3 key areas the Buffalo Sabres must improve to climb another rung
The last two weeks haven’t been easy if you’re a Buffalo Sabres fan. But believe it or not, a lot of good has come out of this 1-5-1 stretch.
In a way, the Buffalo Sabres dealt their fans another hand of fools gold. They held a playoff spot in late February, only to watch their chances derail in March.
Recently, I stated the Sabres climbed a rung because they at least got to the point where they played meaningful games in March. At least for a week, but still, it’s more than what they’ve done over the past few seasons.
Progress, to say the least, even if some who started following the team back in January claim otherwise. Or those who forgot it was a developmental year, at the end of the day…or season.
But as I was saying, a lot of good has come from this 1-5-1 stretch, because now the Sabres know exactly what they need to work on if they want to take that next step. So what is that next step? I’m not going to talk about improving any area of the roster, since that’s a given and it would be pointless to write about.
We know the defense, despite looking good last night, and goaltending need to get better, and it will during the offseason. Instead, I want to talk about three topics that might be more obscure to some fans.
3 key areas the Buffalo Sabres must improve on
1 – Playing all 60 minutes
This one might be a given to most fans who’ve followed the team all season. How many games can you point to when the Buffalo Sabres played somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes? Plenty, right?
And to make matters worse, many were games they could have won had they just played sound hockey for all three frames. In Saturday’s loss to the New York Rangers, Buffalo outplayed one of the NHL’s better teams for 50 minutes. Now, they need to take that one step higher, and play in all 60 minutes from here on out.
2 – Win some home games
Yesterday, I conducted a poll to see if the fans thought the Buffalo Sabres would switch to their Goatheads permanently if they continued to win in them. While many of us think they should do this, it was a resounding, and predictable, NO, they won’t.
Quite frankly, it’s a mere coincidence that they’re 8-1-1 when wearing the Goatheads as opposed to 5-17-2 when wearing the Crossed Swords or Reverse Retro. But the Sabres, to take that next step, need to start winning at home regardless of what uniform they’re wearing.
This season, it seemed like the Blue and Gold were trying too hard to impress those fans that showed up to KeyBank Center. If they adopt the same mentality they’ve used on the road, and that mentality will come in time, Buffalo will improve in this category. Expect it to happen as they gain more experience playing as a unit.
3 – Don’t let an injury get you down
It’s no coincidence that the Buffalo Sabres struggles started with Alex Tuch went down. They’ve won two of their last eight contests following Tuch’s lower-body injury suffered following Buffalo’s win over the Florida Panthers a few weeks back.
Since then, the Sabres bought at the trade deadline with the physical Riley Stillman and Jordan Greenway coming in and playing well. But really, nobody he could have traded for would have replaced Tuch. Nope, not even Timo Meier, who is currently playing in Jersey.
But if the Sabres want to climb that next rung and play meaningful games throughout crunch time, they have got to play better even in lieu of an injury to one of their stars. Even if you can’t truly replace them, you need to be better than the 2-5-1 team they’ve been since Tuch started missing time.
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If multiple stars go down, it’s a different story. But when it’s just one player, even one of Tuch’s caliber, they need to at least find ways to circumvent things. They didn’t do that, and it’s why their playoff hopes are all but gone.
Source: Mike Harrington: After a tough-luck effort, it feels like Sabres’ playoff chase is toast by Mike Harrington, BuffaloNews.com.