I will be rating each team on three different areas which of course are goalies, defensemen and forward. The ratings are from 1 to 10. The rating consists of his personal ability and his importance to the team. This means that a player who scores way more points might get the same rating as someone who does not. There are two categories that i will rate: Every position as whole and then every single player. I will also put in the lines that i think/hope they will play next season. Then last i will give a grade to the whole team.
Buffalo Sabres
Goalies
Ryan Miller One of the best goalies in the entire league. Buffalo has the luxury of being able to rely on him in every situation. Rating: 10
Jhonas Enroth: Handled the few starts he got pretty well. Solid backup who has potential to be a starter in the future. Rating: 7
One of the best goalies in the National Hockey league to go with a solid backup. Who would not want to have a duo like that? Rating: 9
Defensemen
Mike Weber: Played fairly well last season, but I am afraid that the acquisitions of Robyn Regehr and Christian Ehrhoff and the playoff run of Marc-Andre Gragnani will drop Weber to AHL. Rating: 7
Andrej Sekera: Is coming off his beast season in points and made a multi-year renewal with Sabred during the offseason. Should fit easily to the starting sguad. Rating: 8
Robyn Regehr: The alternate captain of Flames decided that at the of 31 he will take his chances and move on from Calgary. Buffalo gained a solid defender who won´t contribute much points but is a beast physically. Brings some leadership with him. Rating: 9
Tyler Myers: Calder trophy winning defender will start his 3rd season in the National Hockey League. Backbone of Sabres future. Offensive-d-men who will add an significant amount of points.
Rating: 8
Shaone Morrison: Good on defensive aspects of the game, but relatively useless upfront. Might be the other defender who will have to taste the AHL next season. Rating: 7
Jordan Leopold: Played a good season and should be among the top 6 who will form the defensive pairs. Had a career high season in goals and points. Very good all around defender. Rating: 8
Marc-Andre Gragnani: Played only 9 games during the regular season, but went on to be the highest scoring Saber in the playoffs with 1+6. Got called to the World Championships with Canada squad after the playoff success. Hard to ignore when the defensive pairs are formed. Rating: 7
Christian Ehrhoff: Finished as the seventh best defensemen in scoring with 50 points. Move from Vancouver to Buffalo as one of the best scoring d-men will add pressure but I hope he will cope. Rating: 9
Sabres have eight NHL capable players with one of the best from last season and few who are tipped as future stars. All around good, but especially admirable is the offensive ability in their defense. Only worry is that it will strike back as lack of defensive mentality. Rating: 9
Forwards
Thomas Vanek: The culmination point of Buffalo´s offense. Natural sniper who scored 31 goals and added 73 points even though Buffalo missed their number one center and Vaneks linemate Derek Roy to an season ending injury after 35 games. Rating 9
Drew Stafford: High scoring right winger. Scored 31 goals which was second best in the team losing only one goal to Thomas Vanek. Has never played a full season and last year was no exception. Rating: 8
Derek Roy: Led the Sabres in scoring with 10 goals and 25 assists in 35 games, but suffered torn quad tendon which kept him out until the game 7 against Flyers which proven to be the last one for Buffalo. Rating: 9
Jason Pominville: Is a solid 60+ points scorer per season and has an impressive best season of 80 points. Very important to the Sabres in my opinion first line material for them. Rating: 9
Cody McCormick: Good checker and physically good, but stick handling skills are not as good. Checking line center. Otherwise Buffalo is filled with talent in the center so "promotion" is quite impossible to get. Rating: 7
Ville Leino: Got a good deal and if i have not understood wrong he will play as a center which is already quite loaded in Buffalo. If he can keep improving he will be an enormous acquisition for the Sabres. Might replace Connolly? Rating: 8
Ales Kotalik: Never really got it together in Flames, showed that hes is an decent player before that with Oilers and Rangers but even deeper in the past he played 426 games for Buffalo and scored 240 points in them. If he can return to that he has the potential to be even better acquisition than Leino. If not AHL is calling for him. Rating: 7
Patrick Kaleta: Has played over 50 but never more than 55 games in the last three season with the Sabres. Useful checking line right wing but like McCormick besides that he is not too much of use. Rating: 7
Jochen Hecht: Long serving Saber is able to a contribute good amounts of points but his age might take away the sharpest edge from his game. Still an important player. Rating: 8
Nathan Gerbe: Had a breakout season as a center, and hopefully will keep on improving. Small and fast, should keep any defense on it´s toes. Rating: 7
Paul Gaustad: Another good long serving Buffalo center. Perhaps will center the third line if Leino is trusted with the second... The center setup in Buffalo is good but with the departures of Niedermayer and Connolly there are holes to fill and I am not sure who is going to fill which... Rating: 7
Tyler Ennis: He is coming off a really good season and is an extremely interesting prospect. If he can keep contributing like last season he will be really important to the Sabres. Rating: 8
Brad Boyes: Good right winger who stood out in one statistic last season. His move from St. Louis to Buffalo allowed him to be one of the two players who played 83 games last season. (Before you start to google it, the other one was Alex Gologiski) Rating: 8
I really like what the Sabres have here. Good players from first to last. I perhaps would like to see Leino as a left winger, but i take Ruffs word that he will return to center. Solid group of forwards that deserve Rating: 9
Lines
Vanek-Roy-Pominville
Ennis-Leino-Stafford
Gerbe-Hecht-Boyes
Kotalik-Gaustad-Kaleta
Ehrhoff-Regehr
Leopold-Myers
Sekera-Gragnani
Miller
If I am not dreaming that would give four offensive threat line. Perhaps lack of a checking line, but four lines that would all keep every team on it´s toes. Some question marks and some players not on their natural position, but that´s the lineup I´d like to see. Good team and good Rating: 9
Key factors:
+Super goalie
+Quality players for every line
+Lots of potential waiting to be filled
-Some injury prone players
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