Fezzy126
Rebuilding...
- May 10, 2017
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Yes, that would change my opinion actually. Not being snarky. I would find that persuasive.
As everyone knows, the Sabres were consistently bad throughout the entire year, but they were a burning tire fire until about mid December. McCabe's play was no different.
McCabe before 12/10/2017 (30 games):
CF% - 45.92
GF% - 37.14
McCabe after to 12/10/2017 (23 games):
CF% - 50.95
GF% - 50
Despite the rocky start, he still did what he does best - defend zone entries and defend the 'house', better than any other player on the Sabres. For anyone that doesn't understand what I mean by the house, it's also what's referred to as the high danger scoring area, and extends from the net to each faceoff dot (courtesy of Seven Rules for Defensemen Playing Defensive Ice Hockey - Tips and Drill):
According to hockeyviz.com, McCabe's heat maps show that he was above average in unblocked shot suppression, both relative to his teammates as well as the rest of the league:
As you can see, his left defense spot comparatively gives up fewer shots.
Lastly, thanks to the data gathered and compiled by Sean Tierney & Corey Sznajder at Tableau Public, this chart tells us that only McCabe and Falk were above adequate at defending the blue line, however, McCabe was in line with everyone else at zone exits.
Lastly, while it is a limited sample size, the player comparison tool emphasizes some of the previous data (it should since it was gathered by the same people, but hey, just another way at looking at things)
Based on all of this, we can see that while zone entry and offensive contributions may never be his thing, McCabe is definitely above average when it comes to defending zone entries and successful zone exits. Put him on the 3rd pair with a young offensive defenseman and I think he can be the anchor so they can flourish.
As for @Kyndig86, I haven't forgotten about you. According to natural stat trick I can see a game log of all of McCabe's giveaways, and on NHL.com the full play-by-play reports tell me exactly when his giveaways occurred. I'll watch and document every single one of his giveaways with a mission to debunk your theory, because I can't remember Jake being responsible for as many egregious turnovers as you are referring to. Should be fun re-watching the worst hockey I've ever seen.