No guarantees Peyton Krebs will work his way into a full-time role with the Sabres

Something has got to give with the Buffalo Sabres because even if they didn’t manage to re-sign Peyton Krebs to a two-year deal, it wasn’t like they needed him to play full-time in the City of Good Neighbors this season. With a revamped bottom-six and an incredible fourth line, you can argue that Krebs is nothing more than a symbol of the “old guard” despite his age. 

An “old guard” that, on paper, could include just Jordan Greenway should Zach Benson move into a top-six role. This would leave Jason Zucker, Ryan McLeod, Sam Lafferty, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, and Beck Malenstyn as the Blue and Gold’s bottom-six, and if you didn’t yet notice by counting those listed above, there is no guaranteed spot for Krebs. 

Now, Krebs is way too good of a player to assign to Rochester, and I highly doubt they would reassign Benson (their youngest player) after the way he figured things out late last year - from a scoring standpoint. This means Krebs could be the 13th forward on a team that could only roll with 13 should they keep three goalies with the big club.   

Peyton Krebs will be fighting to attain a full-time role with the Sabres

While Peyton Krebs was one of the Sabres most physical players last season, and it said a lot, considering how unphysical they were at times, these days, it says little. Why? With Zucker, McLeod, Lafferty, Aube-Kubel, and Malenstyn joining the team, Krebs is nowhere near the team’s hardest hitter coming into the season. 

He’s never established himself as a scorer, and Krebs has generally struggled to create any traction offensively since his encouraging 2021-22 campaign, in which he saw plenty of minutes after coming to Buffalo from Vegas. Krebs isn’t bad defensively, and that’s been a hallmark of his game over the past two seasons and one the Sabres needed, but he has competition there, too. 

Overall, Krebs returns to Buffalo, but he’s clearly a player on the outside and looking in, and he’ll need an encouraging camp and preseason to avoid being an extra in the Sabres lineup this season. Still, he’s a former first-round pick, so there’s always a chance he will pick up his game and transform into the player Buffalo thought it was getting. 

But right now, I’m not holding out hope that Krebs will be anything more than a full-timer on the fourth line of a bad bottom-six. On paper, the Sabres no longer have a poor bottom-six, so if Krebs isn’t sitting in the press box come October, know that he’s earned a spot on most likely the fourth line.