This was going to be a critical offseason for the Buffalo Sabres. After the club failed to make the playoffs for the 13th straight season, general manager Kevyn Adams was going to have his work cut out for him. With the hiring of new head coach Lindy Ruff, Adams had to make the offseason his best one. Once the team bought out forward Jeff Skinner, everyone thought the Sabres would find a top six forward to replace Jeff. However, forwards kept on flying off the board. Just like that, the free agency frenzy was pretty much over. Even though the team didn’t sign anyone notable, they did improve depth wise.
Buffalo received forwards Beck Malenstyn (trade), Jason Zucker, Sam Lafferty and Nicolas Aube-Kubel in free agency. While the names are not flashy, I do believe the Sabres have improved and have a better bottom six than last season. At least the Buffalo Sabres bottom-six will be respectable this season I know fans are frustrated because they want better players, especially with the loss of Skinner. But fans need to understand the current bottom six is faster. Ruff’s system is built for fast-paced players and the Sabres have that now. As I said before, the names won’t blow anyone away but it’s an upgrade from what the team had.
Now that training camp is almost a month away, it will be interesting to see how the depth players perform in preseason and eventually the start of the regular season. I expect big things from the top six as it was a down year for some of the players on the top two lines. But the question is how will the depth players perform? Obviously actions speak louder than words. On paper, the Sabres have a much improved third and fourth lines. At the end of the day, only the season will give us an answer.
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