Buffalo Sabres Buy Or Sell: Ryan O’Reilly Needs To Become A 30+ Goal Scorer

Will it take a super-human effort from Buffalo’s newest All-Star to bring the playoffs back to the 716 in the near future?

Acquiring Ryan O’Reilly from the Colorado Avalanche was a huge step in the right direction for the Buffalo Sabres – let’s get that point settled right away.

The way O’Reilly has owned the faceoff circle alone has made the Sabres a better team, and The Factor has always had a reputation of being a monster on the defensive side of the ice.  Mix in his unmatched work ethic and the leadership role he has embraced since entering the Sabres’ locker room, and it’s easy to see why Jeremy Roenick had to apologize to O’Reilly for calling him overrated and over paid.

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With that out of the way, let’s state the obvious: O’Reilly is in a terrible scoring slump, and is not on pace to surpass his career record of goals scored in a season, which would have seemed inconceivable just a month ago.  Since scoring his 17th goal of the season back on January 8 against the Chicago Blackhawks, O’Reilly has failed to find the back of the net, leaving him 11 goals shy of the career-best 28 he scored back in 2013-14.

No, this isn’t a “The sky is falling!” post: Ryan O’Reilly leads the Sabres with 43 points, is ranked in the top 15 of all centers in the NHL, and just made the freaking All-Star team.  He’s good, okay?

Still, the Buffalo Sabres have a scoring problem – 120 goals on the season, 5th-worst in the NHL – and could actually score fewer goals than they did last season, when they netted an NHL-worst 153.   Chances are, they will surpass last season’s total – but not by much, which brings me to the question, does Ryan O’Reilly need to become a 30+ goal scorer for this team if the Sabres wish to make the playoffs in the next 1-2 seasons.

If you take a look at the top ten centers for the 2014-15 season, you notice that four of the top ten were good for 30 or more goals: John Tavares (38), Tyler Seguin (37 ), Jirir Hudler (31) and Steven Stamkos (43).  Each of those players helped their teams qualify for the playoffs, and it is conceivable that, had Sidney Crosby and Tyler Johnson played a full 82-game season, each might have hit 30, as well (Crosby finished with 28, and Johnson had 29).

Meanwhile, out of the remaining four top ten centers who failed to score 30 goals, only Nicklas Backstrom and Henrik Sedin (18 goals apiece) qualified for the playoffs.  And it should be pointed out that, even outside of the top ten, there were many other playoff-bound centers who either scored over 30 (Sean Monahan, Joe Pavelski) or came within 2-3 goals (Evgeni Malkin, Jonathan Toews, Jeff Carter) of that mark.

Furthermore, if you look at this year’s statistics, every single center who is on track to score 30+ is playing with a team that appears bound for the playoffs, while many of the guys who do not appear to be on track to hit 30 (Monahan, Hudler, possibly Tavares) are on the outside looking in as of today.

Of course, there is the flip side to this argument – namely, that there are plenty of starting centers who did are not 30-goal scorers who routinely make the playoffs, such as Ryan Getzlaf of Anaheim, Joe Thornton of San Jose, and even the afore-mentioned Backstrom.   It is no secret, however, that Anaheim, San Jose and Washington have some of the best goal-scorers on the planet playing in the wings, while Buffalo is still lacking a winger who can be relied on to crack even 25 goals in a season.  Evander Kane has hit 30 once in his career so far, while Tyler Ennis has topped out at 21.*

*Please don’t even bring up Matt Moulson in this discussion.  

For better or for worse, then, the bulk of the scoring the next few years is going to fall on the shoulders of Ryan O’Reilly, Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart, and since O’Reilly is anchoring the starting unit, it is fair to ask, will the Buffalo Sabres be able to compete for a playoff spot if The Factor fails to become a 30+ goal scorer?  Or will a healthy Tyler Ennis and improvements on the wings allow The Factor to remain more of a facilitator than a goal scorer?