The Buffalo Sabres 2022-23 season ended on a high note, as they defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2, giving them their highest points total in 12 years.
The Buffalo Sabres 2023-24 season begins today. And while the team is busy taking a six month break between regular season contests, this is the time of the year when improvements are made for Buffalo and those 16 teams who fell short of the playoffs to reach that elusive postseason.
For some of those 16 teams, they find themselves in the same position the Sabres were in just two seasons ago. A position where they will contend for the first overall pick, which will land them a franchise player in Connor Bedard.
Other teams, like the Pittsburgh Penguins, are steadily on the decline. And chances are, such aging teams probably won’t find their way back to the postseason for the foreseeable future.
Finally, you got teams like the Sabres, who are so close to the playoffs that they are just one or two moves away from getting there. And they are also in that cluster of teams that fans will expect nothing less than a postseason berth in 2023-24.
Expectations and narratives have changed regarding the Buffalo Sabres
This time two seasons ago, the Sabres were the worst team in hockey, and it wasn’t even close. To put things into perspective, Victor Olofsson finished second on the team with 32 points, Tage Thompson was a relative unknown, and the narrative surrounding Jeff Skinner wasn’t good.
No one knew much about Dylan Cozens, Rasmus Dahlin was underachieving, and some kid named Mattias Samuelsson got his first taste of NHL action. Inheriting this mess was none other than Don Granato, who took over for Ralph Krueger, who many fans feel is the worst coach in franchise history.
In 2021-22, the Sabres got off to a hot start in October, only to slog through November, December, January, and February. Buffalo got it together in March and April, and it foreshadowed what was to come in 2022-23 following the 16-9-3 (35 point) stretch.
That year, Tage Thompson broke out, Jeff Skinner and Rasmus Dahlin got it together, Alex Tuch came over in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights, Dylan Cozens showed flashes, as did Mattias Samuelsson. Suddenly, the Sabres looked pretty good, but analysts still thought they’d do nothing in 2022-23.
Those anlysts were wrong. And while the Blue and Gold technically went “nowhere” this past season, they were one win away from snagging a playoff spot, which shows you how far they’ve come since that ill-fated 2020-21 campaign.
Their 91 points was 16 more than the previous season, and their 296 goals scored ranked third in hockey. Buffalo won over 50% of their games, going 42-33-7 to cap off their most successful season since 2010-11, which was also the last year they saw the playoffs.
Over the past three years, the Buffalo Sabres have been climbing rungs. And everyone on this team knows that elusive playoff rung is next. So this season, which again, begins today (even if the new league year technically doesn’t begin for a couple of months), it’s playoffs or bust.
But if you ask me to make a prediction, I’m saying that this time next year, Buffalo will have an ‘x,’ as opposed to an ‘e,’ beside their name.
Source: A promising season over, Sabres shift focus to next step: ‘Playoffs is the expectation’ by Lance Lysowski, BuffaloNews.com
(Data provided by Hockey-Reference)