Buffalo Sabres Prospects: Broad depth proving its worth in preseason

Buffalo Sabres forwards J.J. Peterka and Jack Quinn had themselves a phenomenal game despite the 4-1 loss to the Blue Jackets on Wednesday. 

The Buffalo Sabres had a bad game on Wednesday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets, but that didn’t stop them from enjoying some remarkable moments. Throughout the preseason, we saw good play from all of their goaltenders, and despite Eric Comrie’s 0.871 save percentage, he still finished with a great game considering the Sabes inability to stop the Blue Jackets.

One reason the Sabres struggled in this one came from the Jackets lineup versus their lineup, which comprised players with limited NHL experience besides Jacob Bryson and Victor Olofsson. It was a lineup that also included Jack Quinn and J.J. Peterka, and both provided a few of the limited bright spots in this one.

Peterka sliced through the Blue Jackets lineup several times, won puck battles on the boards, and nearly always seemed to find an open teammate. Quinn finished the game with an assist on Chase Priskie’s goal, and whether he saw time on the power play, forecheck, or simply moving the puck, the former eighth overall pick passed all the tests.

Buffalo Sabres are deep, deep, deep this season

As bad as the defensive rotation looked at times, we need to remember only Bryson had extensive NHL experience, while Kale Clague and Casey Fitzgerald played in combined 90 NHL games. Chase Priskie saw time in just four contests, while Oskari Laaksonen and Peter Tischke have yet to see time in an NHL regular season game.

Contrast the defensive rotation from Tuesday, when the Sabres had Rasmus Dahlin, Henri Jokiharju, and Ilya Lyubushkin out there. Mattias Samuelsson and Owen Power are projected top four guys, while Lawrence Pilut could easily wind up on the third pairing. It was a much more experienced group than what the Buffalo Sabres put out there on Wednesday.

With this in mind, it gives me confidence that the rotation we saw will fare well against AHL competition, minus Bryson, who should find himself on the Sabres roster. The same will go for the forwards, who included names like Isak Rosen, Filip Cederqvist, Tyson Kozak, Jiri Kulich, Brandon Biro, and Linus Weissbach. Of the bunch, only Biro has NHL experience – 13:30 of it.

Then, of course, we got to see Anders Bjork, who proved once more he should be nowhere near an NHL rink. Bjork has been the one name missing from my projections since mid-summer, and last night, he showed why that’s the case.

While last night’s outing looked ugly, we need to remember how much inexperience we saw. It was an expansion team-equivalent lineup full of rookies and players with less than a season of NHL experience apart from two names. And thanks to Comrie’s performance in the net, this one didn’t get too out of hand.

Article Source: Observations: Eric Comrie delivers promising debut for Sabres in loss by Lance Lysowksi