Have the Sabres Learned From Last Year's Mistakes

At roughly this time last year, the Sabres had just come off a home and home sweep against the hated Flyers. They were rooted in fifth place in the Conference and the whole area was riding high with the Winter Classic coming to town. The Sabres were 19-14-1 at this point in the season last year. The wheels came off the bus after that. The Sabres went on a 10 game winless streak and could never recover to make the playoffs.

This year the Sabres are 15-12-3 and holding the eighth place in the conference. They don't have the distraction of the Winter Classic that sent them into the tailspin last year, hear that Chicago? But have they learned from their mistakes last year to overcome what happened and not send themselves into a tailspin. This team is another year older than they were last year and have much better leadership than they did last year. That is not a knock on Spacek, but a stable captain in Rivet has made this team much better. This team needs to focus heading into the second half of the season and be able to overcome the issues that plagued them last year. January and February are going to be more difficult because the level of opponent will be greater.

If this team can learn from its mistakes they should be able to make the playoffs. They at least have the talent to do that.