Where Are The Sabres Going?
After a puzzling loss to Anaheim, Granato tries to explain the club’s inconsistency
Where Are The Sabres Going?The Buffalo Sabres are a talented club that scored almost 300 goals last season, but gave up just as many and fell short of making the playoffs by a single point. This season they focused their attention on being more stringent defensively and they have accomplished that goal, but it has come at the cost of their offense.
That quandary revealed itself once again against the Anaheim Ducks in a 4-3 loss at Key Bank Center on Monday. The Ducks were coming off a 9-2 drubbing at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, but responded in short order to two Buffalo goals and scored three times on Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in the latter half of the second period.
It just seems that when these Sabres play solid defensively, they cannot manage enough offense to win, and when they try to open up and trade scoring chances, they cannot play with enough care to prevent just as many the other way.
"This is a process, so they're in the process of learning (what it takes to be a playoff team).... You would hope they would have learned it, " Granato said in trying to explain his club's inconsistency. "I can remember us talking last year….you wanted me to forecast the season back then and there's too many elements throughout the league, injuries being one of them. and but there's just too many elements."
There is no doubt that injuries to key players like Tage Thompson, Mattias Samuelsson, and Jack Quinn have affected the Sabres ability to remain competitive, but their lack of progress also has to be tied to decisions made last summer regarding the roster.
"It's all about winning at the end of the day, but there's areas that were targeted that we needed to progress in. We've gotten a lot better in those areas and obviously, the numbers show (that)." Granato said. "What's not there is what we know this team and we've come to know this team has been very good at..... scoring. It's all going to come back at some point and the foundation is going to be stronger."
The belief that the scoring will come back is what Granato and GM Kevyn Adams are pinning their hopes on, but the Sabres 24-27-4 record and being 12 points behind in the Eastern Conference playoff race should provide enough evidence that changes need to be made.
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