Buffalo Sabres

Buffalo Sabres coverage. Related to the Sabres, their prospects and the minors.

A Better Situation is Needed for Devon Levi

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Buffalo’s goaltending situation is a problem of their own making. 

Kevyn Adams was gambling when he left his goaltending stable untouched in the offseason. After 46 games, there isn’t much that’s improved. 

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has stabilized the position thus far, taking over the starting job with a string of quality play that dates back to the end of December. He’s currently the best chance the team has to salvage anything from this season as his current form makes him Buffalo’s best, and only reliable goaltender. A pessimist may look at his larger body of work and worry that this is just a blip, but Luukkonen has exhibited much more control over his game during this stretch, has done a better job playing bigger in his net and has held the fort even as the team in front of him continues their up-and-down season. 

Beyond Luukkonen is where things get cloudy. There have been rumors of promises made to Devon Levi in the time leading up to his signing and his seven game cameo appeared to justify the franchise’s faith in him as an NHL regular. So far, that faith hasn’t been fully rewarded. 

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The Instigator Podcast 12.22 – Hockey Canada Investigation Takes a Step Forward

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After a lengthy period of investigation, the sexual assault case related to the 2018 Canadian World Junior Championship team has progressed as five players were instructed to surrender to the authorities in London, Ontario. With four NHLers taking leaves from their respective teams, speculation has run rampant online. We discuss the latest developments in the case and the players thought to be involved in the ongoing proceedings.

Also on the show is a conversation about the differences in standards and situations between the Sabres and Islanders after the latter replaced their head coach with Patrick Roy. We talk about Don Granato’s outlook and whether or not he has the ability to survive as Buffalo’s head coach given the struggles the Sabres continue to suffer through.

Digging in to Buffalo’s Power Play Woes

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It’s been hard to find many silver linings in the Sabres season thus far. A seemingly unending drip of injuries has kept the team’s lineup in flux for virtually the entire season and their inability to sting wins together has been fueled by a maddening pattern of inconsistent play. 

It feels like another season is circling the drain and while goaltending was one of the primary reasons the 2022-23 season ended without a playoff berth, special teams is making a strong push as the chief antagonist of the 23-24 edition of the Buffalo Sabres. 

Buffalo’s penalty kill had some flashes early in the season and had the look of a unit that was galvanized by personnel changes and tweaks to their strategy. But time has not been kind to the penalty kill unit (nor have injuries) and the Sabres have slid to the bottom half of the league in penalty kill percentage with a 78.5% success rate at the time of this posting. 

But it’s been the power play that’s been especially ineffective. The Sabres’ 14.2% power play is better than only five other teams and only three teams have scored fewer than Buffalo’s 17 power play goals this year. Buffalo’s extra man unit isn’t immune to any ailment either. Their zone entries are erratic, they regularly turn the puck over in-zone due to sloppy passing and their lack of in-zone movement makes life exceptionally easy for the opposing penalty kill. Though, these issues aren’t unique to this season. In fact, it’s an issue that chased Buffalo’s power play for much of last season as well, they were just lucky enough to have such an impressive finishing rate. 

Lance Lysowski recently pointed out that the Sabres power play was 29th in the NHL dating back to the 22-23 season, so any notion that the team’s extra man unit only tailed off at the very end of last year is misguided. 

Just looking at the raw goal scoring paints a pretty ominous picture for the Sabres. Of their 63 power play goals scored last season, they scored 33 before December 13. The Sabres scored three goals against the Kings that evening, bringing their power play goal total to 33 in just 29 games. They only went more than one game without a power play goal on three occasions during that stretch, each time enduring a two-game drought. Over the following 53 games? The Sabres scored 30 more power play goals with eight separate stretches of two or more games without scoring on the man advantage. 

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The Instigator Podcast 12.20 – Some Thoughts on Buffalo’s Direction in Goal

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The Sabres aren’t in a great place when it comes to goaltending. It may not be their biggest issue, but it’s a problem that could have the most long term impact on the club. I string together some rambling thoughts on the performances of Devon Levi and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, how the Sabres are handling Levi and what they can do to ensure Levi’s ongoing growth. Perhaps it’s time to make a sizeable investment in a goaltender outside the organization. Is the risk worth the reward and if a new face allows Levi to grow in the AHL, does that increase the return for the Sabres?

The Instigator Podcast 12.19 – New Year’s Resolutions for the Sabres

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The Sabres have plenty of issues to work on and we thought there would be no better way to fix them than by suggesting some New Year’s resolutions for the club. We each run through a pair of resolutions for the Sabres, focusing on special teams, Dylan Cozens, goaltending and the front office. And we wrap up with one last brief suggestion for good measure. Whether or not these resolutions can be kept is an entirely different question for a Sabres team desperately in need of a winning streak.

Warpath #1: The Founding

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The founding of the Buffalo Sabres is an interesting tale of dogged hard work by the Knox brothers mixed with a bit of vintage NHL chicanery. Follow the path the Knoxes took from prospective NHL owners, through their dalliance with the Oakland Seals and, finally, to the succwssful end of their pursuit of bringing NHL hockey to Buffalo.

The Instigator Podcast 12.12 – Lacking Depth

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The Sabres tough Saturday carried to Tuesday and it got worse with Tage Thompson’s injury. We discuss how Buffalo’s injury woes at forward have thinned their lines, and Thompson’s injury exacerbates the problems. We talk about the holes in Buffalo’s lineup and how it’s past time for Jiri Kulich and other high-end prospects to get a look. We wrap up this week’s episode with a brief conversation on the team’s struggling power play and a few adjustments we’d make to clean it up.

The Instigator Podcast 12.11 – Calling for Kulich

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Alarm bells are going off in Edmonton and we start this week’s show talking about everything that seems to be ailing the Oilers. We also tie in our Oilers discussion, and their need to stay competitive with the push the Sabres will start to feel when it comes to making a big trade of their own.

We also talk about Buffalo’s young stars, namely Matthew Savoie and Jiri Kulich. Savoie has arrived after his two week conditioning assignment and will likely slot into the lineup this week. But even though Kulich has been scoring at a torrid pace, he hasn’t earned a call up just yet. We talk about where in the lineup he could fit and how much longer the Sabres can realistically wait before bringing him up.

The Instigator Podcast 12.10 – Neck Guard Adoption and Listener Questions

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We took listener questions and ran through topics like the Shane Wright plan, expectations for Devon Levi, how Peyton Krebs and Casey Mittelstadt should be handled and line juggling as the team finds the right fit for their forwards. We open the show with a discussion on the adoption of neck guards, what might be preventing early adoption for NHL players and how a grandfathered requirement could come into play.

Don’t Forget the Summer Goalie Market When Questioning the Sabres Moves

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The season may only be four games old, but the Sabres’ 1-3 start has put some of the fans’ biggest offseason concerns in the spotlight.

Buffalo’s decision to leave the roster largely untouched and lean on their unproven trio of goaltenders was chief among the offseason debate in Sabres circles. Leaning on a roster that made the Sabres the third highest scoring team in the NHL wasn’t a terrible choice when you dig into the data. Kevyn Adams has continued to lock up the core of his roster and it was those players – most notably Tage Thompson (47 goals), Dylan Cozens (31 goals) and Rasmus Dahlin (73 points) – who pushed the Sabres to the top of the league’s scoring race. The choices in goal were a greater gamble. 

Eric Comrie and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s struggles last season underscored the position that likely kept the Sabres out of the playoffs. While Devon Levi has shown promise (and was stout in Tuesday’s win over Tampa), handing the keys to a 21-year old with seven games of NHL experience is unprecedented. If there was one position where fans would have agreed with more tangible reinforcement, it would have been in net. The league’s goalie market from the summer made that proposition much harder to accomplish than maybe some assume. 

Connor Hellebuyck was far and away the best goaltender available over the summer. There were widespread reports that the Jets were shopping the former Vezina winner, though a deal never materialized. Hellebuyck’s contract status almost certainly played a role in the lack of a trade. While Hellebuyck was a goaltender I felt could push the Sabres to a playoff berth, I would not have pursued him with a lengthy contract extension attached. Now that he’s signed a seven-year, $59.5 million extension, it would be hard to see the logic in acquiring that sort of player given the faith the organization has in Levi. 

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