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What has changed

Posted 12:27 PM ET | Comments 0
We're now 15 games into Ron Rolston's time as coach, and I grabbed some numbers to see some form of comparison between he and Ruff's tenure this year. I thought I'd start with goaltending and get a sense of our overall defensive numbers.

Let's start with the 2 coaches' records:

Ruff: 6-10-1
Rolston: 7-5-3

Rolston started rough, 0-2 start from a lousy team who couldn't even get motivated enough to show their new coach they're going to come out gunning.

On to the goalies.

Jhonas Enroth

Jhonas has had a terrible stretch after looking impressive during the 2010-11 season. He came out gunning in 11/12, going 6-2 in his first 8 starts, but slumped to 2-5-1 in his next 8, and was then used sporadically the remainder of the season.

In his 3 games under Ruff this season, Jhonas was 0-2, 1 game was in relief of Miller. He allowed 11 goals in those 3 games (including 2 goals in those 20 minutes of relief).

In his 3 games under Rolston, Enroth is 2-0-1, with the loss being the overtime loss when he cramped up late in the game and was relieved by Miller (I'm not sure who officially gets credit for the OTL, but I'll give it to Enroth). In those 3 games, he's allowed 5 goals.

Ryan Miller

Miller has played 15 games under Ruff this year, going 6-8-1 and allowing 42 goals (an average of 2.8 goals per game).

Since Rolston took over, Miller is 5-5-2 with 37 goals allowed, for an average of 3.4 goals per game. Remove the 2 feeble games that started Rolston's head coaching duties in Buffalo and Miller is 5-3-2 with 30 goals allowed, an average of 3 goals per game. Still not great numbers, but closer to his season GAA of 2.91, so it does show it's the "norm" for the season.

I also took note of the goals for and against during both coaches time:

Ruff: 47 goals for (2.76 per game), 56 goals against (3.29 per game)
Rolston: 39 goals for (2.6 per game), 44 goals against (2.93 per game)

Looking at the goals against number, I then decided to see what the playoff teams in the East have been giving up. Without listing them all individually, there are 2 great teams (sub 2.2 allowed per game), 4 in the middle of the pack (2.45-2.69 per game allowed range), and 2 that allow close to what we've been allowing (2.88 and 2.97 per game).

I wanted to look that up to get a feel with how we've been playing lately, to see how competitive we are with how the Conference leaders have been performing all season. It's not horrible, especially being close to a couple of the teams in playoff positions.

I'll let readers glean what you want from those numbers, I'm just here to provide some information.
Filed Under:   NHL   Buffalo   Sabres  
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