The Buffalo Sabres are reportedly one skate stride away from adding a difference making, two-way defenseman to their leaky D corps.
The Sabres finished 19th overall in goals against with 2.28 GAA and 231 total goals against. Dan Due to injuries and inconsistency on the blue line, Dan Bylsma was forced to have to play 12 different defenseman this season, some of which were raw AHLers who acquitted them selves rather well playing while under duress. The 22 different defensemen accumulated a pathetic -71 +/- rating. Dmitry Kulikov represent -26 of the -71 debacle.
The Sabres need to add three more NHL playing D.
The great news is that too organizational D prospect Brendan Guhle will be a full time player in Buffalo come September. Guhle impressed in the three game emergency call up he performed in back in November and December. Guhle' junior hockey days are done and he is more than ready for prime time in the NHL next season.
Dmitry Kulikov and Cody Franson are on exiting fess and won't be back in Buffalo. Taylor Fedun is also UFA.
Rasmus Ristolainen, Jake McCabe and Zachary Bogosian were forced to play extreme TOI per game to keep the bottom three D off the ice against opponent's top six forwards in late stages of close games. At the end of the season, Ristolainen, McCabe and Bogosian were fatigued from their elevated time on ice. Ristolainen averaged 26:28 TOI while McCabe are 20:52 TOI and Bogosian worked 20:05 TOI per game. Josh Gorges, 32, was forced to have to play 18 minutes per game which proved to be too much ice time for the veteran defender.
Buffalo's next head coach has to find balance in his D corps and distribute TOI evenly so as to avoid fatigue and exhaustion of key blue liners.
Tim Murray spent the last ten months as Sabres GM scouring the NHL for trade partners. Murray needed D in the worst way and could not promote difference making kids from AHL Rochester because there is such a lack of depth in the defense prospect pool. Murray's Waterloo in Buffalo was that he over stocked the offensive side of the puck at the expense of the defensive side of the biscuit. Too many forwards, not enough D. A recipe for disaster manifested itself in Buffalo in 2016-17.
Did Murray really need to invest his 2016 8th overall pick in slick forward Alex Nylander when he could have easily snagged D men of distinction in Jakob Chychrun or Mikhail Sergachev.
Before he was fired last week, Murray said that he and the representatives for Viktor Antipin, the in demand Russian free agent D-man, continued to speak about the talented rear guard leaving Russia for Buffalo. Antipin, who was first linked to the Sabres by Elliotte Friedman over a month ago, appears to be close to signing a contract with the Sabres. Perhaps as soon as the IIHF World Championships tournament ends in mid-May.
Antipin, 24, a left shot D, already plays a man's game in the KHL. He reminds me a lot of a left shot Sami Vatanen in that he skates well, defends superbly and is not shy about joining the rush and getting sandy in the battles in front of his net and along the walls . Antipin thrives at even strength and in the power play. Buffalo are owners of thevNHL's number one rated PP in 2016-17. Having Antipin QB PP2 will only create more blunt force trauma for opponents to have to deal with next season.
Antipin scored 24 points (6G, 18A) in 59 games played (+10) with Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the KHL this season.
Antipin also added 11 points (7G, 4A) in 18 playoff games. Antipin was named the top defensive player in the KHL Finals (Gagarin Cup) where his team was eliminated by Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk and CSKA Saint Petersburg.
Join the Discussion:
»