The Buffalo Sabres continue to go on a downward spiral. So let’s blow off some steam regarding their lackluster November.
Unfortunately and to no one’s surprise, the Buffalo Sabres are back to being a bad team in the month of November. After defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins on November 2nd, the team has gone on to lost eight straight games, last night against the Toronto Maple Leafs being the most recent loss.
This article has been days and weeks in the making and I can’t hold it off any longer. I don’t like to do this in my articles but I’m going to write this article as a fan. It’s been 18 long days since the Sabres have won a hockey game. But if you ask Sabres fans like me, 18 days feels like an eternity.
Remember when fans, including me, thought the team was going to build off from an impressive second half of last season? Well they started out well in October as they went 6-3-0. But after the Penguins game, they look like the Sabres of old.
And to be honest with you, I can’t explain this “Start off good in October then fall on their face in November” act. We thought it was coaching with Phil Housley and Ralph Krueger. But now, Don Granato is experiencing this act with him being the bench boss.
What is causing the Buffalo Sabres issues?
It’s not the goaltending, because even though each goalie has had bad moments, each netminder has done a good job for the Sabres. There’s two sides who deserve the blame. Buffalo’s defense has been awful. Even with the team starting to get healthy, the Sabres blue line is looking bad.
Turnovers, allowing odd man rushes and tons of breakaways. They have not been helping whoever is in net. And let me tell you something, Mattias Samuelsson is a big hitter, but he is not going to be the one who fixes it. Even though he’s a huge part of Buffalo’s back end, he’s not going to be the solution to the Sabres defensive struggles.
General manager Kevyn Adams needs to find a solid defenseman to help out the defense because right now, the current roster is not going to be good enough. I get it, the Sabres are a very young team. But you should not be able to go 7-3-0 in your first 10 games and then lose eight straight.
I knew they would come back down to Earth a little bit but this is ridiculous. Look, every team is going to go through adversity and right now, this is that period of time for the Sabres. I know they are still young but they do not look like the same team we saw in the second half of last season, and in October.
The other main issue, the lack of offense. This is just like when the Sabres had Jack Eichel. Where Buffalo only had one player scoring all their goals but instead of Eichel, that one player is Tage Thompson. Obviously other players are scoring here and there but if you want to win games in this league and want to beat teams within a great division, you need more than one player scoring.
The team claimed Tyson Jost off of waivers from the Minnesota Wild. The 24-year-old has three assists in 12 games played and even though his numbers are not that impressive, this fresh start could be good for him. Now I’m not sure if he’ll spark the Buffalo Sabres offense but everyone needs to step their game up.
This team needs a spark and they need it now. Even though it’s been very frustrating, there is some hope. Despite losing eight games in a row and having a record of 7-11-0, they are only six points out of a playoff spot.
It’s infuriating but if they can just find a way to snap this losing streak, I think they can get back on track. They just need that one win to get over this hump and then they can take a sigh of relief and get things going again.