Season Recap: A tough, but necessary road

By Marc Deschamps

No one said it would be easy. The bottom-dwelling Buffalo Sabres had a large hole to dig out of during the 2015-16 NHL season. After finishing in last place the previous year, the new group, led by rookie Jack Eichel and new coach Dan Bylsma, had much to prove. For the first time in years, however, fans had a lot to look forward to.

It will no doubt be a disappointment to some that the Sabres did not make the playoffs this season. After 5 years without a playoff appearance, fans are understandably eager to see a strong run. The team did, however, show the kind of progress that will be needed to advance in that direction. Last year, the team was difficult to watch, even on their best night. While there is still quite a bit of room for improvement, this year's Sabres roster showed that a strong Cup run is within sight for the first time in years.

Any discussion of this season has to start with Eichel. Playing an impressive 81 of 82 games this season (he missed a game in March due to food poisoning), Eichel led the team in scoring with 24 goals, and proved to be a force in nearly every game. In his freshman season, Eichel's drive was fantastic to watch. He put forth astounding effort, even when he was just going for an empty net goal (as seen in the Sabres' 3-1 victory over the NY Rangers last week). His assists were often as entertaining as his goals. He stood up for himself and other teammates on the ice. Perhaps more importantly, he remained out of trouble off the ice, as well. If this is a preview of the rest of his career, Jack Eichel could very well live up to the hype.

The team also seems to have strong leadership. Ryan O'Reilly might not have the "C" on his jersey, but he certainly seems to act like it. O'Reilly has proven to be one of the best off-season pick-ups for Buffalo, leading by example and displaying impressive effort with a team-leading 60 points. That isn't to say that the current captain, Brian Gionta, hasn't also fulfilled his duties. While Gionta looked like a lame duck at the start of the season, the captain sprang to life in the latter half of the year, particularly when O'Reilly missed nearly a month due to injury. Gionta’s resurgence capped off the season with an overtime winner in the team’s final game of the season, a 4-3 win against the New York Islanders.

No matter where the team's leadership is coming from, the most impressive thing about the 2015-16 Sabres crew is their determination to win. On several occasions throughout the season, the team found themselves in multiple goal deficits they managed to dig themselves out of. In March, the team turned a likely 2-1 Carolina Hurricanes victory into a stunning 3-2 Sabres win in the dying minutes of regulation. Just a few weeks later, they nearly repeated the feat when the team turned a 3-0 Detroit lead into a 3-2 nail biter. While the Sabres still lost, the fact that they continued fighting showed a strong sense of character for this young club. Even after the team had already been statistically eliminated from playoff contention, their desire to win continued unabated. In fact, the team looked even better by that point.

Of course, there are plenty of areas in which Buffalo does need to improve. The team often struggled to find the back of the net this season, and it drastically impacted their playoff hopes. Adding insult to injury, the team let up six short-handed goals throughout the year. Last year's leading leading goal scorer, Tyler Ennis, missed nearly the entire season due to injury, which could easily be a contributing factor. Another factor could very well be the team's consistently changing lines. Dan Bylsma frequently tampered with the lineup, and that may have hurt the team's overall communication. The team is certainly starting to gel, but the lack of line consistency may have hurt them during the first half of the season.

The team also has no clear answer in net. Robin Lehner, Chad Johnson and Linus Ullmark all impressed at various points throughout this season, but there is still no clear front-runner for the goaltender position. Lehner is easily the most experienced, and seems to fit most with the team's chemistry, making him the best choice for the time being. The goaltender endeared himself to fans in February when he stood up for Zach Bogosian with a nightmare-inducing stare down of Blue Jackets defenseman Jack Johnson. While the moment inspired t-shirts and internet memes, Lehner's willingness to stand up for a teammate says a lot about the chemistry the team is building.

That chemistry is easily the most promising thing about this 2015-16 season. Dan Bylsma and the Sabres organization have taken a mix of new faces and leftovers from last year, and molded them into something impressive. There is a heart and drive to this young group, and it offers quite a bit of hope for next season. Perhaps no other play so perfectly summarized that chemistry than Evander Kane's pass to Sam Reinhart in the dying seconds of the Sabres' 4-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets in February. Kane had been booed throughout the evening by his former fans. He had been driven out of Winnipeg in the first place because he'd been called selfish and immature. In one of the most selfless displays of the season, Kane gave up a chance to bury his former team with an empty net goal, instead opting to pass the puck to Reinhart, who needed the goal to complete his first ever NHL hat trick. In that moment, there was a true sense of the makeup of this team; of how far they had come. The Buffalo Sabres might have missed the playoffs this year, but a run is coming. The 2016-17 season promises a very bright future for hockey in Buffalo.