I forgot to post mortem the Sabres … probably because they’re the Sabres.
So, was this season the arrival of something that’s been building for a while now or was this season a very long hot streak? Hard to say, but I lean to the latter. They’ve got a lot of nice pieces and a real star in Tage Thompson. If Dahlin is going to maintain this level, then they have the star on the back end as well. Cool. They’re also paying a fair amount of money to guys like Norris, Power, Byram and McLeod and I’m never sure what they’re going to bring to the table night to night. Feels to me like they’re going to go ahead and double Tuch’s AAV to keep him and that will basically blow the budget in terms of Cap space, which is a skinny $12 million. It also feels to me like they’re pretty satisfied with themselves, based on the fact that they just extended Lind Ruff and they spent the last three days patting themselves on the back. But the Atlantic is a minefield and you can’t count on Toronto and Florida sucking forever … OK, maybe Toronto, but Florida’s gonna bounce back as soon as Barkov hits the ice again. Montreal is already good and will only get better, Detroit won’t step on that rake forever, and Ottawa might just get goaltending all season next time around. I could easily see the Sabres mostly sitting pat this summer and then going right back into the draft lottery next year. And that’s before you even get to the goaltending and the fact that you can’t count on Alex Lyon to save your butts two seasons in a row based on his established track record.
I don’t like this team and don’t like talking about this team, so I’ll leave it there. I’m unconvinced.