Former team captain did not feel confident about the club after their slow start
Former Buffalo Sabres team captain Kyle Okposo has a chance to advance further than he has in his NHL career on Tuesday if the Florida Panthers beat the Boston Bruins in Game 5 to advance to the Eastern Conference Final.
The 35-year-old winger spent almost eight years with the Sabres, and the only time the club realistically came close to making the postseason was in 2023 when they finished one point behind the Panthers for the final wildcard spot. Buffalo brought back essentially the same squad back to start this season, but things just did not seem to fall in place as they had the previous campaign.
“I think I'm a pretty objective person, so when you looked at the year that we had this year in Buffalo objectively, there wasn't really the proof that we were the same team that we were the year before. We just weren't." Okposo said to NHL'com's Tom Gulitti. "We weren't playing like it. We weren't playing well in stretches. So, could we squeak into the playoffs with a miraculous run at the end? Maybe, but it probably wasn't going to happen. So I had to make a decision and as much as you want to stay, and you want to push and fight with those guys, I think you kind of see the writing on the wall."
Okposo struggled to start the year in Buffalo, going scoreless until after Thanksgiving, but ended up with 12 goals in 61 games before being dealt to Florida at the deadline for minor league defenseman Calle Sjalin and a conditional seventh-round pick. The veteran forward has been relegated to the Panthers fourth line, but he has made his presence felt, with two assists in seven games and assisting on Aleksander Barkov’s game-winning goal in Game 4 on Sunday.
"I knew the situation going into it," Okposo said. "(The Panthers) were very upfront with me about playing. I just said, 'I'm going to do whatever the team needs me to do.' I've always been confident in myself and what I can bring and the game that I still feel like I have, but it's the playoffs. You're going to go when your number is called."
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