CHRISTIAN EVANS
Special to The Leader
Disappointed, frustrated, unsatisfied — just a few words to describe yet another year in which the Buffalo Sabres will not be present in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It has now been six straight seasons since the team has qualified, and fans everywhere in Buffalo are starting to become a tad bit impatient.
When Terry Pegula bought the team back in 2011, there was a ton of hype around the league and in the city about the future of the Sabres. The NHL went as far as saying that in a few years Buffalo would become the “Hockey Mecca” of the league. Six years have gone by since those days, and still the team has failed to break their playoff drought.
The “tanking” seasons have come and gone, and the team has added quite a bit of talent to their roster since those years. They have also added quite a bit of dead weight along the way as well. Players like Matt Moulson, Josh Gorges, Cody Franson, Dmitry Kulikov and Zach Bogosian have all underperformed since being added to the team. These five players combined account for roughly 30 percent of the team’s current salary, and four of them are defensemen.
The defense this year was atrocious for the Sabres. They finished last in the league in shots allowed per game giving up an average of 34.3 shots. They also had the fifth worst penalty kill percentage in the league and struggled mightily in their own end for the entirety of the year. Based on Corsi numbers, the Sabres finished second worst in the league in puck possession; only Arizona was worse. To add to this, the team finished last in the league in defensive scoring.
That being said, there were a few bright spots on this year’s team. This was the first season in which goaltender Robin Lehner was officially named a starter in the National Hockey League. Many fans still think of Lehner as a bust because of the fact that Sabres’ GM Tim Murray traded away a first round pick for him two years ago. He hasn’t been able to stop a shootout attempt to save his life.
If we look at the bigger picture, Lehner has been quite good despite the horrible play of the defense in front of him. As mentioned before, the team gave up the most shots per game out of any team in the NHL. This year Lehner finished third overall in the NHL in total shots faced and in saves. He only started 59 games as opposed to the league leader Cam Talbot who started 73. Lehner finished the season with a .920 save percentage and a 2.68 goals against average. If you want to compare, those are very similar numbers to Maple Leafs’ goaltender Frederick Anderson, who is currently a playoff goaltender. So for all of those fans out there blaming Lehner for the team’s struggles this season, they may want to take a deeper look into the stats.
Another positive to look at from this season for the Sabres was their efficiency on the power play. The team finished first in the league in this category converting on 24.57 percent of their opportunities with the man advantage. Where last season they finished 12th in that category and two seasons ago finished dead last in power play percentage. How did the team’s power play improve so quickly? Ah yes, a man by the name of Jack Eichel is the No. 1 reason why.
After being injured with a high ankle sprain literally one day before the regular season, Eichel returned after a 21 game absence and was everything Buffalo fans wanted him to be … incredible. Eichel played at a point a game pace for the entire season and tallied 24 points on the power play, which was a huge reason for Buffalo’s success with the man advantage this year. With all of the hype being around Connor McDavid (who led the league in points this year), since he was drafted two seasons ago by the Edmonton Oilers, Eichel showed why he should not be ignored.
Then why aren’t Eichel’s Sabres in the playoffs and McDavid’s Oilers are? There are plenty of reasons.
First of all, there have been many rumors circling the player’s issues with head coach Dan Bylsma since last season when he first joined the team. This is something that was also an issue with players, such as Sidney Crosby, when Bylsma was the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Another reason is that the team is not properly managed with fat contracts being given to players who are either washed up or not worthy of the money they are making (in my view, the five players mentioned earlier that account for almost a third of the team’s total salary).
What’s next then for the Buffalo Sabres? There’s a lot of hope from fans with the young talent that this team possesses. Many are hoping that the recently introduced Vegas Golden Knights will bring in some of those dead weight players in this year’s expansion draft. The general manager is on the hot seat, and the coach is on the hot seat. The fact that this team has a supreme talent on their roster in Eichel and ended up finishing with less points than they had last season means that there is something going wrong in the front office. We will see in the coming weeks and months what the next step is for Buffalo, and fans are hoping it will finally get them headed in the right direction.