Cody Eakin 
Tobias Rieder 
Matt Irwin 
Taylor Hall
BY: DUANE A. STEINEL JR
Coming into this year’s NHL free agency period, we had no idea what to expect as Sabres fans.
Topping the list were names like Taylor Hall, Mike Hoffman, Torey Krug, and Alex Pietrangelo. With a flat salary cap and already pennies to pinch, rookie GM Kevyn Adams had his work cut out for him.
Obviously, the signing of star winger Taylor Hall tops the headlines just not here in Buffalo but around the league. It gives Buffalo one of the most lethal top lines in the league, the Sabres can now spread more talent throughout their roster.
Before Hall signed on the dotted line as a member of the Buffalo Sabres, we also saw Kevyn Adams bring in penalty-killing specialist Tobias Rieder. Rieder, this past postseason had three shorthanded goals in just 10 games. He ended the regular season with four goals and 10 points.
When speaking about his role as a penalty-killing specialist, Rieder takes pride in that responsibility. “… Be aggressive, read the game, and just outwork the other guys on the ice. Yeah, I’ve done that for a bunch of years in the league, and I really take pride in that. So, it’s fun, especially when you score on the PK with one less guy on the ice. It’s something I’ve loved to do ever since I played hockey.”
Rieder also said his relationship with Ralph Kreuger from when he was the head coach of Team Europe in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey made signing with Buffalo a “No Brainer”.
Defenseman Matt Irwin also signed a deal with the club. Irwin is most likely a depth signing for Adams. Irwin prides himself on being a difficult player to play against. He’s also played 359 games in the big leagues and has also skated in 47 playoff games.
One other signing that didn’t receive much notoriety, though, was that of center Cody Eakin. Adding the 29-year old ginger gives the Sabres depth at a position they’ve lacked since the departure of Ryan O’Reilly.
Eakin is coming off a season where he struggled to show consistency. In 49 games played, he finished with five goals and 15 points with only 16 penalty minutes. After being traded to Winnipeg at the deadline, Eakin began to find a little more consistency by totaling five points in eight games when the season stopped abruptly before the play in rounds due to the Covid-19 outbreak in North America.
For all the analytics nerds out there, Eakin isn’t a sexy signing. His Corsi For percentage (CF%), which measures how well one player is dominating their opponent. To dumb it down…..for analytics dummies like myself, when measuring Corsi, you’re calculating all shots taken by a player or their teammates while they are on the ice. Meaning any shots taken while that player is on the bench doesn’t count for or against their Corsi rating. So if your CF% is above 50 percent, you’re dominating your opponent, while if it’s below, you’re chasing the play and on the defensive.
Shout out to analytics guru Chloe Wojtanik for slowly explaining that to me. You may remember her from one of the more recent “Sabres Embedded” videos.
Cody Eakin’s overall CF% this past season was a 49.4 percent. So he doesn’t possess the puck very often, and is on his heels more often than not. If we are looking for a bright spot, Eakin does perform well on the penalty kill.
Puck possession on the penalty kill is obviously one key component, and winning faceoffs in your own end is crucial. Winning faceoffs in your own end while on the penalty kill obviously makes it much easier to clear the puck out of your own end, and prevents the power play team from gaining possession of the puck.
According to Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News, Eakin’s faceoff percentage while shorthanded was 47.2 percent, which ranks 18th amongst the 47 forwards who have taken at least 475 shorthanded faceoffs since 2015. Johan Larsson’s was 45.8 percent in that span and 46.8 percent last season. Eakin and Larsson also had very similar numbers in power play goal prevention.
According to Lysowski per Evolving Hockey, “Eakin and Larsson had similar impacts in limiting shot quality by recording a negative-0.01 and negative-0.04 expected goals against on the penalty kill per 60 minutes, respectively.”
Eakin doesn’t bring the same game defensively that Larsson did. That much is clear. But I don’t think that was Kevyn Adams’ main concern when signing the 29-year old center. The belief is that he will hopefully provide more offensive upside.
In 2018-2019 Eakin set career highs in points with 41 with 22 goals. He has also scored 15 goals or more four times since being drafted in 2009, while Larsson has only reached the 10 goal mark once since being drafted in 2010. It is possible, and one would hope Eakin will likely have a bounce back season from his five goal, 15 point effort this past season.
With all that being said, I think Adams has brought in the players he did for a reason. They will all have a role in Head Coach Ralph Kreuger’s system. Eakin along with Rieder and Matt Irwin are expected to make the Sabres Penalty Kill tougher to play against.
Coming off a season where on the road, the penalty kill ranked dead last (69.4 percent), and where their Save percentage on the kill dropped to 83.85 percent from 87.23 percent, there’s a lot of work to be done.
Thanks, I’ll hang up and listen.
The Sports Desk can be reached at editorialtrainwrecksports@gmail.com
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