Buffalo Sabres Picked the Right Time to Win Something

There's an infamous baseball quote that was uttered by Leo 'the Lip' Durocher before the 1962 season got under way.

OG was named manager of the sad-sack Chicago Cubs and quickly declared that this isn't an eighth-place team, which denoted a cellar-dweller up to then.

Durocher either forgot or ignored that the expansion New York Mets and Houston Colt .45s were beginning play in the National League that year.

 

Well, he was right. Chicago finished ninth, becoming the first-ever established NL team to do so.

The Buffalo Sabres know the feeling. With the addition and success of the Vegas Golden Knights, dudes just became the first NHL team to finish 31st overall.

 

It's enough to make fans in upstate New York recall Casey Stengel and his classic assessment of the original Mets:

 

Irony of ironies, though, this may have been their year. Buffalo just became only the eighth last-place team since the NHL lottery started in 1995 to draw the first pick in the draft.

The generational sensation that is Swedish blueliner Rasmus Dahlin is finally eligible for the NHL draft, and he's a no-brainer top overall selection.

 

For those who wanna sound suave and debonair, dude's surname is pronounced dahl-een.

And he's got the goods so that even North America's media may get that right.

Dahlin just turned 18 this month, and his résumé already belies his years. For example:

• He's been playing for Västra Frölunda in Sweden's top pro league for two years, logging 7 goals and 13 assists in 41 games this past season;
• He lit up the World Junior Championships this past winter; and
• He tagged along with the Tre Kronor in PyeongChang for the NHL-abandoned Olympics, who coulda been more adventurous with him.

That'll change in future Olympics. Dynamically, no doubt.

 

Scouts have long compared Dahlin to Tampa Bay's Viktor Hedman and Ottawa's Erik Karlsson.

But hell, that may not be going far enough.

It's a high bar, but should the young Swede translate his skillset to the NHL level, he could become the next Bobby Orr.

 

Orr is widely considered to be the greatest of all time, revolutionizing the way defensemen play.

Could it be that Dahlin's the second coming?

 

The long suffering Sabres can only hope and pray.