Looking at NST's data on the Sabres D- pairs for when Dahlin was out in December is fascinating with 27 different pairs over those 7 games, looking at 5-on-5 data. Reducing that to a field of just say, minimum of 5 minutes played together, weeds it down to 14. Sorting it around by some metrics, their best pair in that time was Bryson-Byram despite getting only 30% OZS:
Power-Samuelsson got knocked around a lot, so did Byram-Johnson.
They're almost deadlocked in CF% and HDC% with Jokiharju as their partner. Power had the Joke that kills for 53:32, Byram had him for 39:47.
Bryson didn't play at all with Power at 5-on-5 in that 7 game stretch. Byram and he were paired for 28:37.
Samuelsson didn't play at all with Byram at 5-on-5 in that 7 game stretch. Power and he were paired for 46:40, second only to Jokiharj-Power's 53:32 for consistency in that stretch.
Byram got good results out of time with Bryson while Power got good results out of time with Clifton (5:28) based on CF and HDC's but while they didn't get scored on with either, neither did they generate any goals. Those are really small samples however.
Byram with Clifton and Bryson had better stats in terms of HDC% than I was expecting to see.
Jokiharju as their partner resulted in pretty similar fancy stats in that stretch. Interesting to parse that out.
Looking at all of the pairs for the whole season -
Some fun things in that the defense are generally winning or at least even in the GF/GA battle for most of the pairs. Wildly, the three worst differentials at 5-on-5 there are Clifton-Sammy with 4 for and 8 against, then Power with Dahlin with 3 for and 6 against and Bryson with Power for 3 for and 6 against. Also funny how both Power and Byram with Cliffy win the HDC game.
Feel free to poke around. It isn't just a Samuelsson thing that is holding Power back. And it isn't just a Dahlin thing that is propping Byram up.
I would say that it seems their complimentary pieces don't fit and it's easy to see where they are getting less than they expected (YET AGAIN) out of their supposed 2nd line of forwards and aren't scoring enough to overcome some shoddy goaltending (their goals saved above expected is in the tank per Moneypuck) and that they still don't get enough support out of the forwards at either end of the rink.
Heh.
Basically Dahlin is way, way outperforming the rest of the defense and it might work best to yet again try to find him an ideal partner while letting Power-Byram be the offensive start pair going forward. That then leaves them with the dubious job of either revamping their third pair.
TL/DR - the defense isn't just a product of one bad or one good player.
There is no simple fix.
