A major weakness that the Buffalo Sabres still have to correct this summer

I’ll be honest: I wasn’t a fan of what the Buffalo Sabres did on Monday, and thus most of free agency. This team struggled to score last season, so they bought out one of their top scorers, Jeff Skinner, and ended up signing Jason Zucker as their “goal-getter” for the 2024-25 season.

Thanks to trades by the Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators, it’s safe to say that, on paper, the Sabres will enter the 2024-25 season as the seventh-best team in the division. Not all of the teams mentioned above made big-ticket deals, but they did add needed players.

That said, it’s not all doom and gloom, as the Sabres did one thing in free agency that will make them a bolder, more intimidating team, and that, along with the additions of Sam Lafferty, Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Beck Malenstyn (via trade), will give this team a new identity, but that doesn’t excuse general manager Kevyn Adams for failing to find a viable replacement for Jeff Skinner.

Okay, let’s stop feeling sorry for ourselves – I seem to be picking on the Sabres a lot lately when I’m not talking about how masterfully Kevyn Adams has built his prospect pool, and I’ll also say there’s still hope. Adams has a ton of trade assets in that prospect pool and via draft picks, and the best way to round out the Sabres for 2024-25 is to make this blockbuster move to find the final piece of the puzzle.

And yes, I said “complete the Sabres” in the section above because they’re just one more top-tier goal scorer away from becoming a more complete hockey team than they’ve been in quite some time. There are also several solid goal scorers who could be traded at some point between now and puck drop in October, including some trade candidates we mentioned earlier in the year.

One name you can cross off that list, however, is Pavel Buchnevich, who is staying in St. Louis for the long haul. Trevor Zegras is still on the roster, and I still wouldn’t rule out Joel Farabee, even though the Sabres’ circumstances have changed since the beginning of July.

The Anaheim Ducks and Philadelphia Flyers are both reportedly in the running for prospects and draft picks. And while neither Zegras nor Farabee are as established as Buchnevich, it’s safe to say that both would fit well in the Sabres’ top six, preferably on a second line.

You have two players who, when healthy, have shown they can score 20+ goals in a season, and playing in the top six is ​​something they’re already used to. Plus, as young players and with the Blue and Gold sitting fifth in the NHL in cap space as of July 3, that means a trade for either of those two players should be more than a possibility.

Additionally, as Zegras and Farabee establish themselves, their overall scoring talent and ability to contribute to a 200-foot game will only increase, all on what is still one of the youngest teams in the NHL. That said, if I were Kevyn Adams, Zegras and Farabee would be at the top of my to-do list.