Buffalo Sabres Late-Season Resurgence Could Have An Impact On Free Agency
The Sabres may be playing themselves out of a high draft pick, but there is reason to be optimistic about the team’s play of late.
The Buffalo Sabress most recent win, a 3-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils Tuesday evening, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this team does not give a damn about earning a lottery pick in the 2016 NHL Draft.
With two games left on their 2015-16, the Sabres are 34-35-11 with 79 points, good for 6th place in the Atlantic Division, 13th place in the Eastern Conference, and 22nd overall in the NHL.
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All of which probably makes a lot of Buffalo Sabres fan who were hoping this team would have a shot at drafting Auston Matthews insanely angry, but I’m here to tell you: the Sabres have run out of f***s to give when it comes to worrying about their standing in the entry draft.
And this is a good thing, if you would like a talented free agent to come to Buffalo and help get this team over the playoffs hump.
First and foremost, you can cease and desist with the Steven Stamkos talk. If he chooses to leave Tampa Bay – a definite possibility, even though the Lightning have a lot of good things going for them – there are going to be 29 NHL teams waving disgusting amounts of money in his face. Stamkos might not be considered old, but even at the age of 26 he has already suffered from a broken leg and now a blood clot in his arm. Stammer is not going to want to sign with a team that might still be 4-5 years away from contending for Lord Stanley’s Cup; he is going to want to follow both the money and the possibility of winning a championship sooner than later, which probably rules out a team like the Buffalo Sabres – sorry.
Trust me, I would love to be proven wrong!
But Stammer’s an extreme case – a superstar who can afford to be picky. Even though the Buffalo Sabres are not in a position to lure the biggest fish in the free agency ocean to the 716 doesn’t mean that all hope is lost, however. The fact that Buffalo has a legitimate, honest-to-God chance to finish at or even above .500 on the year proves this team has made some significant strides toward becoming a playoff team – again, some might even argue that the team was a healthy Tyler Ennis away from actually battling for a playoff spot this season.
This competitive streak that the Sabres have displayed since March, then, is what Buffalo fans should want to see. The logic here is pretty obvious, but allow me to break it down. Yes, it is true that Buffalo has lost any chance at drafting Matthews, or Matthew Tkachuk, etc. – but ask yourself, would you rather the Sabres resemble the Edmonton Oilers? Do you want a young team that drafts high again and is still a good 3-4 years away from the playoffs at best, or a young team that has built a solid core and is just a handful of players away from actually DOING SOMETHING?
Anyone who wishes the Sabres were closer to the bottom of the standings just isn’t thinking clearly. Follow professional sports enough and you understand that there are three paths to building a championship team: through the draft, though trades, and through free agency. The Buffalo Sabres used trades to acquire two 20-goal scorers and a stockpile of draft picks, and have drafted fairly wisely – but the time to rely on the draft to build a young core is over.
Now that the Sabres are a team that can actually win some damn games, they are also a team some good players would actually want to join. A player such as Jamie McGinn, who could enjoy a long playoff ride with the Anaheim Ducks, is not even going to think about signing with Edmonton, no matter how many first picks in the draft that team has burned through since 2010. The promise of good, young talent is only so appealing – if the team can’t win for crap, signing with them amounts to glorified babysitting. The Buffalo Sabres, meanwhile, have good, young talent that you can actually see making some noise next season. McGinn is smart enough to see that a team with four 20-goal scorers, a team that was only outscored by about 20 goals for the entire season (that number is actually 19 at the time I am writing this!), is a team on the verge of taking its fans to the promised land.
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Obviously, I am just using McGinn as an example of a solid free agent that Buffalo could attempt to sign in the offseason. And it doesn’t even to be free agents that we are discussing – now that the Buffalo Sabres appear to be a team moving in the right direction, it is possible that players with NMC/NTC would approve being traded to the 716. There are a lot of factors that players consider when they are being courted by a team, and while money certainly plays a huge role, most of the players worth getting in free agency are looking for a chance to lift hockey’s Holy Grail. It doesn’t take a hockey genius to see that Terry Pegula’s Buffalo Sabres are a whole lot more enticing now than they would be if they had tanked the final third of the season, so cross your fingers that the Sabres can earn a few more points and let everyone in the NHL know: this team is pulling a move straight out of The Jeffersons and is moving on up.