Injury luck for the Buffalo Sabres has been almost non-existent this season, and Jack Quinn’s latest brutal lower-body injury helps make that case abundantly clear.
Quinn was injured Saturday against San Jose in a play along the boards during the Sabres 5-2 win against the Sharks. Quinn’s left leg rolled up underneath him as his skate blade slid into the lower part of the boards. Whether it was his foot, ankle, or knee that was injured is up for debate.
Whatever it was that occurred, Lance reported at The Buffalo News on Monday that it required Quinn to have surgery to repair it and it’ll keep him out of action for eight weeks. It’s an especially cruel injury and result for Quinn given that it took him months to recover from a torn Achilles’ tendon he sustained in workouts over the summer and caused him to miss the first 32 games of the season. In the 17 games he has played he’s got 12 points including five goals. It stinks and it’s unfair for a player that’s worked so hard to come back and that he looks like he didn’t miss a beat upon his return.
For the second time this year, the Sabres will have to go without the highly talented scorer for an extended time and for the second time this year, Sabres GM Kevyn Adams will have the opportunity to come up with a plan to make up for his absence. After his offseason objective to hold firm and go with the players they had in camp didn’t pay off the way he or the Sabres hoped, he’ll have a second chance to make the right impression.
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When Adams held firm opting to go with Sabres on the current roster, the options amounted to:
Hoping Victor Olofsson in a contract season would be invigorated to prove himself after a disappointing finish in 2022-2023 despite scoring 28 goals.
Seeing if rookies Isak Rosén, Jiri Kulich, Lukas Rousek, Matt Savoie, or Zach Benson could take the opportunity by storm and replace the offensive output lost by Quinn’s absence.
Hoping the group outside their top players (Tage Thompson, Jeff Skinner, Alex Tuch, Dylan Cozens) could collectively make up for Quinn.
The Sabres were looking for someone to ultimately take the spot on a line with Cozens and JJ Peterka here and that meant getting second line kind of scoring. It’s a tall task, but one that wasn’t fully out of bounds to expect someone out of that group to take it and run. On paper.
That ultimately didn’t happen.
While Benson did take camp by storm to make the NHL, that chance came about with some help from Savoie’s shoulder injury before the start of camp. As good as Benson has been in all other facets of the game, his offense isn’t there just yet (no goals since Dec. 15, no points since Dec. 30).
Kulich, Rosén, and Rousek all struggled through training camp and showed they weren’t quite ready for the NHL while Savoie never really got a chance to show what he could do because of the injury. They’re young players, these things will happen and it’s OK.
Olofsson’s spot in Buffalo, period, may have been saved by Quinn’s injury, given all indications were that he was to be traded, but there wasn’t much of a look for him in that second line role at all and he’s been out of the lineup often this season playing in 33 of 49 games.
How Adams attacks Quinn’s absence this time around will be telling for how he feels about the team and the situation they’re in. The coaches and players still feel very much they’re in the hunt for the postseason despite the hole they’re in and you’d have to imagine Adams feels the same way.
However, if he stands pat and opts to lean on the players they’ve got already in Buffalo to make up for it, doesn’t bring up Kulich, or even makes a trade that would find a way to address the issue it would be yet another crushing blow to the room.
If Adams opts to reach into Rochester, Kulich is the obvious choice to call. He leads the Americans in goals with 16 and if the reason they’ve held off on recalling him in previous instances is because they don’t want to stuff him away on a checking line, there’s no better chance than this to put Kulich into a position in which he can thrive.
That wouldn’t come without concerns and questions, of course.
Would the step up to the NHL and such a role be too much of an ask for the 19-year-old Czech? Would adding an even younger player with limited NHL experience to the roster in a high-pressure situation be asking too much of him? Is he ready to be in the NHL right now?
After all, we’ve seen Benson’s use getting tinkered with a bit lately as the NHL schedule is rigorous for a player fresh out of junior hockey and it requires a lot of on-the-job education. Kulich (or Rosén or Rousek) would all need this as well. Putting them into a stressed-out dressing room may not be the best idea.
We know by now there are ways Don Granato has re-jiggered the lines to soften the blow for other players being out of the lineup and should they decided to play with the hand they’ve been dealt, it could make the situation even tighter. Players already are of the mind that it’s on them to get things done and while that’s all well and good, it’s OK to need some help too, especially when sustaining a huge loss to the lineup.
If the move is as simple as moving Benson onto the line with Cozens and Peterka, that could be fun and exciting. But with 14 points in 38 games, the Sabres will need more from him in that spot. It would make for a hell of a test for an 18-year-old. With Peterka and Cozens playing as well as they have been lately, it might be the best time to get Benson with them and see if it sticks for a while.
Mentioning trades as a possibility seems far-fetched given Adams isn’t overly eager to pull that trigger mid-season and in a situation that—as Elliotte Friedman likes to say—teams are more eager to toss you an anchor than a life preserver. With the trade deadline coming up in just over a month, if there was a time to get out ahead of the action and get a better price to add a player, now would be the time. It’s difficult to see that happening, however, unless there’s a roster player going in the other direction.
It’s in the process of writing this that the realization hits you and screams in your face that the Sabres won’t do anything at all to find a way around Quinn’s injury. For what it’s worth, eight weeks would put his return somewhere close to St. Patrick’s Day and well after the deadline’s passing.
Adams chose to run it back with last year’s group almost exclusively apart from adding Erik Johnson and Connor Clifton so there’s the possibility he may feel committed to sticking to that. That would be a deeply dangerous decision on his part given how disappointing things have gone so far this season and with how goal scoring has been a major issue. The fans are pissed and if management doesn’t even make a show of urgency, the optics of it will be brutal.
Waiting out Quinn’s return once was reasonable enough in theory given they had the whole season ahead of them. Now with time and games running out to close the gap on the wild card that may already be out of reach, waiting it out one more time might turn out to be an unspoken concession of the season.