The Sabres don’t need to blow this roster up in the offseason, but they do need some changes.
The Sabres are a young team. They have veterans, yes, but the talent on this team is predominately young. The problem with young, raw talent is always consistency. We’ve seen it from every one of the Sabres marquee players they have locked up to long term contracts. They just struggle with consistency. They just are not able to lead, statistically or otherwise, a professional team through an 82 game season all on their own. Maybe someday they can, but right now, the Sabres need more veteran talent.
New Jersey, San Jose, Detroit, those teams have veteran talent that may not be leading their team in scoring or other statistics, but their mix of young talent and skilled veteran players allow those teams to consistently put together strong regular season and playoff runs. That’s a fact.
The players on the Sabres I would label as veterans are Jochen Hecht, Adam Mair, Jaroslav Spacek, Craig Rivet, and Teppo Numminem. Those guys may or may not be great in the locker room, but they don’t stand out on the ice. The veterans on good NHL teams lead their young talent on and off the ice. The Sabres need to address that in the offseason if they expect improvement because it is too early in the careers of players like Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy, and Jason Pominville to step into those veteran roles.
For a majority of the season, objective fans believed the Sabres were a playoff team. The Sabres spent a considerable amount of the regular season amongst the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference. It was only recently that other Eastern Conference teams started passing the slumping Sabres in the standings and there is something to be said of that.
In crunch time, the Sabres falter. They didn’t drop in the standing because they weren’t physical enough or because they lack the talent to be in the top 8. It was, again, because they do not have enough skilled veteran leaders that help maintain consistency in the clubs they play for. Veterans come through when their teams need them most.
There is no doubt that the teams doing well this time of year, when it matters most, have veteran talent. Carolina, Pittsburgh, and New York (Rangers) have records of 7-1-2, 7-1-2, and 7-3-0, respectively, in the last ten games. Conversely, teams that lack veteran talent are struggling to make the playoffs. Consider Florida and Buffalo who have records of 3-4-3 and 3-6-1, respectively, over the last ten games.
I don’t mean minimize the importance of younger players, but I do believe there needs to be a balance. Teams that don’t have that balance are losing games at a time where every point is critical.