The Buffalo Sabres are still not cutting it record-wise, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t made leaps and bounds over the past 365 days.
Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News made an interesting tweet last night regarding the Buffalo Sabres. And in just 248 characters (I think that’s the max), he practically summed up just how far the Blue and Gold have come since last December. Check it out below:
A year ago, Rasmus Dahlin was just beginning his breakthrough. Mattias Samuelsson and Owen Power weren't in the NHL yet. Neither were Quinn and Peterka. Cozens was still learning how to create offense. Tage Thompson wasn't a superstar.
— Lance Lysowski (@LLysowski) December 5, 2022
Significant progress.
Not only does this tweet show us how far the team has come, but it also drives home just how young this team is, given the average age of the aforementioned players is 21.8. So let’s go back to December 2021 and relive where each of them were, starting with Rasmus Dahlin.
Buffalo Sabres have come a long way in just 365 days
Rasmus Dahlin
Dahlin has 29 points in 24 games in 2022, but his highlight of the season had to have come on that monstrous hit against San Jose that shows he is, at the end of he day, a defenseman. And we’ll get to those defensive stats in a moment. But this time last season, Dahlin had 15 points in 23 games, 18 blocks, and 32 hits. Not bad statistics, but this year, his block count resides at 42 and his body check count sits at 40.
Mattias Samuelsson, Jack Quinn, J.J. Peterka
Three players, all of whom played in the AHL last season. Quinn and Peterka made cameo appearances last year, and Samuelsson didn’t play regularly in the NHL until January 17th. In December 2022, Quinn and Peterka make up the dangerous Kid Line, while Samuelsson often finds himself on the top pairing with Dahlin.
Owen Power
Power was busy traveling the world last year, and was impressing the Buffalo Sabres faithful at the University of Michigan while simultaneously prepping for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. He made a decent cameo last April before embarking on what has been an up and down, but mostly up, rookie campaign, with 10 points in 25 games and a solid 30 blocks on the season.
Dylan Cozens
Speaking of up and down performances, perhaps no one experienced one more than Dylan Cozens. He knocked down 14 points in 24 games by December 2021, a far cry from the 24 in 25 so far this season. Cozens has also solidified himself into a leader, despite his young age, and currently centers that tenacious trio also known as the Kid Line, or the Fun Line.
Tage Thompson
And finally, we got Tage Thompson, whose 34 points in 25 games has him on pace to knock down 112 this season. Last year, Tage had just 14 in 24 contests. Hard to believe that he was basically an afterthought if you go back to September 2021.
On any given night, an NHL team must dress 18 skaters – 12 forwards and six defensemen. When you do the math, seven of their 18 regulars are mentioned in that tweet. Want more fun? Alex Tuch didn’t debut for the Blue and Gold until later that month, so when you think about it, that’s eight players relevant to the regular lineup who had, at most, marginal relevance this time last year.
And since then, the Buffalo Sabres have become one of the NHL’s top scoring teams. Sure, there is a lot of work to be done, but if they keep this pace going, what will they look like in December 2023? I got three words for you: Trust The Process.
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)
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