No, The Buffalo Sabres AREN’T Making the Playoffs

No, The Buffalo Sabres AREN’T Making the Playoffs

Over the last few days I have seen a lot of discourse on YouTube around the Buffalo Sabers who have gone on a bit of a heater of late they’ve won three of their last four games and they’ve gone 5 four and one in their last 10 which has

Put them within five points of the final wild card spot currently held by the Detroit Red Wings and this has caused a lot of people to start asking could they actually make a run here late in the season overtake the teams in front of them and make the playoffs for the first

Time in over a decade and I have an easy answer to that what are you out mine the Buffalo sabr are not making the NHL playoffs it is a virtual certainty and that’s not me saying it it’s just the math as of this recording on March 18th

Money Puck gives the Buffalo Sabers a 6 and 1 12% chance of making the NHL playoffs this year that is only slightly better than the odds given to the Calgary Flames out in the west who are eight points out of the last playoff spot so why are people hyping the Sabers

Up when it seems almost impossible for them to make the playoffs well right now they are the sexy young kid on the Block they’re actually the youngest team in the NHL with an average age of 25 years and a lot of the teams that they could overtake in front of them like the

Penguins capitals and Islanders are significantly older than them in terms of average age the saers also have some incredibly young fun players like defenseman Ross Molene Jeff Skinner Alex tuck Dylan cousins the newly acquired bow and Byrum rookie Zach Benson teach Thompson and many more in goal Uka Lucin

Has been a revelation taking over for the presumed starter at the start of the Year Devon Levi and he has been helping to back stop them of late and a lot of people saw them beat up on the golden knights at the beginning of March as well as take down the Oilers in

Impressive fashion and thought why not Buffalo but unfortunately that doesn’t matter because the sabes have two things working against them that are going to prevent them from making the playoffs the first is that they just don’t have enough time to overcome the hole that they have dug themselves into the Sabers

Current Curr have 69 points in 68 games meaning that there are five teams ahead of them in the Wild Card Chase for two spots four of those teams in front of the Buffalo Sabers the Penguins Islanders capitals and lightning all have games in hand on Buffalo the only

One who doesn’t have games in hand is the Detroit Red Wings who have 74 points in 68 games so they’re equal in terms of games in hand there’s an old adage that you can’t win the Stanley Cup in October but you can definitely lose it and that most certainly applies to the Buffalo

Sabers they went for and seven in the month of October and really have never been able to climb out of that hole now with just 16 games left in their season they have a pretty hefty killed climb they’re about to go on a West Coast Road swing that will take them to Vancouver

And Edmonton a very tough challenge for them they’ll also have to face Seattle and Calgary who are in those last 14 games I only have the Sabers favored in six of them meaning that I project that they’ll go six and eight down the stretch which obviously will not be good

Enough to overtake the teams in front of them but worse yet when you look at the teams around them and in front of them they all have pretty easy schedules New Jersey is going to get Ottawa twice as well as getting to play Buffalo that’ll be a crucial game Pittsburgh is going to

Get to play Columbus twice as well as Detroit the Devils twice and the Caps the Red Wings are going to get Montreal twice the Islanders are going to get Chicago Columbus Montreal and the Devils twice Dilly is going to get Montreal twice as well as Columbus Chicago one

Game against the caps and one game gets Buffalo that will be critical for those two teams and then finally Tampa Bay gets maybe the easiest path with s Jose Anaheim Montreal Columbus and then the caps and the Savers to round out the end of their season I mean other than the

Caps who basically have no gimmies down the stretch Buffalo might have the hardest remaining schedule of any team that’s fing for that wild card spot and then the second major reason I think that the Savers are not going to make the playoffs is quite simply they’re just not good enough on the season

Buffalo ranks 22nd in terms of expected goal differential currently sitting at about minus 4 on the year now that is better than Washington and Detroit who are both much further down but it’s still below teams that they have to Leap Frog like Tampa Bay Pittsburgh and even the Devils who are technically behind

Them in the standing at around minus 82 and if your thought is that maybe Buffalo got off to a slow start but they’ve been getting better over the year well the evidence just simply doesn’t back that up either they expected gold differential has bounced up and down but it’s ended up basically

The same as where it was at the start of February and in fact just a week ago it hit its lowest point of the entire season the Sabers are just quite frankly not a good team and they haven’t been getting better they’ve been about where they should be in the standings since

Around the early part of December now the good news is that they’re probably going to be better next year as one of the youngest teams in the NHL with sack Benson getting another year guys like petka and Owen power getting some more reps I would hope that they’re going to

Be in the playoff hunt next year but for this year let’s just take a deep breath on expectations for the Buffalo Sabers

There’s been a lot of hype and hooting and hollering about how the plucky young Buffalo Sabres could make a run to the playoffs. It’s not gonna happen.