Roy’s body, game ailing
Derek Roy got hurt. Then he got scored on (a few times). Then his goal-scoring buddy got taken away.
All in all, not a very good weekend for the Buffalo Sabres center. It’s just part of a season that has not gone as expected.
There was no doubt coming into the year that Roy was Buffalo’s top center. He led the team in points and assists last season, and the 25-year-old seemed poised to make a league-wide splash. Instead, it’s his numbers that are all wet.
Roy has just two goals and 10 points heading into tonight’s game against Boston in TD Banknorth Garden. For some perspective on the drop-off from his 32-goal, 81- point campaign, try this: He was 20th in goals last season, now he ranks 213th; he was 18th in points, now he’s 137th.
“Derek’s game needs to be better,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said Tuesday.
Roy says he didn’t come into the season with high goals for himself. He just wanted to help the Sabres return to the playoffs.
“You want to come out and start off good and help the team win games,” he said. “Part of that is getting points, scoring goals and making plays. That’s part of my game.”
It’s the part that’s been lacking. Roy hasn’t scored in six games. Worse, he’s minus-7 in the span with four assists.
Ruff felt it was time for a change. He dropped Roy from the top line, which means sidekick Thomas Vanek is no longer on Roy’s left wing. They have been paired almost exclusively since Vanek turned pro in 2004-05.
But of Roy’s 10 points, only three have come five-on-five.
“It wasn’t working anymore,” Ruff said. “The bottom line is the even-strength play from that line wasn’t good enough. We were getting scored against, and there was nothing on the offensive side of it. That was an easy decision to blow that up.”
Roy is content with the scoring chances his line generated. He’s not happy with the lack of scoring. While he’s taking almost the same number of shots per game as last year (2.8 versus 2.6), his shooting percentage has fallen from 14.7 percent to 4.4 percent.
“We’ve been missing a lot of chances,” he said of himself, Vanek and Ales Kotalik, “two, three scoring chances a game, or four or five, and it’s not going in. Last year it seemed like we’d get one scoring chance and it would go in. It’s tough.”
Now he’s adjusting to new left wing Clarke MacArthur and reunited with right wing Drew Stafford. Mac- Arthur shoots left while Vanek is a right-hander, meaning passes have to be placed differently.
They also have to get there. Roy is third on the Sabres with 16 giveaways and on pace for 77, a slight jump from the 66 he had last year.
“I think there’s been times he’s tried way too hard to do way too much, and in tight spaces, which have cost him,” Ruff said. “You realize with a player like that, for all the good plays there’s going to be a couple bloopers in there. You have to allow him to create some of those situations that free up the players he’s playing with. . . . You want to play to their strengths, and at the same time there’s people on the other team trying to take away his strengths and have taken advantage of it a few times.”
If Roy is going to improve, it’s going to be while he’s hobbled. He suffered a groin strain Friday against Columbus and it forced him to miss practice Monday. Ruff is worried because strained groins slow players down, and one of Roy’s assets is his quickness.
“I’ve just got to suck it up,” Roy said. “Whenever you get a groin injury it’s probably the worst for skating. Every stride hurts it. It’s tough to play on that, especially when your game is your speed, like Lindy said, and I’ve got to go out and find my speed and find my game.”
It used to be easy to find him. He was always on the scoresheet. He can be again, if his chances start going in and the opponents’ pucks start staying out.
“You’ve just got to keep grinding, keep playing hard,” Roy said. “Those slumps happen, and you’ve just got to get through it.”
