go, then it feels like the Hurricanes just owned themselves.
Either way, they should have quit when they were ahead.
Buffalo Sabres Blogger • 
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