Toronto Maple Leafs: Eye on the Enemy, Part Six
It’s time to take a brief look at the Toronto Maple Leafs divisional competition, the Buffalo Sabres.
Personally, I love it when the Sabres are in town to take on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
I know, Buffalo, not a very exotic team, but nonetheless, fun to watch.
Here’s the sixth installment of my seven-part series where we take a look into the Atlantic Division for the 2017-18 season.
First, let’s backtrack to the teams we’ve already covered.
- Tampa Bay Lightning
- ……
- Ottawa Senators
- Montreal Canadiens (contingent)
- Boston Bruins (contingent)
- Florida Panthers
It’s quite obvious what team I’ve left for the last place spot, but that’s for another article.
Anyways, yes, the Sabres turn is now.
Remember that at the end of each article, I’ll make a prediction for where I think the team of conversation will land in the standings by the end of the regular season.
Onto the Bills, I mean Sabres.
Buffalo Sabres
When someone thinks of the Sabres, they immediately think of Jack Eichel and why not?
The kid’s dynamite.
He was overshadowed by Connor McDavid in his draft year but was still a stand out among the rest, excluding Mitchell Marner.
What a beauty.
His first pro year was a little bit of a let down for all the hype that surrounded him, I mean, 24 goals and 56 points in 81 games didn’t scream franchise to me.
It was a different story for the 2016-17 season when he came back from injury and put up 24 goals and 57 points in only 61 games played.
That screams elite, not franchise, but elite.
One of the LA Kings scouts I was golfing with earlier this week had worked as an amateur scout for the Sabres for a while and had some thoughts on the team.
The main point he was making was the Eichel’s a player with a chip on his shoulder and can handle this kind of pressure.
Actually, he can excel in it according to the scout.
He’s tired of the McDavid talk and wants it to be the Eichel talk, so the scout thinks he’s bound for a breakout season.
I hope so.
In the end, I’m of the opinion that had Auston Matthews been eligible in 2015, he would’ve gone ahead of Eichel.
That’s just my opinion, though.
Okay, that’s just one player, let’s look at the rest of the forward crop.
Continued
Ryan O’Reilly may just be one of the most underrated centers in the game and doesn’t have the spotlight on him, giving him room to wiggle.
That kind of space could be deadly for a player like him.
O’Reilly should be able to help lead this team to greater things along with Kyle Okposo (if he’s able to return on time) and Jason Pominville.
For other fire power, they have Evander Kane, who I’m not a fan of for his showboating, Zemgus Girgensons and hopefully Sam Reinhart.
I’d really like to see that kid take off.
William Nylander’s younger brother, Alexander, looks primed to jump into play at the NHL level, so that should help with things.
It’ll definitely make the Toronto/Buffalo games that much more entertaining.
I think that the forwards are more capable what they’ve been giving out.
On the backend, Rasmus Ristolainen and Marco Scandella lead the bunch and I do mean bunch.
They have nine defensemen on their 23 man roster right now.
The budding duo of Robin Lehner and Chad Johnson just won’t cut it for me as I believe goaltending will continue to be a hindrance for the Sabres.
I’d like for them to get out of the basement, but they’ve been struggling.
I’m predicting that they’ll finish in seventh place in the Atlantic, leaving just one more team to dissect.
The Detroit Red Wings are up next.