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A tough loss to the Arizona Coyotes Saturday night brought the Buffalo Sabres losing streak up to three games and effectively crushed any small playoff hopes the fan base may have had. With 17 games left in the season, many fans will turn their attention to the bottom of the standings to see if the Sabres will spiral further down, improving their draft lottery odds.
(nhl.com)
Schedule strength obviously plays a big factor here but it’s not crazy to suggest that the Sabres could fall to as low as 27th, and that’s even with Jack Eichel still in the lineup. The star centre is clearly nursing some kind of lingering injury and you have to think if it’s as serious as it looks the best course of action may be shutting him down for the season.
The Sabres don’t really need another tank. Sure, a high draft pick certainly helps, but all of their current problems stem from an inability to find value, make tough decisions about the current roster, and take risks to help take that step forward. Carter Hutton has recently seen quite the improvement in his performance, but through the first half of the season Hutton posted a goals saved above average in the bottom 20 among qualified goalies (min 700 minutes) despite receiving the 10th lowest XG against. Zach Bogosian appeared in 18 games between the start of the regular season and the start of February and was in the bottom 25% in both XGF and XGA per 60 minutes.
(all data from naturalstattrick.com)
Neither one of these short comings is a result of not having enough high picks and upgrades at both of these positions, bottom pair defenceman and back-up goalie, likely keep the Sabres in the playoff conversation, the kind that isn’t based on a 2.7% chance of making it.
Those minor moves would have kept the Sabres in the conversation, but shouldn’t lead to overlooking some of the glaring bigger problems the lineup has. The home and away record is very telling about the Sabres depth, or lack thereof.
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(wikipedia)
They’re almost exact opposites home and away and frankly that makes quite a bit of sense. The Sabres are essentially and two-line, two pair team and when they get last change at home, they can make this work for them. Larsson’s line gets the tough defensive matchups, with Henri Jokiharju (who has recently taken over the “Rasmus Ristolainen” role of heavy defensive usage) and Jake McCabe. Eichel’s line gets all the offensive minutes it can handle, with Rasmus Dahlin and Colin Miller.
When the Sabres can control this, it works out for them. However, when they’re on the road, not having last change can result in a bit of a mix up and the wrong guys end up getting stuck out there. Unless the Sabres can go 41-0 at home, they’re likely better off trying to address depth issues, mainly the 2nd line, so that they don’t continue operating as something of a matchup nightmare in both extremes.
With nothing left to play for other than pride, the Sabres should be looking to do as much internal tinkering with their lineup as possible. All of the potential experimenting, like Sam Reinhart at centre, that was once too big a risk to take should be explored. If nothing else, the Sabres should be using this time to throw different players in different situations to see what they really have in the organization moving forward, so they can determine what they really need in the off-season.
Thanks for reading!
Buffalo Sabres Blogger • 
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