One Of These Three Young Sabres Players Has To Step Up If Buffalo Is Going To Be A Playoff Team Next Year

Jiri Kulich (Amber Searls, USA TODAY Images)

If they're to end their 14-year Stanley Cup playoff drought, the Buffalo Sabres will need a lot of things to go right. They're going to need solid goaltending from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Alex Lyon and/or Devon Levi. They're going to need veterans including Tage Thompson, Jason Zucker and Alex Tuch to produce what they've usally produced in their NHL career. They're going to need coach Lindy Ruff's instruction to be followed.

However, in this writer's estimation, the difference between the Sabres missing and making the post-season could come down to whether one of young forwards Jiri Kulich, Zach Benson and/or Jack Quinn steps up with a major contribution on offence. 

"The Wraparound"

The Sabres trio are all approximately the same age -- Quinn is 23, Benson is 20, and Kulich is 21 -- and theyve all showed signs of having the tools to produce in a more meaningful way. Benson has been effective in his first two NHL seasons, producing 11 goals and 30 points in his rookie season, followed by a 10-goal, 28-point season last year. Meanwhile, Quinn played in his third NHL season last year, and he posted career highs in goals (15), assists (24) and points (39) in 74 games. And Kulich had a solid rookie NHL season last year, generating 15 goals and 24 points in 62 games.

To be sure, those are promising numbers from each of Kulich, Quinn and Benson. But while all of the three has their own individual expectations to live up to, the Sabres need at least one of them to take the next competitive step and establish themselves in much the same way as now-former Buffalo star winger J.J. Peterka had established himself as a consistent upper-tier offense-producer before the Sabres felt compelled to trade Peterka this summer.

If Buffalo can get that extra bit of offensive oomph out of one of their young forwards, suddenly the pressure on Thompson eases a little. Same thing goes for Tuch and Zucker. That doesn't mean any of them can go long stretches of time without putting up above-average numbers; if even the slightest thing is off-kilter, with any degree of prolonged inefficiency from their players, the Sabres' playoff hopes will go up in thin air. There's precious little room for error here. Somebody's progression has to be linear.

We're not suggesting Benson, Kulich and Quinn have to be a finalist for the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top pointgetter to get Buffalo into the playoffs. We know how rare those type of young players are. But certainly, having one of those three players pass the 20-goal mark and get into the 50-60-point area at season's end would improve the Sabres' overall performance and also take pressure off Buffalo's defense corps to win 2-1 or 3-2 games night-in and night-out.

Quinn, Kulich and Benson all share some similarities: all three are first-round draft picks, all of them since 2020. And they're all likely to get different looks with different Sabres teammates on different lines. As is usually the case with veteran teams, every possible avenue of improvement has to be exhausted, so we imagine Ruff will be coming up with all sorts of experiments as next season unfolds.

At some point, the Sabres need some of those experiments to bear fruit. It doesn't matter one lick which of the three of Kulich, Quinn and Benson step up and assert themselves as a notable contributor, so long as at least one of them does.

In an ideal world for Buffalo fans, all three young Sabres forwards will emerge as key components in short order this year. That's possible, we suppose, but not probable. And that's why asking for one out of three of them to thrive at a new level is the more realistic ask of this young team.

The Sabres are facing stiff competition just to be in the same zip code as their Atlantic Division rivals when it comes to making the playoffs. Buffalo has to get some sort of booster rocket to push them into the fringes of the post-season mix, let alone being up in the rarifed air surrounding the teams at the top of the Atlantic.

In sum, then, the Sabres need all their veterans to be lifting their share, and to edge out the legitimate playoff frontrunners, Buffalo is going to need at least one young forward to grab the spotlight, make it their own, and help end an era of losing that has strained the good nature of everyone involved.

This is a glorious opportunity for Benson, Kulich and Quinn to make themselves indispensable, and Sabres fans have fingers crossed that one of them makes the most of it. Buffalo has to have one of the trio carve out an important place in Sabres history, and whoever is up to the task -- if they're up to the task -- will be instantly beloved by Buffalo fans.