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.