Victor Olofsson showed a lot of promise last season. Should Sabres fans expect to see Olofsson continue his success in the 2021 season?
Victor Olofsson was a very pleasant surprise for the Buffalo Sabres last season. The 2019-2020 season was the first year he played a good chunk of the whole season. He played in 54 games last year, compared to only six in the 2018-2019 season.
Over those 54 games, Olofsson had 20 goals and 22 assists. I would say that those are very productive numbers for a rookie in the league. There are definitely some perks of being on the same line as Jack Eichel like he was last season.
Oloffson was also a force on the Sabres power play. He tallied 11 goals and 17 points on the power play. He was a great addition to the Sabres power play unit last year and I expect to see him log plenty of more power play minutes this season.
It seems likely that Victor will be featured on the Sabres top line along with Jack Eichel and Taylor Hall. With the addition of Hall, Olofsson might not be Eichel’s top “go-to” guy this season like he was last year.
With this being said, the Sabres top line should produce an abundance of scoring chances between those three forwards. There are going to be plenty of points to go around between Eichel, Hall, and Olofsson this season.
It is a bummer that we don’t get to see Olofsson play an entire 82 game schedule this season once again. But after signing a 2-year contract worth $6.1 million in October, Olofsson will be in Buffalo for two more seasons before they need to make a decision about re-signing him.
I think that we will see Olofsson continue to be a valuable piece of the Sabres this season. If he remains on the top line in Buffalo, he will be surrounded by even more talent than he was last year and he will only gain more chemistry with Eichel the longer they are on the same line. The Sabres and their fans should be very excited about the potential Olofsson has.