We’ve partnered with On Goal Analysis to bring you a team-by-team preview of the upcoming NHL season. (Just scroll down on the OGA website and hit the calendar.) Here is the preview for the Buffalo Sabres…

Team Play: ISSUE – What’s old is new again, right? As the picture of the day on the OGA home page indicates, there will be a lot of clock watching this season in Buffalo. There will be games left with thoughts of ‘…If I only had a little more time…’ when the thought should really be ‘…If we’d ‘a only scored more goals….’ That’s because a sampling of off-season transactions indicates barely any change to this team. Mike Grier is in for knuckles; Steve Montador arrives to replace Jaroslav Spacek(!?); and Joe DiPenta and Cody McCormick are present for duty. That’s not a lot of additions, which implies (with the loss of Max Afinogenov and possibly an as-yet un-signed Drew Stafford) some room for Nathan Gerbe and Tim Kennedy to step up. But it equally says there may be trouble putting the biscuit in the basket.

We had a look at the CBS Sports page for the Sabres which has a projected line pairing of Vanek-Roy-Pominville from left to right on No. 1 and Hecht-Connolly-Stafford on No. 2. Line 1 is the team’s formidable pairing. On Line 2, however, Connolly has not been healthy for an entire season since 2001-02 and Stafford remains an unsigned RFA at the time of this posting. So that leaves you with a potential mix of depth players to match up/call up throughout the season. That will equal some turmoil in the forward ranks from Line 2 on down.

On the blueline, ‘Houston, we have a problem…’ is an accurate characterization of the situation. None of the projected top six defenders scored even five goals last year (the average is 2.5), they were a combined +11 (bolstered mostly by Steve Montador’s +17 with Boston last year), and none broke an average of 22 minutes per game TOI.

Click here to read the rest of the preview (which includes the site’s unique Playoff Qualifying Curve and fantasy information) at the On Goal Analysis site.