The Buffalo Sabres season finale for the 2022-23 season is tonight. And while this season is ending, in a way, it seems like it’s just the beginning.
After a big win last night against the Ottawa Senators, the Buffalo Sabres go on the road one last time to face the Columbus Blue Jackets. And once again, we’re looking at a “meaningless game” by many standards, but for the Sabres, this outing should be anything but meaningless.
The reasoning? This team still has milestones to reach. And since they’ve beaten Ottawa to snag 89 points on the season, I thought I’d tailor the article linked above to better fit the stakes for tonight. And meaningful stakes at that.
What we’d like to see in the Buffalo Sabres 2022-23 finale
1 – Another nine-goal game
In the previous article, I stated that I wanted to see 300 goals scored on the season. Last night, Buffalo scored four of those 13 goals needed to reach 300. Now, they need to go on one last tear with nine against Columbus.
Thankfully, the last time the Sabres faced the Blue Jackets on the road, they scored nine times. The only issue is that Tage Thompson may not dress for this one, and he scroed five of those nine goals. So needless to say, this is going to be quite the challenge.
2 – 91 points on the year
The Florida Panthers finished the season with 92 points to snag the second wild card spot. And if you’re the Buffalo Sabres, you should want to get as close to that number as you can. The closest you can get is if you reach 91, which puts you one point behind them to end the year.
This would unfortunately imply that the 2-1 downer to Florida a couple weeks back ultimately decided Buffalo’s fate. But really, if you’re the youngest team in hockey and you finished just one point (and a regulation win (RW) tiebreaker) out of the wild card, that shows you how good a Buffalo Sabres team with experience is going to be.
3 – A point from Jeff Skinner, two from Alex Tuch
Looking at the team statistics, Jeff Skinner has 79 points and Alex Tuch, 78. They only need to connect twice to reach their respective 80-point marks, giving them a trio of such scorers for the season.
Further, Dylan Cozens has 67 points, so he is just three away from the 70-point mark, and Casey Mittelstadt, at 57 points, also needs three to hit 60. Jack Quinn, at 37 points, is also closing in on the 40-point mark.
Overall, the ultimate result of this season isn’t what we wanted, even if 2022-23 was all about development. But I think it’s safe to say this team developed quite well, especially if they end up finishing just one measly point, really that narrow loss to the Panthers, out of the playoffs.
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)