Buffalo’s Top-Rated Prospect Pool Has To Be Used To Upgrade Current Roster
If you look at most of the contending teams in the NHL, they are an assemblage of talent from a variety of different avenues. They are not solely a product of drafting franchise cornerstones high in the first round, they also need to develop secondary players to play support roles in the organization, and the clubs also have to have the ability to add the missing pieces of the puzzle in unrestricted free agency or in trades.
The Buffalo Sabres have been able to add top-end talent over the last decade (Cup winners Jack Eichel and Ryan O’Reilly, wingers Evander Kane, and Sam Reinhart, defensemen Rasmus Ristolainen, Brandon Montour, Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark) and current core (Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Dylan Cozens, Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen) and have not been able to make the playoffs.
The organization was unable to put together a completely cohesive roster around Eichel, O’Reilly and Reinhart, all who forced their way out of Buffalo. The current group missed the playoffs by one point last season, and instead of being bold and making additions last summer that could’ve improved the club enough to snap their 12-year playoff skid, Sabres GM Kevyn Adams brought back the same club with a few secondary additions and hoped that the maturation of their young players would be enough to get them over the hump.
That calculation resulted in Buffalo’s playoff drought being extended to 13 years.
“We have to get better, we just have to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” Dahlin said after the 3-2 loss to Dallas on Tuesday eliminated them from the playoffs. “We’re a young team and that shouldn’t be an excuse anymore. We are looking (at) ourselves in the mirror and we have to be better, so this is something we have to learn from this season and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Adams will face a higher level of scrutiny after the season about the decisions he did not make. The Sabres have a solid group of players and a deep prospect pool, but there are clearly pieces missing that are preventing Buffalo from making the playoffs and there will now be even more pressure on the organization to move some of the future assets for a little help in the present.
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