Lindy Ruff is back behind the bench for the Sabres as head coach and will look to guide them to more moments like this one when the Sabres knocked off the Bruins in the second round of the playoffs at the Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo on Tuesday, May 18, 1999. AP File Photo

It’s finally going to happen.

In Don Granato’s first full season as the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres, they missed the playoffs by just one point and the offense finally arrived as one of the preeminent threats in the league. The main question after that year was consistent goaltending and keeping pucks out of Buffalo’s nets, and it appeared that Devon Levi was going to assume his role as the next Ryan Miller after torching the NCAA.

So last year, Granato reinvented the team’s identity defensively and the offense appeared to vanish, while simultaneously Levi showed he was not ready for the NHL. That decrease in offense was amplified by unfortunate injuries to Jack Quinn the previous summer, and leading scorer Tage Thompson was hurt early in the year, which clearly affected his play the entire season.

Sacrificing the offense for the defense ultimately cost Granato his job, but amid the disappointment was the emergence of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen who put together a season worthy of Vezina Trophy conversations.

Maintaining most of the core, aside from buying out Jeff Skinner, Buffalo clearly has the pieces and has shown flashes of a team that belongs in the playoffs. However, while competing in the NHL’s Atlantic Division you need to play consistently the entire year when vying for postseason spots with perennial Stanley Cup contenders in Florida, Tampa Bay, Boston and Toronto.

The answer to Buffalo’s consistency comes from a familiar face — Sabres legendary coach Lindy Ruff — who is returning to his spot as the bench boss this season. The key to tying together the bright spots from both seasons and mitigating the low points from each is Ruff and the veteran leadership he brings.

Despite being an old-fashioned coach, there is no fear of him holding back the offense as he showcased with Jack Hughes’ career-high 99-point season two years ago in New Jersey. I would expect Thompson to return to the heights he reached two years ago, Dylan Cozens will get back to where he was trending to and I believe that JJ Peterka will emerge as the guy to replace what offense was lost with Skinner.

Returning from his injury, Quinn should hit the ground running and Zach Benson will continue to show he is the real deal as he proves how stupid the league is for letting him fall to pick No. 13 in the 2023 NHL Draft. The top-six of Peterka-Thompson-Al Tuch and Benson-Cozens-Quinn is one of the best in the Atlantic, but where Ruff and general manager Kevyn Adams did most of their work is reinventing the bottom-six this offseason and making it harder to play against.

Starting off is the acquisition of emerging center Ryan McLeod from the Edmonton Oilers for a high-end prospect in Matthew Savoie. While Savoie is one of my favorite prospects I have ever scouted, Buffalo has done tremendous work in amateur scouting since Adams took over in 2020, and the embarrassment of riches accrued allowed the Sabres to flip a former top-10 pick for a role player.

McLeod brings a lot of speed to the third line and is ready to take on more ice time and responsibility. Joining him in the middle-six, and likely on the third line, is Jason Zucker, a former 30-goal scorer, who can play a two-way game that fits Ruff’s style. And, even in a pinch, he can slide up the lineup if needed. Jordan Greenway is expected to fill in on the other side of the third line.

The entire fourth line is brand new, going from left to right with Beck Malenstyn-Sam Lafferty-Nicolas Aube-Kubel, and in that new group is a lot of grit that will make the Sabres hard to play against.

Without many changes, the Buffalo defense expects to be the cornerstone of the team, led by new captain Rasmus Dahlin. If Buffalo hopes to not only be a playoff hopeful, but also a legitimate contender now and in the future, Dahlin will have to play like the Norris-caliber defenseman he has always been meant to be. Bowen Byram and Owen Power need to bring that secondary offensive punch from the back end, but their defensive game needs to be reliable, and I think Ruff can get that out of them. While Dahlin-Byram-Power do the heavy lifting on defense, Mattias Samuelsson, Connor Clifton and Henri Jokiharju need to just not mess it up, and if there are injuries throughout the year it should be interesting to see if Nikita Novikov gets a chance to show his defensive acumen and if Ryan Johnson can reclaim a spot for the future.

While everything looks great ahead of them, plenty is hinging on Luukkonen and Levi not to revert back to mediocrity in net. Last year, Luukkonen posted a .910 save percentage and 2.57 goals-against average which was good for 12th and eighth in the league among goalies to start at least 35 games. The 22-year-old Levi, who was a stud last year for Rochester in the AHL, posting a .927 save percentage and 2.42 goals-against average, looks ready to backup Luukkonen, but the acquisition of veteran goalie James Reimer has not made that an urgent decision.

If the preseason is the proof of anything, it is that the vibes heading into the season are good with the Sabres not dropping a single game even when its main roster made the trip early for the Global Series game to open the NHL season on Friday and the prospects took care of business back in the U.S.

However, no matter how great everything sounds, it has been too good to be true the last two seasons and I can understand how it is difficult to buy into whatever the Sabres are selling after having missed the playoffs every year since 2011. This year it is not just the Sabres adding stability and the already strong roster maturing and developing, but it’s the shifting dynamics in the Atlantic Division.

Coming off of winning the Stanley Cup the Florida Panthers should remain the top threat in not only the division, but the entire league. A lot of pressure is on Toronto this season to not just be a regular-season juggernaut, and it would be expected for the Maple Leafs to remain fighting for the top spot in the division.

Where there appears to be wiggle room is with the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning as both teams look to retool and find a new identity as time goes by, so right now is the perfect time for the emerging teams like Buffalo and Detroit to go after those spots.

While the Bruins still boast a strong defensive core and will make any goalie’s job easier, ditching a Vezina winner in Linus Ullmark and not having future starter Jeremy Swayman locked down long term was so stupid. On top of that, the contract negotiations have reached the public spheres and an effort to make Swayman look greedy might come back to bite the Bruins, which means they could be stuck with starting Joonas Korpisalo and Jiri Patera.

David Pastrnak will continue to be one of the league’s best goal scorers and Brad Marchand still remains an elite offensive threat, even at 36 years old. The Bruins need the youth movement, led by Matthew Poitras, to work out and I think he will be a good player. He is miles below the youth coming up in Buffalo.

Tampa Bay had the biggest change as longtime captain Steven Stamkos walked and joined the Nashville Predators and the team traded Mikhail Sergachev to Utah, which leaves Victor Hedman as the only high-caliber defender. The defense should still be fine and one of the best goalies in the world Andrei Vasilevskiy should cover up any blemishes.

The Lightning added Jake Guentzel to replace Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov will probably finish near the top of the league in scoring again, along with Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli, who still make for a formidable force offensively. However, we will have to see how the organization handles transitioning away from Stamkos and I think it further separates from being the top team in the NHL from 2019-22.

Outside the playoffs in the division looking for a spot — and Buffalo’s biggest threat — are the Detroit Red Wings, and Steve Yzerman has done plenty to get back to the postseason.

Going head to head, Buffalo has the advantage at goalie as Detroit looks to lean on Alex Lyon who was just below average last season. On defense, Moritz Seider headlines the Red Wings. He is just not in the same class as Dahlin offensively while still being an elite defender and the secondary defensive scoring is lacking in Detroit. On offense, it looks a lot closer, but aging veterans like Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko are too risky to hinge your season on, and I don’t think Dylan Larkin stacks up against Thompson. The Red Wings can expect Lucas Raymond to soar offensively and maybe even near 90 points this year. After that Alex Debrincat could be a 30-goal scorer again.

At the cellar of the division should be Ottawa and Montreal, but both teams are beyond the days of fighting for the first pick, with the Senators trending down and Canadiens trending up as long as they are healthy.

LOOKING AT PROSPECTS

I was disappointed when Buffalo traded Matthew Savoie in the offseason, but that is the course of action when year after year the amateur scouting staff knocks the draft out of the park.

A lot of people had Jiri Kulich pegged for a roster spot this season in Buffalo, but there is no need to rush him when he needs to round out his game still. Noah Ostend has emerged as the Sabres’ top prospect in my eyes and that really started last season when he should have won the WJC Tournament MVP over teammate Jonathan Lekkerimaki. Ostlund’s skillset is absolutely disgusting. His hands and vision are about as good as it gets and he could play in the offensive zone with his eyes closed.

Konsta Helenius is Zach Benson all over again. It’s astonishing that the league would let him fall outside of the top 10 when he is so obviously close to being an NHL player and he is just 18. His maturity is so obvious and he will have no trouble adjusting in Rochester. I won’t be surprised if he outplays Kulich and Isak Rosen in the minors.

It will be worth keeping an eye on Anton Wahlberg as he transitions to North America full time, and Russian defenders Vsevolod Komarov and Nikita Novikov should be groomed into eventual replacements for Henri Jokiharju and Connor Clifton.

Looking at the 2025 NHL Draft, Boston College freshman and American center James Hagens sets the tone for the draft and he expects to be on the same tier of No. 1 pick as Jack Hughes and very easily will be a No. 1 center in the NHL. The second-best prospect in my eyes right now is 6-foot-5 center Roger McQueen out of the Brandon Wheat Kings in the WHL. Sweden’s Anton Frondell, Czechia’s Adam Benak and Russia’s Ivan Ryabkin figure to be top-10 picks thus far at forward. After a couple down years, the QMJHL should have several first-rounders in Caleb Desnoyers, Emile Guite and Justin Carbonneau.

However, you won’t have to look far to see some of the best talent yourself as the Erie Otters have their best duo since Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome. Both top defenseman Matthew Schaefer and power forward Malcolm Spence are nowhere near McDavid, but should be better than Strome and a lot of fun to watch in the OHL this season. Also in the OHL are Porter Martone of the Brampton Steelheads and Michael Misa of the Saginaw Spirit, who both figure as top 10 picks.

The Sabres hope to not have to worry about any of those names in the top 20 selections, but the consolation prize is that the 2025 crop is already looking more talented than last year.