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Hamilton: Are the Sabres capable of living up to expectations?

Saturday’s win against the Islanders was an absolute clinic on how Granato wants them to play, and how successful they can be if they would just commit to doing it.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Sabres coach Don Granato has spoken many times about how his team needs to play. He wants them to play fast with pace, and he also preaches that if they defend well, they will possess the puck more and have offensive chances.

The team has only played that way in a handful of games this season, and it made me wonder if he had the kind of team that is capable of playing that way. Forwards are often out of sync with the defensemen, which has led to an unusual amount of outnumbered situations. They turn the puck over at an alarming rate and have to defend off the rush, which is harder. They also rarely get the big save to bail out some of these errors.

As I think back, they defended well in a 2-1 loss to the New York Rangers and in a 6-0 win over the Los Angeles Kings, which was 0-0 after 40 minutes.

Saturday’s game on Long Island against the New York Islanders was an absolute clinic on how Granato wants them to play, and how successful they can be if they would just commit to doing it.

From start to finish, the Sabres defended well as a five-man unit. They kept the quality chances on Eric Comrie to a minimum, and when they did break down, Comrie was right there to make the big save.

Buffalo only scored one goal on Islanders goaltender Semyon Varlamov, because he stood on his head as the Sabres transitioned from defense to offense to create many great looks. The Sabres usually get frustrated when that happens, but this time, they remained patient and just kept playing the right way.

When Jeff Skinner scored the empty-net goal, it sealed a 2-0 win, making Comrie one of the few goaltenders to get a shutout after giving up 10 goals in a game.

One of the reasons the Sabres slipped out of playoff contention in the past two weeks is they were playing not to lose. The pressure of a playoff race got to them, and they started fearing mistakes instead of playing freely.

Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin felt they had to carry the team, and the harder they tried to do that, the worse they got.

Friday’s 5-4 win over the New Jersey Devils got them back to playing fearless. The reason they got their confidence back is they stopped chasing the game. They scored two goals in just a little over 30 seconds, and you could just see the weight being lifted. In the last 12 games, when the Devils made it 2-1, they would’ve had a 5-2 lead by the end of the first period because this young Sabres team would’ve just crumbled.

In this game, they already realized they could score and Jack Quinn, who had lost his check, allowing the Devils to score, reacted in the best way he could: He got the goal back to make it 3-1. Quinn and his linemates, Dylan Cozens and JJ Peterka, are pretty much the only three that haven't been paralyzed by the pressure of a playoff race. Three of the youngest Sabres have been playing fearless.

This was a good test for Granato’s crew because the Devils' young superstar, Jack Hughes, turned what was a 5-2 game into a 5-4 game, but this time Buffalo didn’t blink. They came together with confidence and made sure they got the game into the garage for their first win since March 13 in Toronto.

What Granato and his staff have to do is bottle the effort on Saturday against the Islanders. If the Sabres can learn to play that way in most of their games, they will be a team next year that nobody wants to play.

I think they did the right thing at the trade deadline. They tweaked to get bigger, but they let their young players try to finish the job that they started. They are not at the point in this team’s development where adding players and pushing out youngsters was the move.

Now Kevyn Adams has a baseline, and this offseason is the time to make moves because the "young team" excuse is over next season.

Next season is the year that the playoff drought must be broken. They’re ready, and whomever isn’t ready needs to be gone.

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