Three-game Sabres recap, Feb. 23-29

The sucking sound you hear is the wind going out of the Buffalo Sabres sails. Prior to Monday's trade deadline the Sabres posted two convincing wins and went into the break with a solid 7-3-1 record in the month of February which was enough to convince general manager Jason Botterill to reconfigure the roster a bit instead of moving pending UFA's for low-value futures. Anyone and everyone knew that the playoffs were a longshot for Buffalo but to his credit, Botterill rewarded his team for toughing out a difficult season full of inconsistencies by showing some faith in them.

Botterill's two acquisitions at the deadline--forwards Dominik Kahun and Wayne Simmonds--replaced two forwards moved out and were as advertised. Simmonds has had two starts for Buffalo while Kahun made his Sabres debut against the Vegas Golden Knights. Kahun made a quick impression as he scored on his second shift to give the Sabres the lead against Vegas. As for Simmonds, everyone and their brother knows that he's in the latter stages of a strong career and that his production is waning, but he does provide veteran leadership and an on-ice toughness that's sorely been lacking this season.

This is a roster that looks to be in tune-up mode for the season opener

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 9-25-2019

With only two preseason games left and less than 10 days until the Buffalo Sabres open up the regular season at Pittsburgh against the Penguins, head coach Ralph Kreuger is icing a lineup tonight that will be very similar to the one he'll be using on October 3. At least up front.

Although injuries have been a huge factor on the blueline, the forwards look to be pretty set with maybe a few question marks, and here are the projected lines for tonight's game against the Columbus Blue Jacktes (from sabres.com):

Victor Olofsson - Jack Eichel - Sam Reinhart

Jeff Skinner - Marcus Johansson - Kyle Okposo

Jimmy Vesey - Casey Mittelstadt - Evan Rodrigues

Zemgus Girgensons - Vladimir Sobotka - Tage Thompson

BUF/TOR Part II tonight plus putting the breaks on rushing prospects

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 9-21-2019


Buffalo's roster for the second of a home-and-home preseason matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs was released and it has the look of what the Sabres may be icing come October 3, their season opener. Last night a Sabres B-squad went out against the likes of the Leafs Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Morgan Reilly, Codi Ceci and goalie Frederik Andersen and played well despite being shutout 3-0 in Toronto. Buffalo head coach Ralph Krueger was more interested in his teams overall play really liked the way his team played.

"They really pressed hard early," said the coach of his team, "they played and aggressive, pressure game. I thought that Toronto had to make adjustments for the pressure we were giving. We're practicing hard, we're practicing without any eye on the game."

With the team down 2-0 in the third Krueger urged his team to press. "We were obviously pushing," he said, "we were asking everybody to push, push. We gave the green-light for risk and one bounced in the other way."

Star power and intrigue at the 5th annual Sabres Prospects Challenge

Published by hockkeybuzz.com, 9-6-2019

The 5th annual Buffalo Sabres Prospects Challenge begins tonight. Prospects from the Sabres, Boston Bruins, New Jersey Devils and Pittsburgh Penguins will get the opportunity to show what they've got against their peers in the round-robin tournament that ends on Monday. The event will be held at Harborcenter in downtown Buffalo adjacent to KeyBank Center and admission is $10.

Sabres fans get to see their prospect pool in a competitive environment, some of whom will be donning the Blue and Gold for the first time. And for those attending tonight's game at 7:30 pm, they'll have the added bonus of seeing 2019 first-overall pick Jack Hughes in action as he'll be skating for the Devils.

Hughes is the marquis name at the tournament and one can expect a heavy dose of the 5'10" 166 lb. Orlando, Florida native as he'll be bringing his speed, vision and skill-set to the rink for the first time in a Devils sweater. Fans of all four teams will be watching their own prospects but Hughes is the player that should grab the attention of every fan base.

A mid-July look at the Buffalo Sabres NHL depth-chart on defense

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 7-19-2019


Please note the hyphenated word, "mid-July" as things could change with training camp still two months away. It also should be noted that the Buffalo Sabres traded for Jeff Skinner (CAR) on August 2 which goes to show that trades can happen at any time.

Buffalo's roster for 2019-20 will (must) change. As we saunter through the dog days of summer the Sabres have a full roster if you include the probable signings of three restricted free agents and two defensemen, Zach Bogosian and Lawrence Pilut, eventually coming back from off-season surgery. Bogosian is expected to be back for the start of the season while Pilut will take a little longer and will probably be spending time in Rochester before trekking into his sophomore campaign.

A crowded Sabres d-corps has eight NHL players already signed, another in Jake McCabe who's unsigned and filed for arbitration, and two more in Pilut and recently acquired Henri Jokiharju (CHI,) who played a significant time in the NHL last season. It's a good situation to be in as it's never a bad idea to have an overabundance of NHL-caliber defensemen but it will also force Buffalo to make some decisions.

For the sake of the following exercise we're going to move ahead under the premise that McCabe will re-sign with Buffalo.

The many layers of the Alexander Nylander for Henri Jokiharju trade

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 7-10-2019


Buffalo Sabres GM Jason Botterill has been rather active this off season and he continued in that vein with the trade for Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Henri Jokiharju. The 20 yr. old Jokiharju was selected in the first round (29th-overall) of the 2017 NHL Draft held in Chicago that year after the Hawks traded down from No. 26. In turn the Sabres sent forward Alexander Nylander to Chicago in the player-for-player swap. Nylander was a the eighth-overall selection in 2016, a draft that was held in Buffalo, NY.

For Sabres fans, and obviously for Botterill and the team, this is the end of a saga that started the almost the moment that Nylander's name was announced in front of the KeyBank Center crowd. Fans, as well as most media members, were pretty sure that then GM Tim Murray would start to bolster his defense corps which had been bludgeoned by the 2013-15 tank years. Prize d-prospect, Olli Joulevi, went off the board at No. 4 and when the Arizona Coyotes went with forward Clayton Keller at No. 7, it left two strong d-prospects sitting there for Buffalo--Mikhail Sergachev, who was picked by Montreal at No. 9 and Jakob Chychrun, who was eventually taken by the Coyotes with the second of their two first round picks.