Welcome to part two of a multi-part series exploring the likely line combinations and defensive pairings for the 2025-26 Buffalo Sabres*. This article discusses the third line, and as will become apparent, the question marks surrounding this team start appearing in earnest starting here. Let’s start with the positives, though, before discussing the sketchy bits.
Ryan McLeod’s first season as a Buffalo Sabre in 2024-25 must be considered an unqualified success. General Manager Kevyn Adams took an all-too-rare swing last summer when he acquired the center from the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for 2022 9th overall pick Matthew Savoie with the intention of adding a capable two-way/third-line center to his team. The initial reaction from the hockey world to the Sabres trading a recent top-10 first-round pick for a player who was seen as a decent depth center was, well, less than stellar, with some comparing the trade to the infamous Martin Erat for Filip Forsberg deal. To be fair to the skeptics, if you mock a move the Sabres have made in the past 15 years, you have approximately an 80% chance of being absolutely correct.
McLeod, however, proved the skeptics wrong with a healthy stat line of 20 goals and 33 assists for 53 points in 79 games. It should also be noted that of his 53 points, 45 of those points came at even strength, according to Quant Hockey, which put him 5th on the Sabres and only one point behind Rasmus Dahlin. That’s good company.
It seems more than a little nutty to put McLeod here on a checking line when Jiri Kulich – projected here to be a top-six center – had half as many points, but McLeod’s two-way play is better suited to a checking line role than Kulich, and McLeod will likely also mop up extra time at the end of games if the Sabres are holding onto a lead. (Insert your own joke here about the Sabres having a lead at the end of a game). That said, McLeod will likely be thrust higher up the lineup if Kulich is not able to perform offensively because the Sabres do not have the luxury of waiting for Kulich’s offensive game to come around; if McLeod is the better option as a top-six center, Kulich will necessarily need to be demoted to a lower role, be that at wing or center.
Next up on the third line we have Jack Quinn. He is perhaps the single biggest wildcard the Sabres have on their roster and there is no player the Sabres need to ascend more than Quinn. The talented 8th overall pick from 2020 has had a horrible run of injury luck with an achilles rupture and a subsequent injury with the more nebulous diagnosis of a “lower body” in 2023-24 which limited him to only 27 games. He put up a respectable 19 points in 27 games that season but had a majorly disappointing follow-up campaign with 39 points in 74 games during his first season under new head coach Lindy Ruff in 2024-25. Achilles injuries can take upwards of a year to fully heal, so there is room here to be optimistic for his ability to put up a comeback season, especially if he’s paired with the kind of proven 5-on-5 performer like McLeod. The synergy (dare I use such a Ralph-Kruegerism) between these two has the potential to make this third line a truly potent two-way line if Quinn is able to rediscover his pre-injury form.
The last piece of this line will be 6’6”, 231lb Jordan Greenway, and this is where the roster really starts to feel a little shaky. Greenway is a quality bottom-sixer with decent offensive upside (28 points in 68 games during former head coach Don Granato’s last season), but he is truthfully better served to a dedicated fourth line role where he can bang and crash. On this line he’ll be tasked with puck retrieval, along with banging, crashing, and he’ll need to kick in the odd goal as well.
On paper this third line has the potential to be a very nice two-way unit if the pieces of the line outside of McLeod are able to hold up their end of the bargain offensively – especially Quinn. Defensively they should be rock-solid with Greenway and McLeod anchoring those responsibilities. The questions around Quinn’s ability to produce offensively along with concerns surrounding Kulich’s ability to produce offensively on the top-six make this whole house of cards a shaky proposition. Only time will tell if those two can hold up their end of the bargain.
*(Writer’s Note: In creating this series, it was a hard decision whether to project what the Sabres and Lindy Ruff think is an ideal lineup, or whether to write about and create a depth chart based on my own preferences, but in the end, I decided to project the Sabres roster based on what the Sabres are most likely to do.)