I’ll admit it: I had no idea the Sabres season was starting Thursday until I was on Pat Moran’s podcast Sunday night.
Football starts and my brain basically shuts down every other Buffalo sports department. For most of the last 15 years, that hasn’t exactly been a terrible strategy with the Sabres. But after last season, there’s actually something to pay attention to again.
So I called Chad DeDominicis of Expected Buffalo to basically catch me up on what the hell is going on. I am a paid subscriber to his website and definitely recommend it even though I don’t get half his charts, but he always gets Sabres dirt which is what I love.
We talked about the strange Sabres/Bills fan dynamic, an offseason that felt like it was missing something, losing Alex Tuch and Bowen Byram, the NHL’s exploding salary cap, which young Sabres could take another step, the goaltending situation and whether Buffalo can actually make the playoffs again.
And yes, I openly admitted that sometimes I just steal Chad’s takes so I can sound like I know hockey.
Do Bills fans basically ignore the Sabres until football season ends?
Joe: I’m a football guy first, and when football season ends, that’s usually when I start caring about the Sabres. It’s been especially true over the last 15 years because, before last season, the Sabres were basically dog crap forever. Since you’ve been doing Expected Buffalo, have you noticed that too? Do people suddenly show up when the Bills season ends and say, “Okay, what’s going on with the hockey team?”
Chad DeDominicis: For sure. We always kind of joke that whenever the Bills season ends, hockey season starts. We’ll even put out an article that’s basically, “Hey, you were gone for half the year. Here’s what you missed.” I think this year will probably be different because there will be more eyes and ears on them right from the beginning after what happened last season. But typically, you have the sickos who are there from opening night, and then everybody else checks in around February.
Was the Sabres offseason a little disappointing?
Joe: Maybe my expectations were too high, but this offseason felt disappointing. I thought Jarmo Kekäläinen was going to come in and it would be like Let’s Make a Deal. Instead, Tuch is gone, Byram is gone, they brought in some people here and there, but it felt like something was missing. Do you agree?
Chad: Yeah, I understand that feeling. For me, it’s the forward move they didn’t make. I don’t think many people are going to dispute not paying Alex Tuch, and I don’t think many people will dispute moving Byram rather than paying him $12.5 million. But I thought they had graduated beyond the point where youth was going to be the driving factor. You were one shot away from the Eastern Conference Final. It felt like the time to make that one big move at forward.
To be fair to Jarmo, a lot of those forwards people thought might move never moved. Jason Robertson didn’t move. Dylan Larkin is still in Detroit. A lot of the big names stayed where they were.
That’s the NHL. Sometimes teams just won’t trade these guys.
But yeah, I think they were one move short. Now you’re relying on a bunch of guys in their early 20s to carry a pretty significant load.
Who will they miss more: Alex Tuch or Bowen Byram?
Joe: Between Tuch and Byram, who do you think they’ll miss more?
Chad: Byram, for sure.
I want to be careful because Tuch obviously had an impact on the ice and definitely off the ice. But I think replacing him can become more of a committee approach. This team scores goals. They’re probably going to find those goals somewhere.
With Byram, it’s more about the minutes.
Buffalo was one of the heavier teams in the league in terms of how much they relied on their top four defensemen at five-on-five. Now those minutes have to go somewhere else. You already have Mattias Samuelsson dealing with an injury and Owen Zellweger dealing with a concussion going into the opener. Somebody has to step up and take some of that workload.
You can’t just lean even harder on Samuelsson, Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power for an entire season. We saw some of those guys look worn down at different points last year.
It’s a marathon. Somebody else is going to have to emerge.
When did NHL players start getting enormous contracts after barely playing?
Joe: I stopped really paying close attention to the Sabres for four or five years. I’d follow from a distance and steal takes from people like you, Netminder, Ostrander, and Kris Baker.
Then I came back and suddenly guys who have played 40 NHL games are getting giant contracts. I don’t want to sound like a boomer saying, “Back in my day, Drew Stafford got four years and $16 million and had to prove himself first,” but what the hell happened?
Chad: It’s really a last-year-or-two thing because of the salary-cap boom.
For years, the NHL salary cap was basically flat or would go up by maybe a million dollars. So you’d see bridge contracts and teams trying to squeeze their restricted free agents.
That mentality has changed because the cap is taking significant jumps.
Teams are trying to forecast where salaries are going and lock young players in now at what they hope becomes a discount later. That’s why you’re seeing players with very little NHL experience getting these numbers that sound insane if you haven’t been paying close attention. You almost have to stop looking at the raw dollar amount and start looking at the percentage of the salary cap.
That’s the adjustment people have to make now. If you haven’t been following the NHL closely for a few years, there’s definitely some sticker shock.
Which young Sabre could take another jump — and who worries you?
Joe: This young group from Rochester basically feels like the core now. Give me one young player you think can take another step forward and one you’re a little worried about.
Chad: I think Zach Benson has another level, which is kind of crazy to say after the level he played at in the playoffs. I don’t know if he’s going to be a 25-goal scorer. I don’t think he necessarily has that type of finishing ability. But could he score around 20 and become a 50-to-60-point player with his playmaking and two-way impact? Absolutely.
And everybody loves the style he plays. If you’re playing against him, you hate him. If he’s on your team, he rules. It’s nice for the Sabres to finally have one of those guys.
The player I’d be a little concerned about is Kulich, especially after his preseason and coming back from the blood-clot situation. I think he needs to play center, and I’m not sure there’s an obvious place for him to play center right now. I think he can get a little lost on the wing. It wouldn’t shock me if, once everybody is healthy, he had a short stint in Rochester where he could play first-line center, get completely back up to speed and then see where things go from there.
Does losing Byram hurt one defenseman in particular?
Joe: Going back to Byram, is there one defenseman who could really be affected by losing him? Owen Power played with him a lot, right?
Chad: If you go by minutes, Power played with him the most, but the top four rotated enough that everybody played together. I don’t think Power individually suddenly takes a step backward because Byram is gone. The bigger concern is the collective effect on those top defensemen. If they all have to play more minutes, eventually guys get worn down. Samuelsson is already dealing with an injury, and we’ve seen his injury history. We also saw how good he can be when he’s healthy.
Byram was also an important part of the special teams and had a career year offensively. Somebody has to replace some of those points. Maybe Power produces more with additional power-play opportunities. Maybe Zellweger gives you more offense.
So I don’t necessarily think one player suffers. It’s more about how they collectively replace what Byram gave them.
Who becomes Tage Thompson’s running mate now?
Joe: Tage Thompson feels like their best forward to me. Tuch always felt like his sidekick, at least in terms of scoring. With Tuch gone, who has to become that second major guy offensively?
Chad: Interestingly, Tage and Tuch were actually split up quite a bit last season. What they’re doing now is going back to something they used in the playoffs, putting Josh Norris and Thompson together. That indicates to me that they’re probably going to use Thompson on the wing some, which I agree with.
So the first thing is Norris has to stay healthy.
Then Josh Doan becomes really interesting. Maybe he’s the guy who takes on some of that Tuch role. I think he’s completely capable of it from a two-way standpoint and as a scorer. We saw a lot of that last year, and obviously the organization believes in him.
You need Norris healthy as your true No. 1 center, and you need Doan to keep ascending.
Is there anything Josh Norris can actually do to stop getting hurt?
Joe: Have you heard anything Norris has done to stop getting hurt? Is he lifting differently? Taking creatine? Sacrificing a goat? Anything?
Chad: I haven’t heard anything specific.
A lot of his injuries have almost been fluky. Last year he hurts his oblique on basically one of the final faceoffs of the game. Then he gets a concussion in the playoffs after falling awkwardly into the boards. You hate calling injuries luck, but sometimes that’s what it feels like. I’m sure he’s trying different things. He knows his history. He’s not just doing the exact same thing every offseason and hoping something changes. Maybe simply having a healthier offseason and not rehabbing another injury helps him.
At some point, you just have to hope he gets some better luck.
What the hell do we make of the goaltending?
Joe: Goaltending feels like the biggest mystery to me. Last year they overachieved compared to what we had seen before. If I woke up from a coma and said, “Give me the good and bad of the Sabres goaltending situation,” what would you tell me?
Chad: The good is that you have two relatively young goalies who are still growing, plus a veteran in Alex Lyon who has shown that if you use him correctly, he can give you good stretches. Lyon’s history suggests that if you’re asking him to play around 30 games, he can give you pretty good numbers.
The bad part is that you have three goalies because none of them has proven he can be a true No. 1.
We know Lyon isn’t going to become that at this point in his career. The younger goalies haven’t proven they can take on that 50-plus-game workload either. So there’s upside there, but there’s also still a lot we don’t know.
What’s your prediction for the Sabres this season?
Joe: So where do you actually have them finishing? Are they going to be around where they were last season?
Chad: I don’t think they’re going to be a 109-point team that wins the division again.
But I’m pretty comfortable believing they’re a playoff team. I have them fourth in the Atlantic with 98 points and getting the top wild-card spot. I have Florida, Tampa Bay and Montreal as the top three in the division, although Buffalo and Montreal could be battling for that third spot. There are questions with Florida, especially with the goaltending and the age of the roster.
But if things mostly play out the way you would expect, I have Buffalo at 98 points and in the playoffs.
One piece of advice for returning Sabres fans
Joe: Anything else you want to say about the Sabres, life, soccer, anything before we ride off into the sunset and I go change a diaper?
Chad: I think it’s exciting for hockey, and I’d encourage people to get back into it.
But especially for football fans who are used to living week-to-week: don’t do that with hockey. It’s a long season. There are going to be good stretches and bad stretches, ups and downs. That’s just how hockey works. Try looking at it in five-game buckets or something like that. Because if you live and die with every single Sabres game, you’re going to lose your sanity.
Joe: Perfect. I’ll just continue stealing your takes, Netminder’s takes and Kris Baker’s takes, combine all three and pretend I know what I’m talking about.
That feels like a solid plan for the season.
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