Buffalo Sabres Draft Lottery Watch
The Buffalo Sabres are all alone now. With their shootout win last night, the Edmonton Oilers have put together two in a row and have moved into 29th overall without the need for tie breakers.
Until the Buffalo Sabres can figure things out and snap the eleven game losing streak they are currently on, they need all the teams in front of them to win and pick up points as many ways as they can. Whether you want to look at if the team is doing this on purpose or if the team is just that bad when it comes to makeup; there is no getting past the fact that the Sabres have dropped to the very bottom yet again.
Let us take a took at the bottom five teams and see who is going to have the hardest time for the rest of the season, and who is most likely to hold the coveted number one spot in this years draft class.
#30 Buffalo Sabres
Well it isn’t hard to point out what’s wrong here. As a collective site, we get too look at it every day. Instead lets take a look at some of the numbers.
Goals For –
The Buffalo Sabres have scored the fewest goals in the league by 9. With 89 goals (remember, some of those are shootout “team” victory goals), the nearest team is the Carolina Hurricanes who have 98 goals. Every other team in the league has scored 100 or more goals at this point in the season. Carolina will eclipse the 100 marker shortly after the NHL All-Star break leaving the Sabres as the only team in the league who hasn’t gotten to 100.
The Buffalo Sabres have a goal differential of -78. If the team can’t stop the bleeding on allowing more goals than they can score. They have three chances remaining to win game in February, with a West coast trip with stops in Calgary Edmonton, and Vancouver to close out the month.
If your one of those hoping for a total bottoming out this season, remember Tim Murray still has the trade deadline to further strip this team down of parts that will help sink the team even more, depending on the moves.
The future is bright for the Buffalo Sabres, with guys like Zemgus Girgensons, Sam Reinhart and Nikita Zadorov waiting for the team to get good and really shine – but the present is a bleak situation.
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#29 Edmonton Oilers
In a similar situation as the Buffalo Sabres – the Edmonton Oilers have more problems than solutions, and the trade deadline is fast approaching for them as well. It is almost as if the Oilers want to hit the reset button on their rebuilding process and try something new. Once thought to be uncatchable in the standings – winners of their last two and at .500 in their last ten games, the Edmonton Oilers are proving that any team can win on any night, of course their two game winning streak is compliments on the shootout.
#28 Arizona Coyotes
If there is a team to worry about, it is the Arizona Coyotes. They have only won 2 games in their last ten, with points in three. It seems that the wheels have come off and the team has gone into a full fledged tailspin.
With a game in hand on the Oilers and Buffalo Sabres – their is a chance that the ship could be righted before a complete crash, but those odds are no likely.
Fans of the Coyotes have to be scratching their heads on this one as well. When the organization was out of sorts and no one knew if their was a future in Arizona, the team over performed, possibly using it as momentum – and made the playoffs in three of the last five seasons, one of them a Pacific Division title year, a year in which they made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals before losing to the LA Kings.
#27 Carolina Hurricanes
The Carolina Hurricanes are now where the Buffalo Sabres were a little over a month ago. Things look like they are coming together and the team is winning, but are they empty losses? There is little hope for the Carolina Hurricanes to make the playoffs, so winning is only decreasing you odds in the draft lottery, and lowering the level of your draft pick.
Do the Carolina Hurricanes have it in them to make a valiant run to eighth place?
#26 New Jersey Devils
If there is an “NHL” favorite to win the draft lottery, the New Jersey Devils have to be it. Still playing in a relatively new stadium – they just lost their franchise player and face Martin Brodeur to the end of his career, and are one of the teams that could be listed as a modern dynasty as their strong play through the late 90s and early 2000s. Their last run at the cup was just three seasons ago, when they lost to the Los Angeles Kings. It shouldn’t take too much to restock this team and make them a contender again.
Could the NHL fix things to ensure that the New Jersey Devils get that top pick? If they can “do it” for the Pittsburgh Penguins (remember the tabbed corner envelope in the Sydney Crosby draft lottery?) why not for the New Jersey Devils.
There is a lot of hockey to be played out, and draft pundits and wishful thinkers for all five of these markets will be watching the bottom of the standings closely as the season resumes from the NHL All-Star Break