Sabres Drought Reaches 14 Years Without a Playoff Appearance

Sabres Drought Reaches 14 Years Without a Playoff Appearance

Welcome back. So, we’re we’re back to talking about the Sabres failing to make the playoffs. Uh they have been a mainstay in this playlist when I’ve talked about teams missing the playoffs for this channel’s entire existence. And finding a new way to discuss it can be difficult, but I will do my best. and talking about their records and season by season stuff. I mean, really the important thing is no playoffs. And looking back to 2012, they were close that year. They were only three points back. So, the 2011 2012 season, not a disaster. Uh 2013 was a 48game season. They missed the playoffs by eight points. And then the rebuild gets going. Uh 2014, they missed the playoffs by 41 points. 2015, they missed the playoffs by 44 points. And yes, that is the year that they were tanking trying to get McDavid. They got Ekeel instead. Eichkeel’s an excellent player. He’s not there now. Uh 2016, they missed the playoffs by 12 points. And I remember the optimism in 2016 that the team went from missing by 44 to missing by 12. They now had Jack Eel, the future of this franchise. Things looked good, but then in 2017 they missed the playoffs by 17 points. So they got a little closer and then a little further away. uh 2018 they get a lot further away. 35 points out of the playoffs and I I don’t know exactly where or when Sabres fans kind of decided well I I I don’t I don’t know that I have any faith in this franchise, but the attendance numbers drop off understandably. Uh 2019 they missed the playoffs by 24 points. And I want to say too, one of my one of the comments that always gets me a laugh is when people say, “H, this franchise is just garbage. They should move it.” Do you take a trash dump and move it to another city and hope that the trash dump turns into a mall? Or if this team’s run poorly, punishing Buffalo fans by not fixing the team and moving it instead just doesn’t make any sense to me. So 2020 is as close as it gets. So after 2019 when they missed the playoffs by 24 points in 2020 the NHL expands the playoffs going into that playin round after the pause and percentage points are decided and very very small difference between Montreal who were a 500 team that year and Buffalo who finished 493. They’d won one game that year, one game that they lost. If they had a point, two points, doesn’t matter how they get them, they would have made the playoffs that year and we’d be having a different conversation. We’d be talking about how they made the playoffs once in the last 14 years, and that was because of expanded playoffs. So, see, it wouldn’t really change the narrative that much. Uh 2021, a 56game schedule. They still managed to miss the playoffs by an impressive 34 points. And obviously, it’s really tough to sell tickets. It’s tough to sell fans on hope when you’re almost a decade into this. and you’re missing the playoffs by more than 30 points uh in a shortened season. Then 2022, they missed the playoffs by 25 points. Well, that’s an improvement, I guess, over the year before. Uh 2023, the heartbreaking season, and I really thought they were going to make it. They lose by one point to the Florida Panthers, who went all the way to the Stanley Cup final. Buffalo misses the playoffs by one point, and we’re still talking about no playoffs in a long time. If they made the playoffs that year, who knows? Could they have pulled off a bit of a run? Maybe they they could score goals that year. Uh 2024, they missed the playoffs by seven points. And this season, they missed the playoffs by 12 points. So, they’re getting further away again. They’re as far away in 2025 as they were in 2016. And so going over all of those numbers just tells you this is a team that continues to while there’s some improvement here and there in seasons where they barely miss, the reality is there still misses and even if they’d made it, they would have barely made it. So the numbers this year tell you that this team can score goals. That’s about it. Uh it’s mainly five on five. So 3.23 goals scored per game this year. That’s 10th overall in the National Hockey League. In goals against, they were 29th. Uh three and a half goals against per game. Their power play 24th at 18.8%. Their penalty kill 23rd at 76.4%. These numbers will not add up to playoffs. Obviously, here we are. So, Tage Thompson led the way in scoring. Taage Thompson’s a star forward. 76 games, 44 goals, 28 assists, 72 points. But Ta needs, I think, some other premier talents to play with. There’s a lot of good young players here. But that’s the thing. There’s a lot of guys who play a very similar game in Buffalo. It’s it’s something that I’ve noticed over the last couple years. A lot of these players, very similar style of hockey, not an overly physical team, and it feels like things need to change here. So, Dalene’s number two on the scoring list, 73 games, 17 goals, 51 assists, 68 points, and we’ll talk about their blue line. That’s got to be a conversation. Uh JJ Purka, 77 games, 27 goals, 41 assists. Also has 60 68 points this season. Uh I love JJ Purka’s development this year. He may become a player in that 80 to 85 point range next season. I could see that. Alex Tuck, 82 games, 36 goals, 31 assists, 67 points. Very dangerous forward, fast player, and a good veteran on this team. Jason Zucker really has enjoyed it in Buffalo. 73 games, 21 goals, 32 assists, 53 points. And Ryan Mloud, his numbers have been excellent in Buffalo. It gets overshadowed by the fact that Buffalo wasn’t any good. Uh 79 games, 20 goals, 33 assists, 53 points. I think they win the Matt Seavoy trade this year. We’ll see what if they win it next year as well if Seavoy ends up being a regular with the Oilers. But yeah, for this year they won that. Owen Power 79 games, seven goals, 33 assists, 40 points. Jack Quinn, better second half than first half I felt for Quinn 74 games, 15 goals, 24 assists, 39 points. And Bowen Byron, 82 games, seven goals, 31 assists, 38 points. And once again, we will come back to the discussion when it comes to defenseman with the Buffalo Sabres. I wanted to talk a little bit about Zack Benson. He should be scoring more than he did this past season. 75 games, 10 goals, 18 assists, 28 points. I could see all those numbers doubling next year. Yuri Koulik, hot and cold, 62 games, 15 goals, nine assists, 24 points. But former first round draft pick, and I think he will trend to, I would think, at least 20 goals next season and maybe in that 40 plus point range. The goalending is a question mark. Uh I like UPPL. I like Lucinan, but the numbers this year not great. 242 24 and five with an 87 safe percentage. James Rhyr had a good stretch at the end of the season there. 108-2 record, 901 safe percentage. Devin Levi mostly in the AHL this year. 2-7 record 872 save percentage. And so for for Devin Levi, uh another year of development. He’s still a young goalender. And I think it is worthy of note. I’ll mention it again here. Not every goalender comes in at in their early 20s and and just, you know, doesn’t have any issues and makes it through the NHL just fine. Very often they end up playing in the AHL. Sometimes it takes till they’re 24 25 to really and truly be ready for the job. Now, they have cap space, but so their cap space $21.43 million as of July the 1st. Now, we remember Kevin Adams coming out and saying there aren’t palm trees in Buffalo and amongst other things. That’s not the only thing he said, but that was the notable um I’m I’m in BC. We don’t we don’t have palm trees here either. Uh but that that the cap space this summer isn’t going to be going to free agents unless something changes because they have some key restricted free agents. First off, Mloud Mloud 50 plus point player. He’s going to get a raise this summer. Uh Jack Quinn, do you sign him longterm or a bridge deal? I think probably a two-year bridge deal. Probably not overly pricey, but JJ Purka, you want him signed long term. So, my guess is they try to get Purka signed to a six-year plus deal. Uh and then you got Bow and Byum. There was a lot of discussion this year about whether or not Bowen was going to end up getting moved and getting traded. He did not. And I think part of the reason being he’s a restricted free agent this summer and they’ve already got a lot of money committed to Dalene and Power on that blue line and so the amount of money you’re going to have to give Byum probably prohibitive. Uh there were rumors about Byum going to Vancouver as a for instance I would imagine the Conucks will circle back on Byum again. I don’t know that they have the cap space to get it done either. So we’ll see if Byum’s demands change or not. But during the season, there was speculation about how much he might want and how much uh he might be worth to another team on a long-term contract. But Byron’s the one to keep an eye on because that 21.43 million in the event that Buffalo finds a way to sign these players, it’s going to eat into most of that money. And that’s going to be tough. That’s why it is kind of surprising that they added the Josh Norris contract. Josh Norris $7.95 million cap hit till 2030. And we know he deals with a lot of injuries, right? At the very least, he is very often on the injured list. And that almost $8 million cap space that he eats up would have been nice for Buffalo to have that this July the 1st. So, they’re t they’re hoping Norris is able to turn things around and and stay healthy. They’re paying Dene 11 million until 2032. He’s absolutely worth it. Dene’s an excellent defenseman. Owen Power 8.35 million cap hit until 2031 which tells you that Byum if Byum is saying you know what I should be worth as much as Power you might be able to make an argument there you might be able to make an argument he’s worth more or worth less depending on your opinion on Byron and Power. Uh there are some some differing opinions on both players but it’s going to be a lot of money needed either way and so we’ll see how things turn out. The only unrestricted free agent of note is James Rhymer. Uh Rhyr, I would think probably retires. I think this is probably the end of it for him. I haven’t seen anything about that as of yet, but I would think he probably does. Now, also amongst the cap space they don’t have for next season is a $4.44 million penalty for buying out Jeff Skinner. So, I mean, is it worth it to have bought out Skinner? Probably yes. Looking at the season Skinner had in Edmonton, it’s not like he bounced back and had tons of goals and got his got his game back. So, understandable that they did buy him out, but it it does mean that with the cap space being potentially eaten up by a lot of these restricted free agents, at least for the most part, it makes it more difficult to make improvements unless it’s via trade. So, Buffalo fans, how do you feel about Kevin Adams potentially trading young players to bring in veterans or trading out guys who are on contracts that maybe they want to move and maybe don’t get as much back? Like, it gets dodgy. And at the deadline, they made it clear they didn’t want more young players and more draft picks. I agree. Uh, this is a team that has got a lot of young players. They also have Noah Osland and Costa Helenius amongst others who have yet to you know make a permanent uh debut with the team. Uh I think Osland got into some games Helenius did not but it’s going to happen. So they are not short on talent upfront. They are not short on players who can skate. They are not short on speed on any level but it’s a matter of putting everything together. Uh they also don’t have stockpilings of d a stockpiling of draft picks at this point. They have an extra fourth round draft pick both this year and next year, but they’ve also traded out draft picks. So, they’re not stockpiling and they shouldn’t be. They already have enough good young players. It’s a matter of finding that right mix. The chemistry you need to take your team from a below playoffs to in playoffs uh status. Uh Montreal figured that out this year, which has to be frustrating because Montreal went into their rebuild uh after the Stanley Cup final appearance in 2021 and now they’re back to being a playoff team four years later while Buffalo is getting further away, not closer. So that just makes it more frustrating. Now, when you look at the scoring by this team this year, you can see that the first period they were pretty good. So I want I wanted to give like some some a little bit of hope, just a little bit of hope here for Sabres fans. They outscored the opposition 92 to 68 in the first period. They did not do well once the f first period was finished. I don’t have any proof of them going to referees and going look we’re ahead. Can we just stop now? Can we not have the second and we do not do I just I’ll confess we’re not good at the rest of the game but we have a lead right now. So second period they get outsc scored 107 to 84. Uh third period they get outsc scored 107 to 86. There’s some consistency there, right? And then in the overtime they got outsc scored 5 to3. So close I I guess if if you want to look at it that way. But if they had a lead after the first they were pretty good. 219 and six. And if they had a lead after the second again pretty good 233 and two. And one good thing from this season is they scored first 45 times. More than half their games they scored first. They were 254 and six when they scored first. So for Buffalo it was an issue with closing out games. To me that says young players. It was an issue with when you score first protecting that lead which once again you’re looking at young players that can happen and it’s part of the reason why before uh Patrick Kane decided to play for Detroit Buffalo was mentioned a lot because it does feel like this is a team that with a veteran who’s got Stanley Cup experience with a player like that maybe that could help spark something for Buffalo and get them that little bit closer. Now, the GM is still Kevin Adams, and there’s a lot of negative opinion on Adam’s job. I will say this, if Adams could go out this off season and make the appropriate changes to this team to make it a competitive playoff team next year, he’s good. Fans will let up pretty darn quickly and say, “We got it wrong.” Because I think Sabres fans are fair that way. And coach Lindy Ruff, I don’t blame Lindy Ruff for the fact they finished 12 points back. I still think he’s a good coach. I do wonder how long they will leave those two people and I mean both Adams and Ruff in their jobs. Uh we have not got into the summer yet. So there’s always the chance that a change happens between now and July or a change happens between now and training camp in terms of who’s calling the shots in Buffalo. We don’t know how other teams are going to react when they get eliminated from said playoffs and if Buffalo’s going to look and say, “Hey, you know what? adding that guy that they just fired would definitely change things for us. So, it likely is going to still be Kevin Adams who’s GM this fall. It likely will still be Lindy Ruff that’s the coach this fall. And then the question becomes one of how do you fix it so that a team that’s scored first and done pretty well when they’re leading in a game can find that ability to come back in games to lead a little more often because they only led after the first period 36 times in the entire season. They only let after the second period 28 times the entire season. So, you can see how quickly that second period and and the ugliness of being a minus 23 in that period uh really ate into their their leads and everything and and so yeah, um finding an ability to play the rest of the game, play better defensively, that’s going to be tricky. And it it is the reason why I think Byron’s probably the one that gets moved this summer. If they wanted to go really crazy, they could try moving Owen Power. I don’t think there’s any chance goes I don’t think there’s any chance Power does either. I’m just saying if they wanted to do something crazy, they could look at moving Owen Power and his contract if that was a way to free up some money for somebody else. But I think they’re going to go the trade route, whatever they do. I think this is going to involve trades and then it’s a matter of how much faith the fans have in the people making those trades to make the right trades to make the team better. And we have talked about trades Buffalo’s made over the last decade that have backfired. You need to make sure you’re not making trades that are going to backfire. That you’re not trading away another Ryan O’Reilly who wins the Stanley Cup in St. Louis, Jack Eel who wins a cup in Vegas, or Sam Reinhardt who wins a cup in Florida. So, that’s an issue for them. Uh, but let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. How do you fix it? What do you do? I I wish I had like just a magical way of of saying this will fix it and we can all behold what’s been done and the sabers call me and go, “Hey, Kevin Adams wanted me to thank you for you just showed how we’re going to fix this.” I I don’t know how you do it and it’s been over a decade of that attempt being made by various general managers and coaches. So, let me know your thoughts on whether or not you think 2026 is the year we could see Buffalo get back or have you given up at this point. Let me know your thoughts. Hit like and subscribe if you haven’t done so already. I’m rooting for them. As a Kuck fan, fellow 1970 expansion team, I would love to see Buffalo do well. Obviously, a Stanley Cup final between Buffalo and Vancouver at some point would just be insane. The game would it would go to D what five overtimes in game seven. Um, one of them would have to win the Stanley Cup. Eventually, they’d just be standing in center going, “Okay, now listen. One of us has to win. It’s been six days of hockey and nobody scored a goal. So, one of us has to win, right? But we’ll see if if we ever reach that point. I I would love it. Honestly, I would love it. But, uh, let me know your thoughts. Thank you guys so much for all your support. As always, I will talk to you again soon.

The Sabres have not figured out the playoff formula yet. Will it ever happen?

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