Sabres’ Traverse City Loss No Need For Concern
The Buffalo Sabres just ended a four-game Traverse City Prospects Tournament that saw the squad lose all four games. For a team that’s supposed to be loaded with high-level prospects and a bright future, should this be cause for concern?
I say – not really, and here’s why.
Every year heading into Traverse City, Sabres fans and media alike bring up the fact that the team actually won the tournament back in 2011.
But it’s unfair to compare that year with any other season. Each year brings a new crop of prospects with varying levels of hockey knowledge. Some have played in the AHL, some years it’s more a junior-based squad, but either way, that 2011 group was top-notch.
Just look at the roster. That 2011 team was anchored by Luke Adam, Marcus Foligno and Zack Kassian, three big-name forwards.
Adam was coming off his first full season in the AHL that saw him put up 62 points in 57 games with the Portland Pirates. He also had 19 games of NHL experience with the Sabres. Foligno was coming off his fourth year with the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves that saw him score 59 points in 47 regular season games. Kassian came out of the Windsor Spitfires organization ablazing with 77 points in 56 games.
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The trio made for a deadly combination on the offense and this was a huge part of what helped lead the team to the Traverse City victory in the Sabres’ first year at the tournament.
Fast forward a couple of years and the Sabres are back in Traverse City and lost every game of the 2014 tournament. Their streak of making it to the finals every year of their participation in Traverse City ended, and the losses left a sour taste in many people’s mouths, wondering what happened to this “great” group of prospects.
Here are the important things to remember about Traverse City.
First of all, it is, after all, just a prospects tournament.
Sure, you always want to win, but in the end, it’s four games of prospects competing against each other, some of whom have never played together. (And no, the development camp scrimmages where they’re playing against their own team’s prospects doesn’t count.) It takes more than four games to build chemistry.
Traverse City also presents an opportunity for players to get injured; Sam Reinhart narrowly escaped injury several times throughout the tournament. Guys can play hard at the prospects tournament and could end up getting an injury that diminishes or jeopardizes their chance at the NHL in the upcoming season — would you go hard to risk that for an essentially meaningless tournament?
Another reason not to panic: two of the losses were by close margins.
Okay, yes, the Sabres prospects got blown out of the water by Carolina in their first game of the tournament, losing 6-1 and later got destroyed by Dallas by a score of 7-3. But the middle game against the New York Rangers saw the Sabres lose in overtime, 2-1. Their final game of the 2014 tournament saw the Sabres also lose 2-1, this time in regulation.
So don’t panic, Sabres fans. Sure, the prospects may have had a less-than-stellar performance at the Traverse City tournament this year, but it’s not the be-all, end-all final say on what these guys can do. Some, like Jake McCabe and Rasmus Ristolainen, may play up in Buffalo this year, others will be in Rochester and still others spread across the junior leagues, but all will continue to develop and there’s still a lot of the future ahead.