Sabres' outlook a dice game

Thomas Vanek has played seven seasons for the Buffalo Sabres, never missing more than 11 games in one, and has averaged 33 goals. Ryan Miller has a 2.56 goals-against average for his career, a number that he strayed from only year since 2005. Extrapolated over a full 82-game season Jason Pominville, also a seven-year vet, should be good for around 65 points. Lindy Ruff's teams over the last five years in the Eastern Conference have finished 10th, 10th, 4th, 7th and 9th.

The mystery in this year's Sabres, if there is one, does not lie in their leading men. Not only are they unchanged, they've all been around for plenty long to provide us a good idea of who they are and what kind of quality they'll provide. Same goes for about two-thirds of their team.

Are the changes they did make enough to turn the Sabres into something they haven't been for half a decade -- a really good team?

Most fans won't look to numbers for this. Through two games the Sabres' efforts to toughen themselves up look effective. Steve Ott has provided a physical presence, John Scott was in a fight, and both Marcus Foligno and Drew Stafford (gasp!) have fought too. Patrick Kaleta, never one to disappoint in this area, punched Phil Kessel's head a few times in Toronto after Kessel committed the unthinkable act of cutting across the top of the Sabres' goal crease.

It feels good to see the Sabres be less meek on the ice. I, like you, prefer my hockey teams this way. (There is a line you can cross, but I don't see reason to think the Sabres will be that rough.) There is emotion in this, and pride. Hitting gets fans into games and behind the team, and this is important.

But...

I think the conversation about how lacking the Sabres were last year in this way, in attempts to support what they look like now, is already off the rails.

The Sabres won 39 of 82 games last year, including an impressive late-season charge that had them in a playoff spot with a week left. How did they do it? They did not only beat bad teams, or teams secure in playoff positions. They won plenty of close games as they did not blow out everybody -- and of course even if they had, that would be a good sign too. If they were truly the team many people claim -- soft, uncaring, fragmented -- the March push would not have happened.

To say that last year's team wouldn't have won games like the one in Toronto on Monday because of some newfound camaraderie is nonsense. They won lots of times like that. And what, the Leafs' not scoring a second goal in the last few minutes Monday was really because of the Sabres' execution? If you make this point you're trying way to hard to substantiate the value of team toughness, maybe because it is what you've been saying they needed to do. By all appearances Kaleta's play did absolutely nothing to keep Toronto away from Miller.

This is all not to say that last year's team was great or anything. It's simply to say this: The things most people, in my opinion, wanted to see changed to the Sabres were heart and effort, and in this area last year I don't think they were as bad as you do.

Not that it's easily done but I'd feel better about this year ending well if in the off-season, shrouded as it was by the looming lockout, the Sabres had added one really good offensive player. Barring an uprising from 18-year-old Mikhail Grigorenko they did not do this. They were 13th in goals against last year and given lengthy injuries to Christian Ehrhoff and Tyler Myers, both under big contracts anyway, there isn't much they could have done to their blue line.

But they were 16th in goals and there is reason to think they'll have a tough time improving on that.

Derek Roy, fourth on the team with 17 goals, is gone. Tyler Ennis had 15 but scored on a fortunate 18 percent of his shots. (Marcus Foligno for that matter scored six times on an other-worldly 26 percent of his shots.) Surely the Sabres are hopeful that Ville Leino (when healthy) and Cody Hodgson will markedly improve their production. In Leino's case at least, based on his career as a whole, I'm not optimistic.

One huge factor not to be overlooked in this analysis is luck, and so far this season the Sabres are on a world-record pace. I lost count, have there been four goals waved off against them already? In the Flyers game at least they were very fortunate to have those two goals negated, not to mention the paper-thin line between a disallowed goal and the one Hodgson scored.

Luck manifests in goals and saves, and also in matchups. How healthy is your opponent? How tired are they? And it's who you draw in the playoffs too. Even though the teams they beat were higher seeds, do you really think the Kings last year would have rather faced Chicago (7th in goals) and Detroit (6th) in playoff series than St. Louis (22nd) and Phoenix (17th)? Neither do I.

All put together, it's hard for me to see the Sabres not falling between sixth and 10th in the East in points. I think toughness is good, and I think they've improved there, and I think the best part of that is that we'll like them more.

That's not nothing but it's not also not everything.