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.

Buffalo Sabres top-three prospects by position--Goaltenders

Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com


With the Buffalo Sabres firmly in build-mode as they look to distance themselves even further from the ignominy of the 2014 and 2015 basement seasons, the solid foundation they laid using a huge return for "the core" moved the team towards respectability as they finished last season 23rd in the league with a 12-win/27-point year-over-year improvement . It took a coaching overhaul, two consecutive second-overall picks and a number of big moves involving many parts, but GM Tim Murray--who was also a part of a huge transition for the club when he was hired just over two years ago--got the things moving rather quickly as he added young-vets to the roster to hasten the rebuild.

Unfortunately, those players don't grow on trees and in order to acquire said vets, a bevy of draft picks and prospects were sent the other way to consummate the deals and because of it the prospect pool taking pretty good hit. But opportunity knocked and Murray answered with open arms.

He still has holes to fill on the big club and he also had a Rochester affiliate that finished near the bottom of the league, a direct indication as to how much of a hit the prospect pool took, but the cavalry will be headed to Rochester over the next couple of seasons and the Sabres are slated to have 21 draft picks in the next two years.

Today we begin to look at the remnants of a prospect pool that was ranked No. 1 overall by Hockey'sFuture a little over a year ago. And we begin in net with the top three goaltending prospects.

Sabres goalies held their own. Depth-chart taking shape.

Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com


For vast majority of the Buffalo Sabres 50 games this season the net was manned by a duo that consisted of a career backup bordering on being a starter and a 22 yr. old who just came to North America.

Chad "I'm Not Ocho Cinco" Johnson, who's tour-stops as a backup include New York with both the Rangers and Islanders, Phoenix and Boston, was thrust into the starters role when designated No. 1 goalie Robin Lehner was felled by a high ankle sprain in the second period of the opening game. In his six NHL seasons Johnson played in no more than 27 games and totaled 56 games before being thrust into the starting role for the Sabres. At the All-Star break this season, he's already played in 29 games, 25 of them as a starter for Buffalo.

Rookie netminder Linus Ullmark was a 6th round pick (163rd-overall) for Buffalo in the 2012 NHL Draft. He worked is way up the ranks with MODO in his native Sweden playing his last two seasons in the Swedish Elite League. He won the Honken Trophy for Goalie of the Year in 2014 as a rookie.

After elective double-hip surgery last spring and rehabbing way ahead of schedule, Ullmark began this season with the Rochester Americans and was 1-2-0 with a 2.72 GAA and a .932 SV% before getting called up to Buffalo.

The duo were forced into a situation where there were nine new players on the ice plus a new coaching staff in place. The highly skilled offensive players that GM Tim Murray acquired were (and still are) a long ways away from being anything close to an offensive juggernaut (2.26 goals/game, 28th in the league) and their defense was suspect with the injury to No. 3/2 defenseman, Zach Bogosian.

Ramp-up to the 2015 NHL Draft Pt. 1--Goaltending Prospects in the system

Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com


Over the course of three drafts a franchise is given a total of 21 draft picks in seven rounds by the NHL and dependent upon where said franchise is on the food chain they will either have more or less picks. Those atop the chain gunning for the Stanley Cup will have fewer picks as they bolster their roster with specific players via trade-deadline rental players. The rental players will come from those teams at the bottom of the food chain in need of building blocks.

The Buffalo Sabres have been in rebuild-mode since 2012 and have made 36 selections over the course of the last three drafts. In 2012 they picked eight players, in 2013 they picked 11 and last season they left the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA with nine. In essence Buffalo was able to pack five years worth of picks into three drafts.

More impressive than that, and the main reason that many media outlets have Buffalo with the No. 1 pool of prospects, is that they had five first-round picks from 2012-14. To augment that, the team was able to add seven second-rounders to the pool. All totaled, from the first-overall pick in those drafts until the Sabres last pick in the second rounds, Buffalo brought in 12 of the top 145 prospects or about 8% of the prospect pool.