It's taken a few weeks, but the Buffalo Sabres have gotten rid of the stench left by former head coach Ralph Krueger. The defensive, systemic load that Krueger shoveled for the entirety of his 97 games as Buffalo's bench boss has been sent to the incinerator of extreme ineptitude and has been replaced by a refreshing dose of speed and puck control with an emphasis on driving play and creating offense.
And Sabreland couldn't be happier.
Yes, they'll miss the playoffs for the 10th straight season, thus tying a record for National Hockey League futility but they're sure looking good right now. Perhaps it's the fact that there's absolutely no pressure on this team as they play out the season. Perhaps it was so bad under Krueger that there was no where to go but up. Perhaps the players brought in by the prior two general managers really are talented and have finally begun to grow into themselves.
A strong argument could be made that it's a combination of all the above but there's no argument as to where this club stands as they finish out the 2020-21 Covid-19 shortened season. They're simply playing great hockey right now and they even played a little out of character the other night in Boston. With the Bruins using their typical bully tactics, this finesse-filled Sabres squad finally had enough of what the B's were dishing out and stood up for themselves. Sure it was ugly from a pugilist standpoint as both Matt Irwin and Tage Thompson literally and figuratively took one (or two or three in the case of Thompson) on the chin for the team in two separate bouts, but from the time Thompson got up off the ice and took a seat in the penalty box for five minutes, things changed. The Bruins dialed back the bully stuff as the Sabres showed it wouldn't work and the Buffalo started to play their speed game with little regard as to what Boston could do to them physically. The Sabres took the game to the extra sessions on a third period goal by defenseman Rasmus Dahlin and got a point out of the deal but maybe more importantly they might have found a collective intestinal fortitude in what seemed like a playoff-like atmosphere.
"I haven't been in the playoffs," said Dahlin after he was asked if the Boston game was the most physical game they'd played in all year, "but it didn't feel like a regular season game." Dahlin was credited with a game-high seven of Buffalo's 27 hits against the Bruins, a team they'll be playing five more times in the final 11 games. When asked if he was looking forward to that he replied, "For sure. It's fun to play like this [where] every battle means something. We all enjoy playing this game."
Other than franchise center Jack Eichel, the just turned 21 yr. old Dahlin may be the most important piece of the young core moving forward. Eichel was sidelined with a herniated disk in his neck after a March 7 game on Long Island against the NY Islanders and is lost for the season and while others have stepped up, Dahlin's game from the back-end has really taken off.
Kreuger was fired on March 17 with his club in a hellacious 0-10-2 drought where they managed a total of 16 goals-for. Why it took so long to fire the head coach of a team that totally quit on their coach remains a bit of a question but it took another six games for the players to transition away from Krueger to interim head coach Don Granato, who was an assistant. In going from Krueger to Granato it must have been like Catholic kids going from a staunch task-master hell-bent on hammering home guilt and depravation to a public school of open thought--freedom!
The Sabres would end up losing their first five games in regulation post-Krueger but took a 3-0 lead into the third period versus the Philadelphia Flyers at home ready to end the streak. Perhaps it was a case of a team not accustomed to having a lead, much less a three-goal lead, that late in the game, but they lost in overtime to set the futility mark of 18 games without a win in the salary cap era. Buffalo managed three goals or more only twice in the previous 16 games, one of them being against the Flyers where they led by a goal heading into the third period but lost in overtime.
It was a heartbreaker but from then on they've been playing excellent hockey despite missing Eichel and Linus Ullmark their top goalie. Ullmark was out of the lineup for 16 of those 18 winless games and was 4-2-1 post-streak before leaving in the first period of the Boston game on Tuesday night. The importance of Ullmark shouldn't be understated as up until that Bruins game, Buffalo's backup goalies managed to record exactly one win as Carter Hutton was in net for a 6-1 win over the Flyers on January 18, the third game of the season.
If Ullmark was this young group's security blanket, then they would soon find out what life would be like without him. Rumors had him as a possible trade chip at the April 12 trade deadline but those rumors were quashed as word came that the two sides would be working towards an extension for the pending unrestricted free agent. What said extension would look like was up for debate in Sabreland but short-term, this team needed him if they wanted to see progress over the course of the final four weeks. Ullmark left the Boston game after playing 4 minutes, 54 seconds in goal. Back up Dustin Tokharski, who hadn't won an NHL game since December 12, 2015 played well in relief of that shootout loss and would get that elusive win two days later as the Sabres stunned the Washington Capitals with a 5-2 win.
The Capitals game (along with the prior Bruins one) could very well be a benchmark for this new group of Sabres. The Caps were coming off of back-to-back drubbings of Boston (8-1) and Philadelphia (6-1) and were honoring center Niklas Backstrom's 1000th game but the Sabres were the better team, by far, as they controlled play much of the game and got goals from five different players in the win.
It's a big step for this young group of players. At 25 yrs. old, Sam Reinhart and Victor Olofsson were the oldest players to score for Buffalo against Washington. The others were Casey Mittelstadt (22 yrs. old,) who scored shorthanded, recently acquired winger Anders Bjork (24) and Thompson (23.) In addition to the offense provided, the Sabres featured a pair of 21 yr. old defenseman in Dahlin and Jokiharju on the blueline. The duo has been paired for a number of games and in the last two they've logged over 18 minutes of even strength ice time each and have helped shut down some of the finest players in the league including Boston's Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak (zero points amongst them) and Washington's Alexander Ovechkin, Backstrom, TJ Oshie and Evgeny Kuznetsov (two assists total.)
The youngins are really starting to come around under the guidance of Granato and his coaching staff and are playing with a ton of confidence. In the past 10 games dating back to the last game of their 18-game winless streak, Mittelstadt leads the team in goals (six) and points (8,) Thompson (4+2,) Reinhart (3+3) and Dahlin (2+4) have six points each while Jokiharju has five (2+3.) Rookie forward Rasmus Asplund, who is on the left wing of the Mittelstadt/Thompson line also has five points (3+2) in the eight games he's played since returning to the lineup after an injury. None of the players have a negative plus/minus rating save for Reinhart (-1) while Dahlin stands at even despite logging the second-most average time on ice behind defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen who, by the way, has a team-high plus-9 rating to go along with his team-high 23:39 ATOI during that span.
Also we would be remiss if we didn't mention the play of Ristolainen's partner, Jacob Bryson who's accounted for four assists while playing in nine of the last 10 games and is second to Ristolainen with a plus-7 rating. The 23 yr. old rookie is third behind Dahlin and Risto with 20:10 ATOI while leading the team with an average of 2 minutes, 58 seconds on the penalty kill.
When all's said and done, putting a 24 yr. old Jack Eichel on top of this group of young players makes for a very interesting group of skaters moving forward. It's a team with a lot of speed and puck-handling skills, of which Eichel has plenty and then some. Finish is still a bit of a problem right now (as it's been for a while,) but the more they continue to skate and create opportunities, the better the odds they finish the plays they're creating.
For how great it is to watch this team play the game with youthful exuberance and speed to finish out the season, moving forward there are still plenty of questions to be answered. Is this run under Granato a mirage or is he really a head coach worth retaining on a permanent basis? What will come of Ullmark, an important piece who had the Sabres over a barrel prior to his injury? Can they land a solid 1B to place behind Ullmark? Do they need to add more sandpaper moving forward? Where will they finish, where will they draft and will that player (if up at the top) be ready to contribute next season? What to make of a slower player like Reinhart who has been a remarkably quiet, steady contributor in his six full NHL seasons? How will the defense shake out? What burdensome contracts will they be able to move on from, who will be lost to the expansion Seattle Kraken, and what free agents will a.) want to come to Buffalo and b.) at what cost?
Regardless of the answers to the above, we're still in the here and now. This group of Sabres, many of whom are still kids, has hooked the fan-base into believing in the future, possibly believing that they've finally hit bottom. It's a dangerous place to be for Sabres fans as hope in Springtime has often led to disappointment come fall and/or winter and/or the following spring. However, you really can't take away from what these youngins are doing under Granato and for right now, the kids are alright.
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