Could the Buffalo Sabres Just Be a Bad Team?

This was supposed to be it. This was supposed to be the year for the Buffalo Sabres.

Not for a championship, not for even a run at a championship. This was supposed to be the year that the Sabres picked up their fans and returned to the playoffs after missing them for 12 consecutive seasons. After falling one point short last year and with the same roster largely intact, it seemed like all the pieces were in place for a magical season, one vastly overdue in Western New York.

With the 2023-24 season just about at the halfway point, that hasn’t been the case at all, and Buffalo sits with a 15-18-4 record as of Dec. 30. While that isn’t exactly atrocious, it’s a far, far cry from what was expected and doesn’t reflect how downright doleful it’s been at points.

What caused things to go so bad so quickly is anyone’s guess at this point. The team’s red-hot offensive attack of last year has vanished, its defense remains suspect at best, and the goaltending gamble on Devon Levi has not paid off. Coach Don Granato’s job, which looked locked up at the end of last season, suddenly appears to be in jeopardy.

Fans have spent the entire first half waiting for the Sabres to snap out of it and shift into a higher gear, but that just hasn’t happened, and it begs a number of questions we didn’t think we’d be asking. Are they capable of snapping out of it? Is this team as good as we believed it to be? Was last season an apparition?

Did the Sabres Forget How to Score?

Buffalo’s torrid offense was the story of last season and was its propulsion from start to finish. The Sabres scored left, right, and center and wracked up the third-most goals in the NHL (296), many of which were highlight-reel caliber. Their top line of Tage Thompson, Jeff Skinner, and Alex Tuch combined for 255 points, while they and Dylan Cozens all reached the 30-goal mark. It was often enough to compensate for the issues in virtually every other area and was unquestionably the biggest reason the team came so close to the postseason. The script could not have flipped more dramatically this season.

That gas-powered onslaught has vanished, and the Sabres have looked dramatically different without it. To be fair, they were bitten hard by the injury bug in the first half of the season and were without a number of key players for significant stretches. A huge blow came over the…