from Kristen Shilton of ESPN,

The Buffalo Sabres didn't rebuild from scratch.

Don't let the franchise's headline-generating class of rising young stars convince otherwise.

Buffalo was reforged through strategy, embracing fundamentals and a return to the basic principle of walk before you run -- or more aptly, lose (copiously) before you can win.

Yet, there was no scorched-Earth scenario. Rather, it was a pack of Sabres' veterans -- namely Kyle Okposo, Zemgus Girgensons, Jeff Skinner and Craig Anderson -- quietly nurturing the club's foundation with seeds waiting to bloom.

"Our veterans have gotten that room to the point where today, right now, the players know they should go out each night and know they're capable of winning. It's much different than before," head coach Don Granato told ESPN in September. "We've grown from where, two years ago, we drafted Owen Power [No. 1 overall], which means we were not in a good position in the standings. The focus then was on getting our things in order. We had to get our culture in order. We had to learn to work, we had to learn to compete. We had to learn to do it every day. And then we could start talking about winning."

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