- Derek Roy 69½
- Thomas Vanek 64½
- Brad Boyes 57½
- Drew Stafford 52½
There is only one that I like and that is taking Brad Boyes under 57.5 points even with the -115 vig. Boyes scored 55 points last year, so he would have to do about 5% better this year to hit 58 points and make me lose the bet. I don't think there are good reasons to believe he will make that jump, even if it is tiny.
The biggest reason I doubt Boyes is that I expect he will have a relatively diminished role on the Sabres this year. Lindy Ruff will juggle his lines like he always does, so Boyes will get some top-line minutes, but for the most part he is not going to be a top-six forward. It's the pigeonhole principle: there are only six spots to go around and there 8 or 9 guys to fill those spots. Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy, Jason Pominville, Ville Leino, Tyler Ennis, and Drew Stafford are all ahead of Boyes on the depth chart. That's six guys right there. Then you have Jochen Hecht (who should probably be a third-line guy but enjoys Lindy Ruff's adoration) and Luke Adam, who played with Vanek in the preseason, and you have eight guys for the top six spots, plus Boyes.
It's true that Boyes has been practicing and playing with Leino and Ennis at times, but he has also played and practiced with guys like Matt Ellis, Colin Stuart, and Cody McCormick. None of those guys are offensive juggernauts. Most likely he will be in a supporting role with guys like Nathan Gerbe who are good but not primary threats.
For example, by the end of Philly series last year, Boyes was already playing most of his minutes with grinders and bangers like McCormick despite injuries to Pominville and Roy that left two spots open in the top-six. He only produced one point in that series.
Now, that's just looking at his role in terms of 5-on-5 scoring lines, but the other big part of his role that will change this year is decreased time on the power-play. Last year, Boyes averaged 2 minutes and 27 seconds per game on the power play and got 23.6% of his points there. But again, there are too many scoring forwards to give all of them a spot on the two power-play units.* Even worse, the Sabres might try again to make Gaustad a viable screen-meister on the second power-play unit (despite his acute case of stone-hands). If they do so, that will leave even less time for Boyes on the PP.
While Boyes has played on the man-advantage a little bit in exhibition games, he has not been a cornerstone of the power-play in training camp; instead the Sabres practiced with Pominwille-Adam-Vanek on the 1st unit and Ennis-Leino-Stafford on the 2nd unit. And that was with Roy injured, so there are at least 7 forwards in line ahead of Boyes for time on the PP.
It's almost impossible for even a talented offensive player to score 55 points in a season playing on the third-line for three reasons: 1) he is playing fewer minutes; 2) he is playing with crappier linemates; and, 3) he isn't playing on the power-play, which is a disproportionate shore of the points are tallied.
The other major reason I feel good about betting that Boyes will not hit 58 points this year is that he has only managed to average 58 points in his career despite appearing in 82 games per season (on average). I believe a big part of injuries is random chance -- players can play a cautious, low-impact style but contact is still a big part of the game and a lot of injuries are freak occurrences that have nothing to do with a player's recklessness or lack thereof. Boyes has historically been a very healthy player, but if he misses two games because he has to (knock on wood) attend a funeral or something, his point total drops below the 57.5 points I need to win the bet even if he does manage to keep his career per game scoring pace this season.
And I don't think he would keep that pace, even if he continued to enjoy a featured role in his team's offence as he has in seasons past. I'll admit that Boyes has been able to put up points in the past -- since he joined the league full-time in 2005-06 as a 23 year-old, Boyes has averaged 58.2 points per season, however, I believe he is on the downside of his career. Here are his NHL stats:
Year GP Points
2005-06 82 69 2006-07 81 46 2007-08 82 65 2008-09 82 72 2009-10 82 42 2010-11 83 55
The numbers do not plot a smooth locus on graph paper, but his last two years have been two of his three worst seasons in terms of points. Regardless, Boyes is now 29 years-old and although he is still arguably in the prime of his career, there are not a lot of middling players that enjoy a boost to their offensive production at that age. In terms of points, we can safely say that he has probably peaked. I expect Brad Boyes to be defensively responsible, play the system, and know what he can get away with, but I do not expect him to score forty goals or 72 points again. That era of his career appears to be over and that's the last reason why I strongly believe he will score less than 57.5 points this year.
*: There will be more room for forwards on the PP units if Ruff chooses to use forwards (e.g. Pominville) on the blueline but that seems unlikely with offensively-adept defenceman like Tyler Myers, Jordan Leopold, Andrej Sekera, Marc-Andre Gragnani, and, of course, Christian Ehrhoff all on the roster.
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