AIDAN POLLARD
Staff Writer
The Sabres have managed to put themselves behind the Florida Panthers in the last place spot of the Atlantic Division.
The Sabres are sitting on 16 points with 24 games played, and the Panthers have 18 points in 22 games. The team suffered a seven-game losing streak between the dates of Nov. 10 and Nov. 22.
The streak was broken on Friday after the Sabres defeated the Edmonton Oilers in a three-to-one game.
So far, the Sabres have only won six games this season, and they have only gained points from 10 of their 24 games.
The recent losing streak has brought the Sabres down to a new low for the season. Up until a few weeks ago, they were able to keep their heads above water and stay ahead of the Panthers. At some points, they were even within striking distance of the more competitive teams in the Atlantic Division. Now Buffalo is in last place in the division as well as being two games ahead of their nearest competitor. This means that even if the Sabres were to catch up to the Panthers in points, the Panthers would still have two games to play before the teams could be on even footing.
Currently the only team with fewer points than Buffalo is the Arizona Coyotes, who are in a different conference
and are last in the league. They trail Buffalo by one point and are two games ahead of the Sabres. The Coyotes
had their first regulation win this season against the Montreal Canadiens, so it’s safe to say that Buffalo is at least a step ahead in that regard.
That doesn’t excuse the seven-game losing streak the Sabres put out, or the poor play and lack of wins they’ve been having all season.
Other than shooting more and working towards better goaltending, I’m honestly not sure what the Sabres can do to fix the problem they’ve started. The Sabres have scored the least amount of goals of any team this year and have allowed the third most goals against them; being the lowest in goals forced and goals against leads to failure. If they want to get out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves, they are going to have to see a complete change in the team. The reality of the situation is that the Sabres are not currently operating at the level of an NHL team. They are coming closer and closer to irrelevancy with every game they lose, and they haven’t been doing much to make things better.
First thing’s first: They can’t go on another dry spell like the one they just came out of, and the team is going to have to find a turning point to get their season back on track. It is no longer early in the season, so games and streaks are beginning to matter more and more as teams’ placements are becoming more secure.
The Sabres played Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday Nov. 28 and will be playing the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday, Dec. 1 and again on Saturday, Dec. 2. The Lightning are the Atlantic Division frontrunners at the moment, and the Penguins’ record is significantly stronger than Buffalo’s, so the Sabres are going to have to lay some groundwork down to keep themselves from slipping any further.