Buffalo injuries

[Dr Black]

In the 2014-15 season before Jack Eichel, the Buffalo Sabres had 54 points.
In the 2015-16 season with Jack Eichel, the Buffalo Sabres improved to 81 points.
That's a 27 POINT improvement!! Loosing a great young player that improved your team by 27 points just cannot be overcome.

In all fairness, Buffalo also added Ryan O'Reily, Sam Reinhart and Evander Kane last year. So it wasn't just Jack Eichel.

OH, but Evander Kane is out for at least a month with broken ribs. Ryan O'Reily is likely playing injured. Not to mention their 2 offseason free agent signings starting the year injured. The Buffalo Sabres are finished before they got started.

HOWEVER, there is a silver lining for Buffalo fans in all of this. If the team was completely healthy, they could have easily finished the season 9th place no mans land. Which would mean a double whammy of no playoffs AND no top pick in the draft. With these injuries, Buffalo now has a really good chance at a top 4 pick in the draft. Something the team could use.

 

[LeafFever]

It's going to be a terrible season for them.

 

[tsujimoto74]

In the 2014-15 season before Jack Eichel, the Buffalo Sabres had 54 points.
In the 2015-16 season with Jack Eichel, the Buffalo Sabres improved to 81 points.
That's a 27 POINT improvement!! Loosing a great young player that improved your team by 27 points just cannot be overcome.

In all fairness, Buffalo also added Ryan O'Reily, Sam Reinhart and Evander Kane last year. So it wasn't just Jack Eichel.

OH, but Evander Kane is out for at least a month with broken ribs. Ryan O'Reily is likely playing injured. Not to mention their 2 offseason free agent signings starting the year injured. The Buffalo Sabres are finished before they got started.

HOWEVER, there is a silver lining for Buffalo fans in all of this. If the team was completely healthy, they could have easily finished the season 9th place no mans land. Which would mean a double whammy of no playoffs AND no top pick in the draft. With these injuries, Buffalo now has a really good chance at a top 4 pick in the draft. Something the team could use.

Would take "no man's land" 10 times out of 10 before another bottom finish. **** watching ****** hockey. 2 years was enough. We got our core players. Time to get good.

 

[Rebuilt]

In the 2014-15 season before Jack Eichel, the Buffalo Sabres had 54 points.
In the 2015-16 season with Jack Eichel, the Buffalo Sabres improved to 81 points.
That's a 27 POINT improvement!! Loosing a great young player that improved your team by 27 points just cannot be overcome.

In all fairness, Buffalo also added Ryan O'Reily, Sam Reinhart and Evander Kane last year. So it wasn't just Jack Eichel.

OH, but Evander Kane is out for at least a month with broken ribs. Ryan O'Reily is likely playing injured. Not to mention their 2 offseason free agent signings starting the year injured. The Buffalo Sabres are finished before they got started.

HOWEVER, there is a silver lining for Buffalo fans in all of this. If the team was completely healthy, they could have easily finished the season 9th place no mans land. Which would mean a double whammy of no playoffs AND no top pick in the draft. With these injuries, Buffalo now has a really good chance at a top 4 pick in the draft. Something the team could use.

You guys are going to be good. With or without Eichel. Hope he recovers with God speed.

 

[JThorne]

Yeah, agreed. A no man's land finish is fine when you're trying to get out of the basement. Which we are. It isn't like we were Calgary or Toronto during their extended stays in the middle.

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

I think they are very happy, they will have a very bad season, collect another hight draft pick but won't be accused of tanking.

 

[McFlyingV]

Thats very unfortunate. I know personally in Edmonton this is a big year to at least progress and try to stay within the playoff race until at least the last month of the year, and I feel that was probably a similar type of goal or expectation in Buffalo. Injuries might make that hard to do, but hopefully they can grind out some wins until they're healthy (just not tomorrow in Edmonton).

 

[Syckle78]

I think they are very happy, they will have a very bad season, collect another hight draft pick but won't be accused of tanking.

Like anyone outside of hf fans care about being accused of tanking.

 

[damacles1156]

Collect another high end draft pick. Not the end of the world

 

[Thorton02]

Like anyone outside of hf fans care about being accused of tanking.

Pretty sure Canada accused Buffalo of tanking.

 

[DJN21]

Pretty sure Canada accused Buffalo of tanking.

Who was the ambassador of those claim mr. Cherry?

 

[Hynh]

Pretty sure Canada accused Buffalo of tanking.

Who was the ambassador of those claim mr. Cherry?

He didn't just accuse them, he cursed them, which would explain the Eichel/Kane/ROR injuries, Lehner's injury last year and even losing the lottery.

 

[Dogewow]

You can start out terrible, improve and still be terrible. The majority of people did not think they'd be good.

Not true. If you asked people on the forum here, you'd likely find more people than not who thought they'd improve or at least have a similar season to last.

It's karma.

Oh give me a break.

Why didn't karma hit the Penguins when they shamelessly and obviously tanked for Lemieux? They were rewarded with cups for that season.

He didn't just accuse them, he cursed them, which would explain the Eichel/Kane/ROR injuries, Lehner's injury last year and even losing the lottery.

I love Don Cherry at times, but there are also times when he's just full of it. Ted Nolan is a crappy coach, regardless of who's on the roster. He needed to go if we wanted to take steps towards relevancy. Blysma has his flaws, but I'd take him over Nolan 11 times out of 10. I don't buy any of this crap that people are pushing. It's all circumstantial. I'd probably be more likely to buy this stuff (hockey gods, karma) if we got hit with these injuries right before a playoff run during a contending season, then I'd be more apt to believe in it.

 

[Syckle78]

Pretty sure Canada accused Buffalo of tanking.

Pretty sure the country of Canada did no such thing.

 

[Beerz]

Pretty sure the country of Canada did no such thing.

Maybe Toronto media ='s Canada

 

[Beerz]

As for the injuries...

It sucks for sure...but not a lot you can do about it.

 

[Dogewow]

As for the injuries...

It sucks for sure...but not a lot you can do about it.

Basically. Doesn't mean that the season is over either. It certainly puts us behind the eight ball, but there are a lot of games yet to be played. I've noticed that there's quite a few knee-jerk reactions associated with the opening of the regular season, across the board.

 

[Ace]

Trouble in what way?

Their odds of making the playoffs went from not great to very bad...but what can you do? Eichel will come back in two months and keep developing. Reinhart and Risto and McCabe will get big ice time to keep developing. Nylander will get big minutes in the AHL to keep developing. Their older kids (Nelson, Fasching, Bailey, Baptiste) will be called up/sent down all year to keep developing. Their younger kids (Guhle, Bergen, Asplund, Pu, Estephan etc) were all sent back to keep developing.

So most of it is right on track.

I don't believe they planned on winning the cup this season. Losing out on watching Eichel for two months is the real loss.

 

[LeafFever]

Maybe Toronto media ='s Canada

Do we really have to go down this path again? The Leafs last season were far, far better than when Buffalo tanked and ALL the numbers prove this.
Everytime a Leaf fan posts stats Sabres fans disappear when they claim there was a "Double Standard" with the Canadian media.
The Leafs had 15 more points than the Sabres in 2014-15 and had a far better goal differential AND spent 50 million to get a top coach.

 

[Dogewow]

Do we really have to go down this path again? The Leafs last season were far, far better than when Buffalo tanked and ALL the numbers prove this.
Everytime a Leaf fan posts stats Sabres fans disappear when they claim there was a "Double Standard" with the Canadian media.

I'm standing right here.

People want to make arguments that what Toronto did was somehow less reprehensible because they were better in their main tank year. I find that to be utterly ridiculous. It invalidates a lot of the "tanking is bad" argument.

 

[DJN21]

Do we really have to go down this path again? The Leafs last season were far, far better than when Buffalo tanked and ALL the numbers prove this.
Everytime a Leaf fan posts stats Sabres fans disappear when they claim there was a "Double Standard" with the Canadian media.
The Leafs had 15 more points than the Sabres in 2014-15 and had a far better goal differential AND spent 50 million to get a top coach.

They also paid to add numerous quality depth players only to trade them off at the deadline for picks. Don't get me wrong it was a great way to add assets and I wish the sabres had done the same. However let's not claim innocent when comparing rosters...

 

[DJN21]

Do we really have to go down this path again? The Leafs last season were far, far better than when Buffalo tanked and ALL the numbers prove this.
Everytime a Leaf fan posts stats Sabres fans disappear when they claim there was a "Double Standard" with the Canadian media.
The Leafs had 15 more points than the Sabres in 2014-15 and had a far better goal differential AND spent 50 million to get a top coach.

Also did you really bring up spending on the same coach buffalo went heavy throwing equal money at? Come on man

 

[LeafFever]

I'm standing right here.

People want to make arguments that what Toronto did was somehow less reprehensible because they were better in their main tank year. I find that to be utterly ridiculous. It invalidates a lot of the "tanking is bad" argument.

They were not the same at all. All the stats prove this. I'm very surprised Toronto finished 30th with their stats. Any other year they'd be much higher.

I just find it funny every thread when stats are posted Sabres fans never respond.

 

[LeafFever]

Also did you really bring up spending on the same coach buffalo went heavy throwing equal money at? Come on man

That was not in 2014-15 season.

 

[WeDislikeEich]

It's not looking good for us right now, that's for sure!

Eichel out long term. Kane out long term. Bogosian dealing with (another) groin injury. Kulikov dealing with a tail bone injury (they can linger a long time, I hurt mine playing hockey before and it was tough to even sit, let alone skate and hit effectively). Okposo dealing with a nasty bone bruise and swelling in his knee.
Ryan O'Rielly with the back injury. He looks like a shell of his former self at the moment. I don't even think he'd be playing if it wasn't for all the other injuries. But that's how ROR is. I just hope he doesn't further injure himself, or have this back injury linger all season long and kill his effectiveness.

That's 4 injuries to our top 6 and 2 injuries to our top 4 defenseman. Hopefully some of these injuries are more short term. But time will tell.

My hopes for his season went from hoping/expecting to push for a wildcard spot to now having no idea what to expect. I'm not going to judge the season off of 1 game though, where it looked like half the team was pouting about all the injuries. My hopes are nowhere near where they were, that's for sure.