The Buffalo Sabres had enough talent to earn a trip to the playoffs in 2022-23, but that run fell short. In 2023-24, they have more than enough.
Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic shared that, from the platform’s fan survey in May, 97% of all fans who responded (over 1,200) stated the Buffalo Sabres would make the playoffs. Most of us reading this piece would agree with those fans, but as with all young professional sports teams, the Blue and Gold still have a few issues to work out.
One big issue that would come in the postseason is how well the Sabres will respond to the increased intensity of playoff hockey. But before we even think about the postseason, we need to look at three obstacles that could still be standing between the Sabres and the playoffs.
3 issues Buffalo Sabres must solve to reach the playoffs
1 – Penalty Kill
You can argue that nothing hurt the Buffalo Sabres more than their penalty kill last season, and it was the fifth-worst in the NHL with a 73.01% success rate. The good news, however, is that they may have found one puzzle piece for the unit this season in Peyton Krebs. Krebs received just over 51 shorthanded minutes last season, but that number will increase this year given his overall performance.
Erik Johnson and Connor Clifton will also give the Blue and Gold a massive boost they didn’t have on the unit last season. While the aforementioned trio may see some growing pains in playing together or on a pair of separate units, they should eventually come together to help build a better PK group than they had in 2022-23.
2 – Faceoffs
Faceoffs have been an ongoing issue for the Sabres, and there is no end in sight as no one in the lineup is proven at winning draws. While this won’t completely break the season if Buffalo once again struggles in the faceoff circle, there are situations when winning draws is a must. And those wins will give them a chance to squeak out a few more W’s that became L’s last season.
If the Sabres are in their own zone late with a one-point lead, for example, winning those draws is a must. A more dire scenario would be winning a late faceoff while shorthanded, so you can see why successful draws are more important than some might realize.
3 – Consistency
And finally, the Sabres need to be consistent overall if they want to reach the playoffs in April 2024. Last season, they finished on a dynamic 9-2-1 run, but between February 1st and March 21st, Buffalo went 7-12-3, which forced them to play catch-up, and it was too little, too late.
They also dipped in November, when they went 4-9-1 and embarked on a season-worst eight-game losing streak. Now, this isn’t to say the Blue and Gold won’t see rough patches in the regular season as few can remain fully consistent over an 82-game stretch.
But they also can’t look like the worst team in the NHL for a good quarter of the season either, which was the case during those seven weeks in February and most of March. Now a more experienced, albeit young hockey team, hopefully we won’t see so many dips this year.
Source: Sabres playoff roadmap: Has Kevyn Adams done enough to end Buffalo’s drought? by Matthew Fairburn, The Athletic
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)