The Buffalo Sabres have set themselves back at the beginning stage of another rebuild. The Jack Eichel era is over and the organization is looking to start over. This upcoming year doesn’t carry the pressure of the past three years. We’re not having conversations about playoff hockey or the consequences of another lost season.

There’s no denying what this season is. It’s a prettier looking tank season. In a sense, they’re not actively trying to lose games, but it’ll be a natural outcome of the roster they assembled. They’ve just window-dressed this talking about the development of young players. Similar to what the Toronto Maple Leafs put together in the year before winning the lottery for Auston Matthews.

One thing that we can feel comfortable about is that the Sabres are going to attempt to be entertaining this season. Don Granato wants his team to push the offense and get out in transition to generate offense. Gone should be the days of Ralph Krueger’s defensive system of low-event games.

Defensive Improvement

One of the things that I’ll be interested to see this season is if Granato’s system shows some improved results in the defensive end of the ice. In the final 28 games under Granato last season, the Sabres allowed the highest shot quality against in the league at 5 on 5, according to Evolving Wild.

Now, part of that has to do with the limited practice time when he took over as the coach. Also, his focus was clearly on getting the team to improve their offensive game from being one of the worst in the league.

I know it’s only the preseason, but the Sabres were one of the better teams in the league in shot quality against at 5 on 5. According to Natural Stat Trick, they ranked fourth in the league in expected goals against at 5 on 5 (score adjusted). We’ll see if they can continue that into the season, but it’s a strong start.

I’ll be interested to see how Granato deploys his lines throughout the season. He wasn’t afraid to put Dylan Cozens in difficult matchups last season. Is he going to continue that this year? You wouldn’t expect him to lean on Tage Thompson or Casey Mittelstadt to be that checking line center. Pairing Cozens with Anders Bjork and Drake Caggiula may indicate that’s his plan to start the season.

Rasmus Dahlin

How much this team will improve defensively will also depend on how well Henri Jokiharju and Rasmus Dahlin play as the top pair. If they struggle, there’s nobody on this roster behind them that can step up to take those minutes. It’s truly a sink or swim season for Rasmus Dahlin.

It’s the fourth year of his career and it’s time for him to put together consistency in his game. There are no more excuses. He can’t look the way he has the last two years in the first quarter or half of the season. I feel if he’s able to start strong that it’ll set the tone for the rest of his year and he’ll be that player we were expecting.

It’s not all about his defensive game this season. The 21-year-old defender needs to be an impact player at the offensive end of the ice as well. Especially when you consider the talent on the roster. He needs to big a large piece in driving play for the Sabres to have any type of success this season. His play this year may be the most important thing coming out of this campaign.

Season Expectations

Beyond Dahlin, there are not many expectations for this season. The main thing that we want to see is the development of the players that are expected to be a part of the future. We want to see Mittelstadt continue to look like a competent top-six center. Other players that we want to see continued improvement from at the NHL level include Rasmus Asplund, Arttu Ruotsalainen, and Cozens.

I feel it’s also important to see the Sabres follow through on this plan of letting the young players get ice time. We’re already going to see Ruotsalainen start the season in the press box. It’ll start to get bleak around here if Granato begins to give players such as John Hayden, Cody Eakin, and Robert Hagg ice time over some of the younger players. I’m not saying that the Sabres need to gift their youth on the roster with significant ice time. I just don’t want to see the aforementioned players getting the ice time in key situations of a game.

This organization preached development all offseason and it’s time to see it through for better or worse.

From an overall team standpoint, I’m probably more optimistic than most people. I still feel this is going to be a bottom-five team, but this isn’t going to be some historically bad club. I expected the Sabres to finish the season with roughly 73 points.

I would advise people that want to partake in this season to kick their feet back and go into it with an open mind. Understand the realistic nature of their roster and try to enjoy development moments of players that we expect to be key cogs moving forward.

Data via: Evolving Hockey and Natural Stat Trick

Photo Credit: Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images