After a humiliating 9-4 loss to one of the worst teams in the National Hockey League (NHL), the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Buffalo Sabers are at a crossroads more than ever.
Few would have bet that the New York State team would be behind the Montreal Canadiens after 33 games played this season. And for good reason, the Sabers (13-17-2) finally seemed to have a campaign that portended big things last year.
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In fact, a year ago today, Don Granato's men posted a 16-14-2 record, good for fourth place in the Atlantic Division, and subsequently finished the season just one point shy of qualifying for the playoffs. However, the current situation is even worse and the club is in danger of missing the playoffs for the 13th consecutive year.
On this topic, the captain of the team, Kyle Okposo, made a well-chosen comparison to explain his team’s setbacks.
“It's not an easy path that we've taken for ourselves,” Okposo said at a news conference after Tuesday's loss, his comments being reported by The Buffalo News. It just feels like we’re in the middle of a sophomore slump together.”
However, he assured that he and his teammates will not give up and will do everything to find a solution to their problems.
“It is up to all of us to find solutions and we will not stop finding them,” he said. We'll watch the tape, we'll talk. We’ve talked a lot and now it’s time to go out and play.”
The stars are running out of fuel
The Sabres' 2022-23 offense's headliner, Tage Thompson, has 16 points in 24 games – he was injured for part of the season – for a return of 0.67 points per game.
At this point last year, he averaged 1.50 points per game. The same goes for Rasmus Dahlin and Jeff Skinner, who went from 1.16 and 1.23 to 0.84 and 0.73, respectively.
The only good news is that Casey Middlestadt and JJ Peterka had productive seasons, finishing second and third among the club's top scorers.
Still, Granato should definitely be excited to see his big guns. If the offensive stars don't find solutions, the rest of the season could be very long for the Buffalo fans; some had also called for the head coach to be fired in the duel on Tuesday.