Well June was a fun month, no? Took a trip to Alaska, watched some summer lacrosse, managed to spend minimal time on social media. It was lovely.

Hang on I’m getting a message. What? The Sabres discourse online only got worse? And only one days worth of it was about the Panthers winning the cup? Sounds like I should go back to Alaska amirite? (Okay fine bit over)

Let’s cut right to the chase. There are still over three months until the Sabres open the 2024-25 NHL Season. Things could change drastically the instant I put this out, during next week’s never ending fireworks, or a random Thursday in August.

Or it could not.

But regardless of if they go with a 4th line stud, 3rd line play driver, vet presence on the blue line, top-6 splash, or a line-moving of the next tier of prospects filling in the holes, the Buffalo Sabres’s playoff chances are in the hands of the Core bouncing back from a relatively Down Year.

Just When You Thought Last Season Wasn’t Anymore Frustrating Already

According the Evolving-Hockey (tables below), in the 17 years of the “modern” data era (07-08), the 23-24 Sabres 5v5 results with goal share were the second best during that span, only being eclipsed by the 10-11 Sabres who made the playoffs. They even had 3.21% better GF% than the 22-23 team. You’ll notice that between the 23-24 and 22-23 teams are the other three seasons between Briere and Drury and that final playoff appearance. After all the frustration and poor results that led to the drop off from 91 to 84 points, they had the best 5v5 results of the drought. Not even expected goals. They had the best fraction of goals scored at 5-on-5 of the last 13 seasons.

NOW, their expected goal shot share did indeed drop 1.45% and was 7th in the drought team rankings (where 22-23 was the best — telling that a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in 13 yeas hasn’t eclipsed half the expected 5-on-5 goals). But knowing the powerplay ineptitude and series of nonsense that took place over parts of last season, saying that the current state of the team is the darkest it’s been in the drought is simply not true.

Season	GF/60	GA/60	xGF/60	xGA/60	CF/60	CA/60
2022-23	2.96 (1st)	3.08 (13th)	2.77 (1st)	2.90 (13th)	56.96 (2nd)	53.94 (2nd)
2023-24	2.62 (2nd)	2.39 (5th)	2.48 (2nd)	2.75 (12th)	58.22 (1st)	58.12 (9th)

And if you want to get angrier about how stupid the NHL’s results can be, the 2023-24 Washington Capitals, who found themselves in the WC2 spot in the playoffs for the 15th time in the 17 seasons since 2007-08, had their worst 5-on-5 GF% of the last 17 years by over 2 percentage points at 44.86, with results in between the 2018-19 and 2016-17 Sabres.

Of all the drought seasons, the frustration of the context of missing the playoffs felt like salt in the wound with what it took to make the playoffs this season compared to 2022-23.

This trip down recent memory lane isn’t to make you, reader, more angry, but to provide context to what the goal is for building a playoff team because it’s truly not as close as .

The New Top Line

With Jeff Skinner’s Sabres tenure officially coming to an end before July 1, the Sabres will need to work towards a new full time partner for Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch (unless even that changes with the new coaching staff as well).

The biggest takeaway from looking through Micah’s synthetic goals is that despite the injuries hurting his shooting talent, Tage Thompson showed that he can still perform as a top center despite down years from his linemates. Finances aside, the Skinner buyout represents escaping the aging curve before it’s too late in a make-or-break season. With Tuch’s defense dropping off from 22-23 to 23-24 as well independently of Tage’s improving substantially, there is room to balance out the risk of a Tuch continued drop off with a new member of the top line.

I’d imaging that there will be some experimenting in the preseason with open auditions. If a definitive top line is something that Lindy Ruff would like to open the season with, JJ Peterka is the favorite and probably the deserving frontrunner after a phenomenal leap in his age 22 season.

The “winner” of that role could very much come down to what else happens this offseason, so let’s move on.

Is That A Beer At The Kids Table?

Like your family’s Thanksgiving, where the kids table is getting older but remains in tact because the adult table stays loaded with the usual relatives, Dylan Cozens, JJ Peterka, and Jack Quinn remain the Sabres kids table until the next wave of kids makes their way to the lineup full time, and yes while Peterka had a fantastic season, it was a year to forget for his fellow linemates.

Quinn still managed to make it into 27 games despite two major injuries after appearing in 75 games in 2022-23, and finished with the third best offensive shot quality on the team during that stretch, and despite the documented challenges finding the back of the net, Cozens was fourth.

If a down Cozens year is 18 goals, getting back to 20 or even 25 goals is a good start in the hypothetical department of “replacing Skinner’s goals” (Which, despite how Brad Pitt described it, isn’t necessarily how it works, especially in hockey compared to baseball). Continuing to get his heaviest shot volume net-front with a clear slate of confidence should be the biggest contributing factor to that bounce back.

The other noticeable drop off in Cozens’s stat line came in the drop from 16 secondary assists in 22-23 to 7 in 23-24. While those are considered to be noisy from game to game, players who are driving play over time will be more likely to accrue more of them with quality play leading to scoring chances and then goals. But with any of the Sabres top 6 and a third liner or two, there’s still one major point-producing context that itself should make up for a lot of the previous season’s woes putting the puck in the net.

Recharging The Powerplay

This is all about the top right chart but the rest of the context really pushes the point home that the Sabres powerplay in 23-24 was in no way, shape, or form reflective of their objectives on offense at even strength. The abyss in the front of the net has been a staple for Sabres powerplays for years now, with their last positive xGF/60 season on the powerplay on Micah’s charts coming back in 2018-19 and then the last non-purple net front coming all the way back in 2016-17, when they capitalized on the man advantage at a 24.5% clip.

While Seth Appert’s powerplays in Rochester the previous three seasons have featured their fair share of faceoff circle laser goals from the likes of Quinn, Peterka, and Kulich, it also featured some creative looks around the net with Brett Murray and Michael Mersch that had success as well. With the understanding that he will have a big say in the new regime’s powerplay, this could be really big for Cozens and also a way to mix some different looks in for Tage, as opposed to the static look teams were overprepared to defend last season. And not for nothing, not trying to force feed Jeff Skinner powerplay time this season will also allow for some different looks alone.

Which brings us back to the replacements.

Are The Kids Ready?

As the roster remains up for grabs, Matthew Savoie, Jiri Kulich, and Isak Rosen could all earn opening night roster spots. While there has been a pattern of some people around the league suggesting that they could be comfortable with letting their prospects continue to cook, are we sure that’s the optimal decision? If there’s a concern over their defense, wouldn’t the Skinner opening be the one to take advantage of this? Especially with the perception there is about Kulich, where the limited stat body of work and non-highlight video is starting to chance perceptions of him from his first round pedigree to another Victor Olofsson one-dimensional player. There was some of that with 2021-22 Jack Quinn too and then he fit in just fine in 2022-23. While Kulich is still only 20, as with Matthew Savoie, the road to the playoffs is going to take a higher ceiling than a higher floor, and starting out with a fresh rookie getting their chance if they earn it out of camp.

Now keep in mind that I do say that without the context of other moves being made. I presented this to our Discord to see all three of them in the lineup with my own eyes and something about an even younger kids line for a third or fourth line (depending on where you slot Krebs, Greenway, and/or Malenstyn), and while a better top line option with a longer track record is still the goal heading into July 1 and beyond, finding two bottom six guys that make the roster a Top 9 instead of a Top 6 would also help to limit the possibilities for variance.

As for the rest of the forward group before moves, Zach Benson’s growth in year 2 along with Peyton Krebs still getting better despite a definitive player profile should also help the team get better regardless of the rest of the roster, and if you get the rest of the offseason stable in the forward group, it will help play Jordan Greenway and Beck Malenstyn in an optimal role for their skillsets.

Same Goes In The Back

As a better season for the returning forward core will go miles towards the Sabres making a playoff run regardless of the remaining moves that could / could not happen, the returning defensemen all need to have better seasons. Of course for Rasmus Dahlin, he wasn’t in any way bad in 2023-24, but can you imagine what could’ve been different if his offensive results matched the expectations of the shot quality? Going into his third full NHL season, Owen Power’s defense should continue to approve as well simply from the increased experience in the league.

When NHL writers sit down to do their team-by-team season previews this fall, they will almost all regard Bowen Byram as their X-Factor both because of the context of a tough season last year and also because of how he joined the team. Like Dahlin, Byram’s 2023-24 saw the offensive results lagging far behind the expectations, but the difference between them was that Byram’s defensive expectations and results were both objectively bad enough to have him hovering only slightly above replacement level. The full offseason and full training camp entering the new coaching era should help him start in a better place with the team than he did coming in at the deadline into a lame duck coaching staff, so I’d personally expect he has a better year, but regardless of my opinion, he has to be significantly better this year to the same extent of Dylan Cozens in the forward group.

If Cozens and Byram pair up in needing to have better on-ice seasons, Mattias Samuelsson’s injury shortened season can be matched up with Jack Quinn’s — although it’s fair to say Quinn’s season was definitively better than Samuelsson’s (even though saying his season was bad is kind of a stretch as well). His “figure it out!” plea comes in front of the net, where the goal reel showed teams taking advantage of catching him with his back turned 10-15 degrees too far to be able to adjust to a back door pass or a rebounder.

Outside of those goals, there wasn’t too much of a shot volume in front of the net, so accounting for those extra goals could help Samuelsson take another step forward in his Age 25 season. We’ll see what Lindy Ruff has in store for him in this new regime. The same goes for Connor Clifton, who would be the first to tell you that he wished for better results in his first season in Buffalo, but if the Top 4 remains consistent, he would be back in the third pair as he was in Boston when he was building the profile that led to him getting signed to the Sabres in the first place a year ago.

Are You Really Not Going To Talk About The Goaltending?

Correct. Building an 18 player opening night roster should be done without the context of expectations for the goaltending — the goal should be to outplay the goaltending on both sides and let the results follow over 82 games.

Plus we have all summer and fall to try and figure out the Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen traits that suggest continued strong play vs potential regression and how big of a jump Devon Levi could take from year 1 to year 2 if they don’t pursue another veteran goalie to keep him in Rochester for the start of the new season.

Conclusion: Dueling Sub-Contexts Bring Us Into 2024-25

If we were 3, 4, even 5 years removed from the last Buffalo Sabres playoff appearance, there would certainly be pressure to make the playoffs this season simply off the turnover that the Stanley Cup Playoff field sees year-over-year, but with this (sigh) youngest roster in the NHL with a heavy-volume of a prospect pool, there would be a little bit more leniency when it comes to the expectations for the upcoming season (if that was the case, it would be a lot easier to say “it’s going to all come together eventually simply off the year-over-year aging and chances they have for hitting draft picks”). But it’s 13 years, and this regime had to take on the context of 9 years before committing to this build knowing that at least 2 or 3 of the years were going to be relatively bleak (especially after the 2021 season went worse than anyone could have imagined). These are the terms they’ve been dealt and the context of last season’s step back only heightens the demand to be in the playoffs in addition to being better than the last 13 Sabres teams, aiming for that 96 point mark that the 10-11 Sabres made the playoffs with.

It’s right to aim for as many plus moves as possible in the next two months to fully optimize the roster, but if the returning roster doesn’t play better with whoever joins them on opening night, perhaps it’s not a core that can be expe——actually I’m going to stop there because I’d rather not think about that.

(Photo Credit: George Walker IV, Associated Press)