NHL Season Recap - Buffalo Sabres

Buffalo Sabres

2016-17 season: 33-37-12 Did not qualify for playoffs	Head Coach: Fired - Dan Bylsma (2015)
8th Place Atlantic Division	General Manager: Fired - Tim Murray (2014)
15th Place Eastern Conference	AHL Affiliate: Rochester Admirals ECHL Affiliate: Elmira Jackals
Draft Position: Will have the sixth  greatest odds in the NHL Draft Lottery

Top Forwards

POS	Age	Name	GP	Points	Goals	Assists	+/-	CF%
C	20	Jack Eichel	61	57	24	23	-13	47.7
C	25	Ryan O’Reilly	72	55	20	35	-1	49.5
C	21	Sam Reinhart	79	47	17	30	-11	49.2
RW	28	Kyle Okposo	65	45	19	26	-7	47.6
LW	25	Evander Kane	70	43	28	15	-9	47.9
RW	38	Brian Gionta	82	35	15	20	-11	44.9
LW	33	Matt Moulson	81	32	14	18	-4	50.6
LW	25	Marcus Foligno	80	23	13	10	-1	47.3
C	23	Zemgus Girgensons	75	16	7	9	-7	47.0
LW	27	Tyler Ennis	51	13	5	8	-10	48.6

Top Defensemen

POS	Age	Name	GP	Points	Goals	Assists	+/-	CF%
D	22	Rasmus Ristolainen	79	45	6	39	-9	44.1
D	23	Jake McCabe	76	20	3	17	-7	45.9
D	29	Cody Franson	68	19	3	16	-5	50.4
D	26	Zach Bogosian	56	11	2	9	-17	48.9
D	28	Justin Falk	52	8	0	8	-3	50.7

Top Goaltenders

POS	Age	Name	Games Started	W/L Record	Shutouts	GAA	Save %
G	25	Robin Lehner	58	23-26-8	2	2.68	.920
G	26	Anders Nilsson	23	10-10-4	1	2.67	.923
G	23	Linus Ullmark	1	0-1-0	0	3.05	.917

Trades Made During the Season

What They Acquired	Team They Traded With	In Exchange For
D Mat Bodie	New York Rangers	C Daniel Catenacci

Impending Free Agents

POS	Age	Name	2016-17 Cap Hit
D	26	Dmitry Kulikov	$4,333,334
RW	38	Brian Gionta	$4,250,000
D	29	Cody Franson	$3,325,000
C	33	Cody McCormick	$1,500,000
G	27	Anders Nilsson	$1,000,000
C	30	Cal O’Reilly	$700,000
LW	26	Derek Grant	$650,000
D	28	Taylor Fedun	$600,000
D	27	Mat Bodie	$600,000
LW	26	Cole Schneider	$600,000
D	28	Erik Burgdoerfer	$575,000

Draft Needs

• Buffalo has eight draft picks in this year's draft, including five in the first three rounds.  Buffalo has a solid core built on offense and needs to turn its attention the blueline, which was horrible this season.  They paid Rasmus Ristolainen a lot of money to be their number one defenseman and yet he is a below 50% puck possessor.  There are several quality defensemen at the top of the draft, but Buffalo is at a place where waiting for a prospect to develop doesn't help.  They have a core that is ready to compete right now and no prospect, unless he is Connor McDavid or Austom Matthews, is going to help them get to the playoffs next season.  I think that the best move for the Sabres is to move their top ten draft pick and maybe a prospect for a top four defenseman.  With the rest of their picks, they could then draft a defenseman and address some scoring needs that they have.

What I Said About Them Before the Season

• I was way too hyped on the Sabres roster group and the team's front office before the season started.  I loved the signing of Kyle Okposo and thought that he would be an excellent addition to skate on Jack Eichel's wing.  I thought that acquiring Dmitry Kulkov was going to work out well for the team and could provide some much needed depth to their blueline.  I projected that they could be a fringe playoff team this season and surprise a lot of people and that the team could be in Stanley Cup discussion within a few seasons.

Success/Failure

• Failure - The Sabres were expected to be a borderline Wild Card team in the Eastern Conference and are instead a Lottery team once again.  They got surprisingly good goaltending and actually had the sixth best save percentage in the league this season.  They were also the best powerplay team, but also the sixth worst penalty killing team, and had the sixth worst shooting percentage.  Perhaps most alarming is that they had the third worst Corsi For Percentage in the league at 47.2%.  They had just two regular defensemen with a positive Corsi and neither were franchise defensemen Zach Bogosian or Rasmus Ristolainen.  There were bright spots to the team though as Jack Eichel stepped up in a big way and was nearly a point-per-game player when his season finally started and Ryan O'Reilly is living up to his contract. Kyle Okposo was also pretty good in his first season with the Sabres, nearly eclipsing the 20 goal mark.

Offseason Needs

• As I mentioned in my Draft Needs section, the Sabres need to find a way to get at least a top four defenseman who can move the puck well.  I think that them trading their first round pick to acquire one of these would be a genius move.  If that doesn't work out or if they aren't comfortable trading away high draft picks, then I would like to see them pursue Kevin Shattenkirk in free agency.  He is from the state of New York and would probably like to get closer to home, Buffalo is a talented roster group, and the team has the money to pay him the deal he is looking for, something in the range of $7 million for 7 years.  He would also address Buffalo's need for a top-pairing defenseman and is a great puck mover and puck possessor.  They also need to determine if Robin Lehner is the goaltender of the future for the team since he is an RFA this offseason.  If they don't trust him, then perhaps they try and acquire Marc-Andre Fleury, who would be a quality starter for the Sabres.  The team has to be happy with the development of Jack Eichel, plus they have Hudson Fasching, Nicholas Baptiste, Justin Bailey, and Alex Nylander, who should all be regular NHL players next season.  This is a quality roster which should just get better by next season, especially if they can address their defense and goaltender situations. Following the regular season, the team's brass decided to let both GM Tim Murray and head coach Dan Bylsma following two lackluster years under Bylsma.  I personally think that the team was really quick to pull the trigger with this decision, especially letting Murray go, but understand that this isn't a league where being mediocre for long periods of time leads to success.  I think that there are several quality head coaches available right now which could have led to Buffalo firing Bylsma.  One of these is Darryl Sutter, whom I think would be an excellent fit with the Sabres and their roster.

*All stats and information came from hockey-reference.com, rosterresource.com, spotrac.com, NHL.com, hockeydb.com, capfriendly.com, tsn.ca, and eliteprospects.com*