Welcome part three of the Sabres roster build series where today we’ll take a closer look at the second line, and more broadly, we’ll examine the problems Lindy Ruff will have to solve in order to mesh his collection of top-six players. If the fourth line looked pretty good, and the third line showed promise even with some questions, the second line is where things start to get into the realm of hopes and prayers, because simply put, the Sabres do not have enough top-six talent.
When Kevyn Adams decided to ship JJ Peterka to Utah in exchange for Michael Kesslring and Josh Doan, Adams opened up a massive hole on the left wing which he addressed by signing… checking my notes here… Justin Danforth, who appeared previously in this series as the likely extra forward. Peterka is an ascending 23-year-old forward who scored 68 points last year and Adams did absolutely nothing to try to replace that production following his departure. Frankly, it’s organizational malfeasance which is nothing new for the current Sabres general manager, and that decision is doubly confounding as the Sabres currently have around $5.2 million in unused cap space.
Now whether that unused cap space is an Adams decision or a “Terry Pegula needs money for the new Bills stadium” decision is up for debate, it is not debatable that in a must-win year like this, it is beyond boneheaded to have that kind of unused asset (and yes, cap space is an asset) sitting to the side while the Sabres left wings look woefully underpowered compared to the rest of the league.
That problem ties into the next problem, which is that the Sabres two most potent offensive threats, Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch, are both right wings despite NHL.com ranking Tage Thompson as one of the top-20 centers in the NHL. Clearly whoever put that list together did not pay attention to Lindy Ruff’s decision late last fall to move Thompson back to right wing from center as Ruff believed that Thompson was unable or unwilling to play to a certain standard of defensive responsibility. So that means that the Sabres’ two best offensive players cannot play on the same line.
While there are valid concerns about Thompson’s defensive play, the pieces of the puzzle would fit together much better if Thompson were back in the middle. For starters, a top-9 center spine of Thompson-Norris-McLeod sounds a lot better than what we’re about to discuss. There’s really no point in putting together a hypothetic depth chart with Thompson at center, though, because Ruff isn’t likely to shift Thompson back to center for the reasons previously discussed. With all of those considerations discussed and out of the way, we can start putting together a second line.
The first consideration when assembling this top-six is that Josh Norris and Tage Thompson don’t appear on paper to be a compatible duo. Norris is a shooting center and Thompson is a shooting winger; having both of those players on one line means that only one player is taking shots, and if the Sabres want to score as many goals as they can, they really ought to split them up so each can be the designated shooter on their respective lines. If the Sabres do that, though, they are leaving Tage Thompson with precisely zero top-line talent playing alongside him.
You can see the conundrum now.
In order to maximize the scoring talent of Norris and Thompson individually, and because Thompson and Tuch cannot play on the same line unless Thompson moves back to center, that means that Jiri Kulich is the best candidate to be Thompson’s pivot. The 6’1” Czech played 62 games in his rookie campaign and amassed 15 goals with 9 assists. It’s again crazy to think that this very young 21-year-old will be counted on to produce as a top-6 center until you remember that this is the Sabres and they do crazy stuff all the time. Now, there is the chance that Ruff could opt to move Ryan McLeod up and demote Kulich to the third line, but that move would risk absolutely cratering the third line production in order to save the top-six. The ideal scenario is that Kulich can hold his own on this line and the Sabres would then be able to ice a better bottom-6.
Flanking Kulich on the left will be veteran LW Jason Zucker. Acquired in free agency last off-season, the 33-year-old had a solid debut with the Sabres last year wherein he posted a solid 21 goals and 33 assists. Zucker did seem to fade a bit down the stretch which is to be expected given his age and the fact that Ruff played him an average of 16:00 a night which is the most he had played since the 2019-2020 season. The Sabres still opted to give him a two-year extension worth $4.75 million a season. Zucker is best suited as a third liner who can play on the second in a pinch, but here we are.
Finally, it must be addressed why this is the second line – and not the first line – despite Tage Thompson being on it. Simply put: it cannot be called a first line if Kulich and Zucker are on it. Sabres management may live in an insulated bubble where they’re oblivious to the outside perception of their operations, but calling a line with Kulich and Zucker on it a first line is insane behavior. Welcome to the monkey house.