Buffalo Sabres Will Finish With Four Twenty-Goal Scorers
For the first time in several seasons, the Buffalo Sabres will finish a regular season with four players who have scored at least twenty goals.
With two games left in the regular season, the Sabres appear poised to have four 20-goal scorers.
(It’s highly unlikely that Brian Gionta, Johan Larsson or Marcus Foligno, all of whom have 10 goals each on the season, will somehow spark to hit the 20 mark in the last two games, so I feel secure in saying that four is all we’re going to get.)
This will be the first season since 2010-11 that the Buffalo Sabres have four 20-goal scorers.
This year’s crop?
Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Evander Kane and Ryan O’Reilly.
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Those are exactly the players you need to be scoring big-time, and this season, they did it – and we can expect even more from them in the future.
Both Eichel and Reinhart are considered rookies this year, with Reinhart having played just nine NHL games prior to this season, and both registered their first NHL goals.
Kane and O’Reilly were new to the Buffalo Sabres this season but excelled with their new team.
It’s also possible that Tyler Ennis could’ve hit the 20-goal mark if he had played much of the season; he registered three goals in 23 games played, which would have put him on pace for around 10 on the season, but Ennis has hit the 20-goal mark in each of the last two seasons, so who knows what could’ve happened?
Here’s a look at years past and which Buffalo Sabres players hit the 20-goal mark.
In the 2014-15 season, when the Buffalo Sabres were, well, quite dreadful, the team had just one player reach the 20-goal mark: Ennis.
The year prior, Ennis also did it, but so did Buffalo Sabres forward Cody Hodgson. In the present season, Hodgson’s registered just three goals in 39 games with the Predators.
In 2012-13, only Thomas Vanek had twenty goals or more for the Buffalo Sabres.
The seasons prior to that were better.
In 2011-12, Vanek had 20+, but so did Drew Stafford and Jason Pominville.
Before that, the same three did it, but so did Tyler Ennis.
And both 2009-10 and 2008-09 saw the Buffalo Sabres with four 20-goal scorers: Vanek and Pominville, Derek Roy, and either Jochen Hecht (09-10) or Stafford (08-09).
But that’s just about enough of looking at the past; it’s time to think about the future.
Next: Buffalo Sabres Draft Lottery Simulation
Could the Buffalo Sabres have a THIRTY-goal scorer next season, something they haven’t had in at least four seasons? Or how about five players hit the 20-goal mark, which hasn’t happened since 2007-08?
I say… why the heck not!