Having just suffered an agonizing 3-0 shutout loss against the St. Louis Blues, the Buffalo Sabres do not have time to hang their heads, as they will be facing a tough four-game stretch on the road, looking for their first win as the visiting team this season. The Sabres will first weather the storm, as they take on the Carolina Hurricanes before heading west to challenge a daunting Utah Mammoth team. To end next week, Buffalo will battle with fire and ice as the Colorado Avalanche will host them on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Detroit Red Wings await them for a divisional showdown in Motor City on Saturday.
The Sabres already dealt with early-season adversities, including a 0-3-0 start, and the continuous shuffling of lines due to injuries. Despite these pitfalls, Buffalo showed glimpses of fight as they are currently just three points behind a wild-card spot in a neck-and-neck Eastern Conference. On the flip side, they sit dead last in the Atlantic Division as of this writing, with an underwhelming offense to show for it. The Sabres have proven that they can overcome setbacks and respond with grit and determination. These next four games will serve as testing grounds to see just what this team is really capable of.
How Are the Sabres Faring So Far?
There were not too many expectations for Buffalo’s team, which has struggled mightily in its 14-year playoff drought, with little to no roster changes over the course of the summer. Even before the season started, injuries had already started to pile up for the Sabres. A little into the season, another crucial piece went down as center Josh Norris fell after a faceoff, was later evaluated to have sustained an upper-body injury, and has been out a significant amount of time.
Incapacitated players and an 0-3-0 start caused negativity to loom within the Sabres’ fanbase as the team and organization looked for an answer for the abysmal start. Buffalo then started to string together some wins, including statement victories against divisional rivals, namely the Ottawa Senators, the Florida Panthers, the Red Wings, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. As the trend seemed to continue pointing upward for the Sabres, more injuries derailed the team, and the offensive production dipped.
Riding a seven-game point streak, the Sabres’ hopes were high as they played the struggling Blues on home territory. Despite scratching Jordan Kyrou and starting backup Joel Hofer, who had a 5.02 goals against average (GAA) and a .836 save percentage (SV%), the Blues took care of business against the Sabres in a game where the offense failing to convert on chances and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s netminding woes proved to be the difference.
What Needs to Change for the Sabres?
Injuries have caused Buffalo to mix-and-match their lines in recent games. Finding consistency with personnel going in and out can be a challenging task for any player. Alternate captain Tage Thompson has fallen into this situation as he skated with the American Hockey League call-ups in Isak Rosen and Noah Ostlund for the most recent match-up against the Blues. Individually, they have proven to be contributors with their own means, but meshing them together is a lot to ask, especially if the goal is to win games immediately.
Thompson is currently without his two most prominent linemates, Jiri Kulich and Zach Benson, who are both out due to illness and an upper-body injury, respectively. An optimal solution for Thompson would be to pair him with his second-most effective line, with Josh Doan and Alex Tuch between him on the wings. This line change paves the way for Rosen and Ostlund to skate with Jack Quinn, which has also proven to work for the Sabres. The only problem is that the Tuch-Ryan McLeod-Doan line has paid dividends for Buffalo, boasting a plus-4 rating.
Absences due to injuries and illnesses form only a segment of the Sabres’ underlying situation. Though they have contributed to some of the skaters’ modest numbers because of the unfamiliarity with new linemates, adaptability is a skill that makes a winning player in the NHL. The Sabres’ next four games on the road will test this team’s identity. Can they adapt to each other and develop team chemistry over the next week, or will this series of games break them down and inch the Sabres closer to a 15th-straight season of missing the playoffs?
