Despite a win in Buffalo on Tuesday in which the home team was outshot 34-22, the Sabres have an awfully long way to go before joining the Carolina Hurricanes as one of the contending teams in the Eastern Conference. Let’s go to the tale of the tape.
Tony DeAngelo of the Carolina Hurricanes has 45 points in 51 games this season, while averaging the fourth-most minutes on average among defensemen on his team behind Jaccob Slavin, Brady Skjei, and Brett Pesce.
Rasmus Dahlin has 43 points in 68 games this season, while averaging two minutes more than the next closest defenseman on the Sabres roster.
To be clear: this is not a Rasmus Dahlin bashing post. The purpose of this comparison is to highlight the discrepancy in depth and talent between a team that can contend for the Stanley Cup this season, and one that will hit the golf course prior to the playoffs for an NHL-record 11th season in a row.
Much has been made of the Sabres’ 7-3-4 record in March as an improvement over their previously abysmal collapses during the penultimate month of the NHL calendar. 7-4-3 is a mediocre record. If that’s what Sabres fans are celebrating, then the standards among the blue and gold faithful have dropped precipitously compared to previous dreams of winning the Stanley Cup.
Let’s go to another comparison. The Hurricanes have four players with a points-per-game pace higher than any member of the Buffalo Sabres. For all the progress the Sabres have made in icing a team that has at least some skill on each of their four lines, and all three of their defensive pairings, their leading guy is at .81 points-per-game compared to 1.04 points per game for Sebastian Aho.
In goal, the Carolina Hurricanes have Freddie Anderson and his .928 save percentage in 47 games played this season. The Sabres have Craig Anderson and his .901 percent saved across 24 games. We can go to the fancy stats there as well for further proof of the Anderson vs. Anderson debate. Freddie has a GAR value of 41.1 per Evolving Hockey, while Craig has a GAR of .6 in his contests.
This is all to say that while it’s all well and good to enjoy the luke-warm renaissance of the Sabres this spring after they've already been eliminated from the playoffs, there is an awfully long journey before the Sabres truly join the party as a member of the elite teams in the Eastern Conference. They are still light years behind the best, and several steps behind even the next tier of teams that will miss out on the playoffs.
The Sabres have the fourth-worst goal differential in the Eastern Conference. The lowest-ranked currently seeded playoff team sits at a +24. The Sabres have a -55 goal differential. That’s a 79-goal difference between the Sabres and playoff spot which will not be easily closed by simply allowing a young team to play some more games. That requires a serious influx of talent.
Enough of the negativity, though. It’s not all doom and gloom.
Could Rasmus Dahlin hit the .88 points per game of DeAngelo? Sure. His play to knock down the puck and feed it to Victor Olofsson for the game-winning goal on Tuesday was an elite play. Could Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen have a .928 save percentage and a 41 GAR rating? Maybe. These are questions, though, and they are in no way sure things in the near future. The biggest question is whether the Sabres have a forward who is capable of scoring over a point-per-game in a single season.
The best candidate – somewhat hilariously in light of recent history – is probably Tage Thompson who is finding his way at center under Don Granato. His performance against the Hurricanes on Tuesday demonstrated how far he has come in a short time. His feed to Jeff Skinner on a 2-on-1 in the second period was a gorgeous one as he froze Anderson with a fake shot and then slid a cross-ice pass to Jeff Skinner who had a tap-in for his 29th goal of the season.
Skinner looked genuinely shocked at what a beautiful pass Thompson had made to him. That surprised expression is a perfect reflection of a fanbase that has witnessed the remarkable transformation of Thompson under Granato this season. Still, it’s fair to wonder if he can ever be a center who is capable of scoring above a point-per-game in this league, and if it’s not him, there aren’t a lot of organizational candidates who figure to fill that role. You’re mostly looking at hopeful candidates like Jack Quinn, which isn’t a great place to be.
So yes, enjoy this ending to the season. It’s fun that the Sabres didn’t completely collapse to finish the year. It’s fun that this team genuinely seems to gel together and they are more than willing to mix it up when they feel one of their own has been take advantage of. Just realize that beyond the positive rhetoric coming from likable figures in the organization like Don Granato and Kevyn Adams, there is an incredible amount of work that needs to be done before this team resembles anything close to a real competitor.
The process to create that winning product will require more than just the passive matriculation of players through the Sabres system. It will require transactions to actively make the NHL team better.
That is, if ownership is still interested in doing what it takes to win a Stanley Cup.