The Sabres are, once again, at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.

If you want to be an optimist, though, they are a mere five points out of the last playoff spot with the nearly three quarters of the season to play, so there’s no time for eulogies quite yet.Josh Norris, Rasmus Dahlin, Jason Zucker, Michael Kesselring, Jordan Greenway and Zach Benson have all missed big chunks of the season, but the team is still very much within striking range of a playoff spot. Today we’ll take a look at the performances of the forwards and give them a grade from A+ to F-.

Mattias Samuelsson: A+

Back in 2018, when the Bills drafted QB Josh Allen, SB Nation infamously wrote “If Josh Allen succeeds, the Bills will have outsmarted basically all regular humans and the entirety of math itself.” Surely that thinking would have also applied to Samuelsson who has had an up-and-down career to this point after being selected in the second round seven years ago.

Something changed this year and Samuelsson is currently outsmarting the entirety of math itself. With five goals and seven assists in 22 games, Samuelsson is only two points shy of his career high 14-point season from last year. He’s a +10, he’s finally using his 6’4” frame to its full potential in front of the net while clearing out the opposition, and he’s playing nearly 22 minutes a night.

Have a look at his chart via Evolving Hockey:

Evolving Hockey

He’s playing so well that he has to be in consideration for the US Olympic team. What we are witnessing here is nothing short of miraculous.

Rasmus Dahlin: B-

Dahlin has had a rough go of it recently on the personal front due to his fiancée’s heart transplant surgery she underwent over the summer. Dahlin ended up taking some time off this season to return to Sweden and be with her, and there’s little doubt that his training regimen over the past six months suffered as a result of that completely unforeseen circumstance.

That said, to make an honest assessment of his play this season, one cannot grade on a curve to make his performance look better. Never the fastest skater, Dahlin has looked noticeably slower this season, and it’s severely limited his offensive production with just 1 goal in 20 games and no goals scored at even strength. That said, he has contributed 15 assists which is good for first on the team. There’s every reason to believe that Dahlin’s play will continue to improve as his conditioning improves throughout the season as long as he’s able to focus on hockey.

There is also life outside of hockey, so there exists the chance that he might need to step away from the team again at some point.

 

Conor Timmins: C

The drop from Samuelsson and Dahlin to this next tier and the one below it is precipitous. Brought in over the summer as part of General Manager Kevyn Adams’s defensive overhaul to add some truculence and defensive ability to the Sabres’ blueline, Timmins has been just ok. He has pretty good wheels for a big man but he’s not noticeable most nights. The Sabres need him to bring his heavy game on a more consistent basis.

Bo Byram: C-

Byram has become a lightning rod amongst fans for his occasionally sloppy defensive play. It should be noted, though, that the advanced stats suggest he is generating offensive opportunities at a pretty good clip which could lead to an uptick in his counting stats (4 goals, 7 assists so far this year). His innate speed makes him a fun player to watch on the backend when he’s playing his best game.

Jacob Bryson: C-

Bryson is a 7th or 8th defenseman on a good day. He’s played 267 games and fans know what he is – a small defenseman who doesn’t contribute offensively as much as one would like, and he brings almost nothing to the team physically.

Owen Power: D+

Owen Power is logging nearly 21 minutes of play a game, but as was the case in previous years, the 23-year-old American consistently leaves something to be desired. He’s still not using his 6’6” frame on the defensive side of the puck.  Perhaps more alarming is his lack of offense this year – he is on pace for fewer than 30 points this year after setting a career high with 40 last year.

A portion of the fan base will always have a problem with Power simply because he was a first-overall pick (in a weak draft) and he may never live up to that billing. He can be a better version of himself, though, and that means getting on the board offensively.

Michael Kesselring: D-

Kesselring, bluntly, has been the biggest disappointment for the Sabres so far this year. Two injuries have derailed his season and he’s contributed 0 points in the 9 games he has played. This was Adams’s big move of the offseason and so far it looks less like a stick of dynamite added to the team and more like a fire cracker going off in a pond. They need his season to turn around ASAP.