Buffalo Sabres Have 15th-Best Prospect Pool According To Bleacher Report
The latest rankings over at B/R are good, but is that good enough?
It’s a poorly-kept secret that the Buffalo Sabres are in the middle of a rebuild – okay, it’s really no secret at all! – and that the team is going to be one of the youngest in the NHL for another few years.
And since a rebuild is heavily reliant on young players, both current and future, Buffalo Sabres fans would probably feel better about the future of the team if they knew Buffalo had an enviable crop of prospects waiting to earn a roster spot.
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About that . . . .
According to Bleacher Report’s post-trade deadline rankings, the Buffalo Sabres possess the 15th best crop of prospects of all NHL teams. B/R reports that Buffalo’s prospects are led by Justin Bailey, contain a little bit of depth thanks to Hudson Fasching and Nick Baptiste, and are rounded out by four goaltenders who could all potentially make it into the NHL.
Certainly, being ranked in the middle of the pack is not terrible, especially when you consider the fact that Rasmus Ristolainen, Sam Reinhart, Jack Eichel and Jake McCabe were all considered part of Buffalo’s collection of prospects not too long ago. Still, with the Buffalo Sabres languishing at the bottom of the standings yet again, a so-so pool of prospects won’t be enough to make this team playoff ready. It was just a few years ago that the Sabres were thought to have one of the most promising crop of young talent in the NHL, but losing Joel Armia, Brayden McNabb and Nikita Zadorov have put a little dent in this area.
The rankings take on significantly more weight when you stop and consider that divisional foes Boston, Detroit and Tampa Bay all rank ahead of the Sabres when it comes to their prospects. Each of those teams already appear to be playoff-bound, meaning the Sabres have an extreme uphill climb ahead of them if they wish to leapfrog any of these foes in the standings any time soon.
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Then there are the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have the top-ranked prospect pool, by far. The Toronto Marlies could probably give a few cellar-dwelling NHL teams a run for their money this year, so that alone means that the Leafs are probably going to enjoy a faster rebuild than the Sabres. Throw in the fact that Toronto is a more attractive free-agent destination than Buffalo . . . you get the picture.
This isn’t a doom-and-gloom scenario, but it does make you think that the Buffalo Sabres are going to have to either make a significant trade soon, sign a fairly big-name free agent this summer, or both in order to bring playoff hockey back to the 716 in the near future.