The Buffalo Sabres have a real opening to sort through this offseason, and it starts with the forward group. After losing Alex Tuch and Bowen Byram, general manager Jarmo Kekalainen did what he could to maximize the return in trades, but the roster still has to absorb those departures somewhere.
On the blue line, the path looks fairly clean. It appears to be a two-player fight between Olen Zellweger and Louis Crevier. Replacing Tuch is a different kind of puzzle, though, because Buffalo has several young options in the mix rather than one obvious answer.
That was the point Beck Malenstyn made when Matt Bove asked him who might step into Tuch’s role. Malenstyn didn’t single out just one name. Instead, he pointed to the possibility that Konsta Helenius, Noah Ostlund and Jiri Kulich could all help cover that ground together.
"I think it's pretty obvious when you look up the middle of our lineup there with Helly [Helenius], Ostie [Ostlund] and then we missed Coolie [Kulich] for most of the year. Coolie was arguably our number one center as a rookie two years ago and had a very unfortunate circumstance that he had to deal with this year. We can't expect anything less than for him to step in during training camp and be back to himself," Malenstyn said.
He also had praise for what Ostlund and Helenius showed in their minutes last season.
"I think as you said, we can have a ton of confidence in these young guys stepping in and potentially filling the void."
The Sabres have not yet had all three of those players in the lineup together, which is part of what makes this such an interesting situation. Yes, leaning on young, unproven talent to replace a player like Tuch comes with risk. But Buffalo is not asking one player to carry the whole burden.
At different points over the last two seasons, Helenius, Ostlund and Kulich have all shown flashes of being difference-makers. If they can actually stay on the ice together, the Sabres have enough talent there to match - and maybe even top - what Tuch gave them.
And it’s not just those three. Zach Benson, Josh Doan and Jack Quinn are all still viewed as players with room to grow, which only adds to the possibilities.
That leaves Buffalo’s forward group as one of the biggest unknowns on the roster, but also one of the most intriguing. There are enough pieces here to make training camp worth watching closely, especially with so many line combinations available to try to get the most out of this group.
In Other News...
Sabres Fans Have Every Right To Be Furious Over Konsta Helenius
Konsta Helenius has already done enough in his young career to make Buffalos front office feel pretty good about the 2024 first-rounder. He has produced in the AHL, held his own in the NHL, and even chipped in two goals in a playoff series, the kind of early offensive footprint that usually gets a prospects stock moving in the right direction. For a Sabres system that also includes Daxon Rudolph, Radim Mrtka and Noah Ostlund near the top of The Athletics latest list, Helenius has every reason to be part of the conversation near the front.
So when he landed at No. 42, it was fair for Sabres fans to bristle a little. The ranking says one thing, but Helenius track record suggests a player whose ceiling may be higher than that slot implies, especially if his scoring touch keeps translating against better competition. Buffalo has spent years waiting for young talent to turn promise into production, and Helenius is already making it harder to dismiss him as just another promising name in the pipeline. [Read more 🡒]
One Sabres Draft Miss Still Haunts What Buffalo Could Have Been
The Sabres 1986 draft still offers one of those what-if moments that lingers because the miss was so close to the top of the board. Buffalo used the fifth overall pick on defenseman Shawn Anderson, and while he did get to the NHL and log time with the club, he never came close to becoming the kind of cornerstone the franchise needed as it tried to build around its late-1980s core.
What makes the decision sting is the player who went just a few picks later, Brian Leetch, who became the sort of defenseman that can change a teams trajectory for years. For Buffalo, the frustration is not just that Anderson fell short, but that a player with Leetchs ceiling might have fit perfectly with the talent already in place and given the Sabres a far different path in the seasons that followed. [Read more 🡒]
Kevyn Adams Just Landed A New NHL Front Office Role
The Bruins made a round of hockey operations changes this week, and the ripple effects reached back to Buffalo. Along with promoting Dennis Bonvie and Jeremy Rogalski to assistant general managers and naming Alex Gimenez director of hockey operations, collective bargaining agreement, Boston also continued reshaping the front office under general manager Don Sweeneys watch.
For Sabres fans, the most notable name in the mix is Kevyn Adams, who has now landed a senior advisor role in Boston. It is his first NHL job since Buffalo moved on from him early last season, closing a chapter that saw the Sabres postseason drought stretch to 14 years before the team finally broke through after his dismissal. [Read more 🡒]