Daily Faceoff Live: Buffalo Sabres in the hunt

On Thursday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss how the Buffalo Sabres stock has risen and what they might do at the trade deadline. 

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s talk about a team that is going to the moon. The Buffalo Sabres have four wins in a row and are just three points back now from the Washington Capitals for the final playoff spot. But with three games in hand, if you sort through points-percentage as we do, the Sabres are holding on to the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Does general manager Kevyn Adams have any other option than to buy, Frank? 

Frank Seravalli: Yeah I think he does. I think he has the ability to be patient, and perhaps maybe that’s the best call here. I can see the team adding maybe in a peripheral way, like if there’s a piece out there or two that won’t break the bank in terms of future assets you go out and reward the team. But, here’s the thing about the Sabres that I think makes their run this season as they continue to score goals like it’s nobody’s business and so fun to watch and so fulfilling for Don Granato, Adams and his staff is that they made a point while other teams in their division like the Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators went out and had massive spending sprees this summer.

Frank Seravalli: The Sabres said ‘you know what, we’re not getting involved in those sweepstakes we’re going to stand back,’ and the reason for that is not because they didn’t see fits for those players on their team. They didn’t do it because they didn’t want any of their young players to have a roadblock placed in front of them. Let them continue to develop and that’s kind of the same thing that I see when it comes to the trade deadline. Maybe you go out on the goaltending market but Craig Anderson has been fine, he’s not playing the line share of games and they’ve dealt with injuries in the net. But other than that, I’m not looking at a glaring hole and thinking that there isn’t one player on that Sabres roster that could fill that void.

Frank Seravalli: Keep playing the young guys and keep allowing them to progress. We talked about this from an Edmonton Oilers standpoint too, you don’t want to change the temperament of your team and the outlook of your prospects and have someone stand in their way. So, unless it’s going to be someone that’s going to be here for the long term, which you can wait till the summer to make that move, I don’t see a giant deadline acquisition for the Sabres. Do you know what’s the coolest part about watching this team, Tyler? They believe. The culture has changed dramatically, their coach Don Granato has players that want to play for him and they’re excited and they feel like they are right on the cusp of something special. Maybe this could be that year that they kind of breakthrough. We were all kind of saying at the start will it be Ottawa, will it be Detroit, will the Caps hang on, what about the Islanders long in the tooth? Well, it is a pretty special year brewing for the Sabres.

You can watch the full episode here…