Buffalo Sabres Playoff Watch: Sabres Waste Golden Opportunity To Gain Ground
The Buffalo Sabres were given something of a gift, but blew two perfect opportunities to gain ground in the playoff chase. We explore the ramifications.
Whether you hate the idea of the bye week or love it, you cannot deny that the Buffalo Sabres were given a post bye week gift by the NHL.
Instead of having to come off five hockey-free days by playing the Washington Capitals, or the Pittsburgh Penguins, or ANYTHING resembling a good hockey team, the Buffalo Sabres resumed their schedule by playing the absolute worst team in the NHL, the Colorado Avalanche.
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Naturally, they lost. I mean, why take advantage of that game to make up any points you lost in the playoff race during the bye week?
As it turns out, the NHL was not done handing out gifts, as the Sabres followed up their game in Colorado with a game against the league’s next worst team, the Arizona Coyotes. Surely a motivated Sabres team would make up for . . . I’m not even going to waste time finishing that sentence. The Sabres blew a 2-0 lead and lost 3-2 to the 22-32-7 Coyotes, making the Sabres 0-2 this weekend against teams with a combined record of 39-72-10.
The two straight losses put the Buffalo Sabres at 26-26-10 with 62 points – a .500 points percentage, certainly, but given where the Sabres stood in the wild card chase before the bye week, a disappointing weekend to say the least.
Amazingly, because the NHL loves to make it look as if every team is still in the playoff chase come February, Buffalo is still just 7 points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, who hold the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. If you’re a glass half-full sort of person, that means mathematically there is still a chance this team can make the playoffs.
Realistically, the odds of this happening are slim to none – there are four other teams in between Buffalo and Toronto, and Sports Club Stats now peg the team’s chance of making the playoffs at 1.3% – and let’s be honest: if Buffalo had swept their weekend slate of games, the odds were still against them. It’s a bit too late to tank, so at this point I would just be happy if the Buffalo Sabres can close out 2016-17 by figuring out how to play consistent hockey and close out a damn game, right?