WYRK, one of the Queen City’s premier country music stations, believes the Buffalo Sabres could be two years from playoff contention.
The Buffalo Sabres still have their doubters in the Queen City. WYRK said in a recent article that while the Sabres have hope heading into next season, they are still up to two years out of contending for the playoffs. Here was their exact wording:
"Realistically, the Sabres are still a year or two away from being a playoff contender, – via WYRK."
Despite their lack of optimism on the contending front, WYRK was optimistic about the core the Sabres have built. They particularly noted Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens, Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Mattias Samuelsson, Peyton Krebs, J.J. Peterka, and Jack Quinn.
Are the Buffalo Sabres realistically up to two seasons from playoff contention?
In March 2022, the Sabres got healthy and voila, they became one of the most exciting teams in the NHL. Yeah, the occasional blowout loss occurred every now and again. But to beat or even hang with playoff or playoff-caliber teams as well as they did during that timeframe says a lot about this hockey team and where they stand.
While it could have been a fluke, it probably wasn’t. Not with the team dominating during their healthiest days in the months of October 2021, March, and April 2022.
Their combined record in those three months? 21-11-5 (47 points). In total, that’s 47 points in 38 games, good for 101 points at the same pace when averaged into an 82-game season.
And this was an inexperienced Buffalo Sabres team with patchwork goaltending. While the above numbers are also theoretical, the team’s healthiest months showed us they were one of the NHL’s better teams. They ranked 12th in points in March and April. The 101 points shown above would have put them at 14th overall last season and eighth in the Eastern Conference.
So the team is not realistically going to be playoff contenders for the next two seasons? I beg to differ. The numbers above tell another story. While I’ll admit that they probably won’t win the division over the next two seasons, they will, if nothing else, contend for the wild card. And that’s more than what the Sabres have contended for in the last decade.