A long and winding offseason is finally over. The Buffalo Sabres open the season against the Ottawa Senators tomorrow night. After a successful end to last season, the Sabres saw what was likely one of their most low-key off-seasons in years.
While the organization is not yet ready to start seriously contending just yet, they are no longer in the spot they were just one year ago. The time for losing is over, now it's about continuing to build a winner and stay competitive, which is what we saw during the past four months.
Instead of dipping into their $40 million in cap space and acquiring a bunch of new pieces in the short term, Kevyn Adams and company decided to place the bulk of the coming improvements on the shoulders of players already in the system. However, that isn't to say he wasn't active at all. Adams still filled out the needs of the team where he could without sacrificing the future.
So let's see where this offseason took us, and what storylines we can be looking at for this coming season.
Division Rivals
The landscape of the Atlantic Division changed quite a bit over the summer. While the hierarchy is still shaping up to be reminiscent of last season, with Toronto, Tampa Bay and Florida all looking to remain at the top, the middle class of the division saw some serious player movement. Boston is looking to give it one last go with their current core, and Detroit and Ottawa are being looked at as the two teams that arguably improved the most in the offseason.
While the Sabres choosing to remain somewhat complacent with their current roster is not an inherently bad direction to go in, teams around them were inevitably going to make moves themselves and that's exactly what happened.
Other than Montreal, every other team in this division has a good likelihood of being a competitive team throughout the whole season. Depending on how things shake out, this could be the toughest division in the entire league, so the Sabres are not going to get any favors. They're going to have to fight for their place in this division every step of the way.
We went a bit more in-depth into all the rosters in the division here.
New Additions
While we mentioned before that the Sabres are clearly relying on the young talent to take them to the next level this season, Kevyn Adams still did bring in a few key additions to fill some needed holes on the roster.
Ilya Lyubushkin
It was expected that the Sabres would attempt to target a veteran defender this offseason, preferably right-handed, and that's exactly what Kevyn Adams was able to do. In theory, Lyubushkin is the exact type of player that this defensive core and team as a whole, could really use. He's a shutdown defenseman in the most literal sense, killing any sort of offense for the opposing team, and not really generating any himself.
For a team that's going to likely have each of their defenders starting in the top four be 23 years old or younger, a defensive presence like Lyubushkin's will be very welcoming. He brings a calmness that no Sabre defender has achieved quite yet in their short careers. Plus, what will set Lyubushkin apart is the physicality in his game, which is something that Don Granato has brought up in hopes that the veteran spreads to the rest of the team. It would definitely help a young roster that did have a tendency at points last season to get pushed around by older and more aggressive forechecking teams.
Eric Comrie
What is probably the most key signing of the offseason, Comrie will likely be tasked with manning the nets for the bulk of games this season. Craig Anderson was never going to be able to start more than 30 games at his age and it still remains to be seen if UPL can carve out a role in the NHL, so Comrie will be given the reigns to start.
Comrie's path to the NHL has seen its obstacles, but he was finally able to be a consistent backup for Connor Hellebyuck in Winnipeg last season, where he put up some of the best goalie numbers in the league in a short 19-game sample size.
With a raw .920 sv% and 9.89 goals saved above expected (which put him 14th league-wide for goalies that played at least 100 minutes in all situations per Evolving-Hockey), Comrie was excellent in a limited role, made all the more impressive playing for a Winnipeg team that was 27th in expected goals against/60. The question obviously is if that can translate over a much larger sample that he's going to be given.
He was not very good in his two preseason appearances but was also on the road both games with mostly AHL defenseman playing in front of him, so it remains to be seen what he can do with the Sabres' NHL-caliber core in front of him.
The Rookies
With Kevyn Adams confirming that both Jack Quinn and JJ Peterka have made the Sabres roster, the "Big Three" Sabres rookies are going to be given the chance to play out their first season together. What could very well stand between another 75-point finish or being a part of a late-season playoff push is just how well Quinn, Peterka, and Power translate to the NHL.
If the preseason is anything to go by, then they're all gonna have the opportunity to be in large roles. Quinn has found himself in the top six on most nights and a vital part of the power play, Power has slotted right back to the second pair and the quarterback of the second unit, and Peterka hasn't left Cozens' wing.
I think Power and Quinn will be the safest bets to do well (although I could be wrong), but JJ Peterka, I think, will be the most interesting to follow this season. His preseason left a bit to be desired, but Granato has stated that he wants him to continue to learn in the NHL this season, rather than the AHL. He could be the one that gets thrown up and down the lineup the most and take on an extended learning curve before really establishing himself, or perhaps he could seamlessly translate and realize the potential he showed in Rochester last year right away.
Either way, watching the Sabres potentially run the Calder race this season will be fun to watch.
Biggest Questions Heading Into Opening Night
As for the rest of the roster, there are definitely a number of question marks heading into tomorrow night.
Can Dahlin perform as a number one defenseman over a full 82-game span? Do Tage and Skinner repeat their huge seasons from last year? Can Cozens and Krebs take the next step? Are we going to get the Olofsson that started and finished hot or the one that went silent for 31 games? Is this the year that Mittelstadt finally takes a leap? Was last year the last big season for Okposo? Can Asplund continue his Selke-prowess?
If the Sabres want any shot at playing meaningful games late in the season, then the answers to these questions are going to have to fall in their favor more often than not.
Expectations
What is going to make this year and this roster so interesting, is that they have a ceiling as high as 90 points if everything goes right, and a floor as low as the mid-70s again if they don't. However, while it may be a cop-out answer, I think the actual results will lie somewhere in the middle.
If guys like Tage and Skinner can relatively replicate what they did last season, Dahlin can continue on his trajectory, Cozens can take another step, Power and Quinn can be a part of Calder talks, and most importantly, the goaltending can be steady, then this team is going to show some serious flashes.
I believe that if things can go their way, then a successful Sabres season would see them finishing with 85 points. A 10-point increase from last season seems realistic to me, and something that this roster can really strive to achieve.
No matter what happens, let's just hope the good vibes continue to reign on and we keep seeing the signs of something special being created here.
Go Sabres.
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