Buffalo Sabres: 3 players who have something to prove in the final weeks
By Sion Fawkes
The Buffalo Sabres are not going to the playoffs this season, but they have provided some exciting hockey as of late
The Buffalo Sabres have really come together as a hockey team. And while they’ve struggled to maintain leads lately, you can’t deny they have played the NHL’s Eastern Conference’s best teams well.
Ordinarily, it’s best to see blowouts instead of heartbreaking losses. But if you’re a team like the Sabres that still have a lot of growing up to do, heartbreaking losses against potential Stanley Cup finalists is a move in the right direction.
But the Sabres have, overall, struggled for most of the 2021-22 season, seeing injuries and COVID-19 ravage the team from December to late January. As a result, the Sabres needed to get younger quickly and they pulled up a lot of talent from the AHL who have since become staples on the main roster, most notably Mattias Samuelsson and Casey Fitzgerald.
The Sabres also employed taxi squads and saw a few AHL forwards get their first taste of NHL action. Players like J.J. Peterka, Jack Quinn, and Brandon Biro all stepped onto the ice in a Sabres uniform at some point during the season.
As I write this, Owen Power is steamrolling toward his NHL debut. And it’s a given that with so many veteran defensemen’s contracts expiring, Power will permanently take someone’s spot on the defensive pairings next season.
With potentially more roster turnover coming, a lot of current Sabres have something to prove as the final month of the NHL season rolls on. Here are three of those players.