There may be no greater Jekyll and Hyde team in the NHL than the Buffalo Sabres. They have baffling losses, then come out and beat a couple of good teams like the Winnipeg Jets and the red-hot Minnesota Wild. Surely, with wins like that on their recent resume, they could find a way to build momentum?
If you thought, “Yeah, why not?” you haven’t been watching Sabres hockey very long. It took all of 0:59 for the Sabres to fall apart against the Philadelphia Flyers, the kind of team that they need to beat regularly if they hope to climb the standings. Instead, they dropped a frustrating 5-2 decision.
Turnovers are an Achilles Heel for This Team
Watching the Sabres on a nightly basis, there are a few things that jump out. One of the worst is that they are awful when it comes to giving the puck away. Sure, things feel a bit different overall but these are the issues that have been there every season for more than a decade.
Though it is understandable given most of the league leaders in turnovers are high-risk, high-reward players, Rasmus Dahlin being in the top 10 in terms of giveaways is a problem. On a good team like the Colorado Avalanche – where Martin Necas is second in the league in giveaways – those mistakes are mitigated. On a team like the Sabres, they are exacerbated.
Even when turnovers don’t directly lead to goals, as they did on the third goal of the night scored by Bobby Brink, they impact the play in a negative way. The Sabres are 10th in the league in total giveaways, something that has to improve if they want to avoid games like these.
Colten Ellis Actually Had a Solid Night
Getting scored on three times in 0:59 and five times overall makes it feel like you couldn’t possibly have had a good night, right? Well, this box score might be a bit deceiving because Colten Ellis was actually quite good, all things considered.
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First of all, the second-ranked penalty kill was just bad, allowing a pair of power play goals in the first. Secondly, net front defense continues to be a major issue for the Sabres. Three of the five goals scored all came from below the hash marks and the first goal came because of traffic in front.
Ellis turned aside 30 shots from the Flyers, but critical mistakes wound up costing them. These are the kind of mistakes that good teams don’t make regularly and know how to mitigate when they do occur. Bad teams – like the Sabres – let these mistakes cost them games.
The Sabres Can’t Win on the Road
It has been talked about before, but the Sabres simply cannot win on the road. They are 6-4-0 in their last 10 games, but an abysmal 2-7-2 road record is keeping them from really making headway in the standings.
Including this season, the Sabres are 148-204-49 on the road since the start of the 2015-16 season. Only in the 2022-23 and 2015-16 seasons did they have a record above .500 on the road. It has been a critical issue that has helped keep them out of the playoffs all this time.
There aren’t any advanced numbers here to talk about. Good teams just need to find a way to win on the road. The Sabres haven’t been able to do that, and it’s a reason they haven’t finished above 10th in the Eastern Conference in almost 20 years.
They Need to Stop Squandering Momentum
We’ve seen the same thing happen several times in just the last month. They looked impressive in wins over the Detroit Red Wings and Edmonton Oilers only to get embarrassed by the Calgary Flames. They dominated the Chicago Blackhawks and Carolina Hurricanes only to get owned by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Sabres cannot keep doing the same thing where they look like they are putting something together only for it to fall apart totally. They may hang around and have the potential to make a run, but until they can win on the road and stop shooting themselves in the foot, that potential will be for nothing.
