What’s the pathway to the playoffs for the Sabres?
The Buffalo Sabres may have found some peace by avoiding salary arbitration with defenseman Bowen Byram, but the rocky times are continuing in Northern New York under general manager Kevyn Adams.
Despite locking up Byram for two seasons at an average annual value of $6.25 million, the Sabres still need plenty of improvement to compete for a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
On the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Johnny Lazarus dove into how far off the Sabres might be from the postseason.
Yaremchuk: In a bigger picture way, for Buffalo, a lot of Sabres fans were kind of holding out hope that Byram would be the one big trade piece who could go and net them a legit impact player in some way, or the assets to go spend and go get an impact player.
But we sit here and look at the Sabres team. They’re basically running it back next year as it currently stands, just without JJ Peterka. It’s been an absolute failure for the Upstate New York crew.
Lazarus: To me, it’s the worst roster in the NHL by far, and I don’t think that’s a stretch, and I don’t think that’s a hot take or anything by any means.
Like, I look at their centers, and to be honest, like maybe at best, they’re just full of, like, middle six. Their top-line center right now, as it stands on DailyFaceoff.com, is Jiří Kulich? It was a fine player, but in no means is he a first-line center right now in the NHL.
Josh Norris, obviously, a lot of question marks as well. You know Ryan McLeod very well as a third-line center, and then Peyton Krebs is slotted in as their fourth-line center right now. Like, where is this team going with that?
I don’t want to sound like I’m being too critical or overly harsh on Buffalo, but every year it’s the same thing. How is this team going to make the playoffs? I don’t understand. And then you have to keep guys like Alex Tuch and Tage Thompson happy, but how can they be happy with these losing seasons year after year?
Yaremchuk: I don’t think anyone would say you’re being too hard on the Sabres. I think Sabres fans would say to dig in and go for it, because there is a certain level of anger in that fan base, and maybe anger is not even the right word; they’ve almost just checked out.
They are a team that should have had a much higher sense of urgency to go out and legitimately improve,and just simply didn’t do it. So, will Buffalo end their playoff drought this year? Highly unlikely.
You can catch the rest of the latest episode here…