The Daily Faceoff Show: Should the Buffalo Sabres be encouraged by their season?

Despite trading away Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, and Rasmus Ristolainen, the Buffalo Sabres are going to finish the 2021-22 season with a much better points percentage than they had in 2020-21.

On Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Faceoff Show, Frank Seravalli and Chris Gear discussed whether the Sabres should be encouraged by their result in a season in which they set a record for the longest playoff drought in NHL history.

Frank Seravalli: Let’s talk about the Buffalo Sabres as we continue our Down and Out series looking at the non-playoff teams to close out the regular season.

My question to you is when you’re looking at the Sabres and the way this year has unfolded, they’ve had some significant fight from their group over these last 20 to 30 games, which is a really promising sign for Don Granato and his team. Would you be encouraged about this season if you’re a Sabres fan? Or discouraged?

Chris Gear: I’m totally encouraged about where the Sabres are at now. It’s taken an awfully long time.

I wrote a piece about this last week for Daily Faceoff: over the last 10 years, the Sabres haven’t finished any higher than 23rd in the league. They’re actually going to finish 24th this season, based on where they sit today. That’s an atrocious 10-year period.

But when you look at what they’ve done now, moving on from Jack Eichel, bringing back Alex Tuch and Peyton Krebs, Tage Thompson really shot out of a cannon this year, Jeff Skinner had a rebound year, Kyle Okposo had a rebound year, Victor Olofsson is still a good player, and Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power, I think they’re starting to build enough young players and some veterans to bring them back to where they should be.

This is a team that I do think has an outside chance at challenging for a playoff spot next year. They’re definitely on the upswing and I don’t foresee anymore of these 23rd, 24th, 30th finishes in the next five or six years.

Frank Seravalli: It feels like we’ve been saying that forever. “Next year is going to be the year,” and it’s gone on and on and on.

But I will say, that Jack Eichel trade is looking awfully good. I think the Sabres have way exceeded expectations. You look at Alex Tuch coming in, I think he really helped transform Tage Thompson’s season, you can see the confidence that exploded after that trade. You see the 38 points in 48 games for Tuch, Krebs is looking like he’s going to be a player after starting in the AHL after the trade.

Things are blossoming, there are just a lot of teams to jump over in order to get to where they want to get to. The things that we’re asking about the Sabres are probably similar to the Ottawa Senators. When is the year they’re going to take that next step? I can’t help but look at the Sabres and think the Sens are another obstacle that’s in your way in order to become a playoff team.

I think the Sens are much better organized in terms of depth, positional strength, all those different types of things, that it’s hard to see a path forward, at least in the immediate future.”

You can watch the full episode here…