The 2013 NHL Entry Draft is going to go down in Buffalo Sabres history as the event that officially put the team on the path to get back into the playoffs.
Sure, the Sabres drafted Sam Reinhart in 2014 and Jack Eichel in 2015, and the future of the Sabres will depend on whether these two forwards can become the next Getzlaf and Perry, Toews and Kane, Benn and Seguin, etc. of the NHL.
But as I demonstrated yesterday in my piece about whether Evander Kane should be used to bring a top-4 defenseman into the 716, the Buffalo Sabres are not going to make it very far in the playoffs, if they make it all, without at least two of the league’s 50-best defensemen skating at the blueline.