After the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers play Game 7 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series Sunday night, there will be only four teams left in this year's post-season. And no matter which team joins the Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars and Edmonton Oilers in the conference finals, it's going to be crystal-clear to everyone -- the Buffalo Sabres included -- what it takes to have success to get into the playoffs, and when the games matter most once they get there.

For one thing, you need some degree of generational talent -- whether that's superstars like Edmonton's Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Toronto's Auston Matthews, Dallas' Miro Heiskanen, Florida's Aleksander Barkov and Carolina's Sebastien Aho -- and you need a defense corps that has feisty competitors, including Florida's Aaron Ekblad, Edmonton's Darnell Nurse, Toronto's Chris Tanev  and Jake McCabe, Dallas' Esa Lindell, and Carolina's Brent Burns.

Meanwhile, playoff teams also need to have some degree of clutch goaltending. Toronto got that from both Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll this season, as did Edmonton with Calvin Pickard and Stuart Skinner, Florida with Sergei Bobvrovsky, Carolina with Frederik Andersen, and Dallas with Jake Oettinger.

And you also need a good deal of quality depth to help you guard against injuries and your opponents' depth. All five teams that were still active as of Sunday afternoon have depth to spare, as the Hurricanes, Stars, Leafs, Panthers and Oilers all have benefitted from quality performers throughout the lineup.

The Sabres, on the other hand, haven't yet been able to boast of any of those things. Yes, Buffalo has Tage Thompson, Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power, but you probably can't put those three youngsters in the top-10 of their positions -- at least, not yet. And while Buffalo may eventually have a high-end goalie in Devon Levi, you can't say he's anywhere close to the top-10 among netminders right now, either. Finally, while the Sabres have a slew of prospects they hope will be on the rise, it's not accurate to compare them to the best in the NHL in the depth department.

That's the challenge ahead for Buffalo GM Kevyn Adams -- put the Sabres in a top-three or top-five position in at least one of those areas to get things started. Asking them to be in a top-three or top-five area in those three different areas is a tall order indeed, but if Buffalo ever is going to win a couple playoff rounds and give Sabres fans true reason to be optimistic regarding their championship aspirations, they have to start somewhere. 

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That initial area of strength is probably their defense corps, but if Buffalo has that and they don't have elite netminding and overall high-quality depth, they're going to continue to struggle, and their 14-year playoff drought is going to continue. 

Teams that eventually rise through the ranks are built with painstaking attention to detail, and if even the slightest element isn't up to snuff, they'll be eliminated from the post-season in short order. So that's what Adams has to do in the months and years ahead -- figure out how to get the Sabres to be difference-makers and needle-movers in far more than one key department.

If there's any doubt about the areas we've covered above, Buffalo will be making more excuses to a fan base that has to be sick to their stomach from excuses. You either have what it takes to be better than 28 other NHL teams in crucial areas or you don't -- and right now, the Sabres don't.