No. Consider the Habs "turnaround" coincided with the return of one of their top skaters (Markov) from extended injury absence. It is damned unlikely that one of the Sabres kids steps in on the blueline to have the sort of contribution that Markov makes for Montreal. They already had a pretty good goaltender in Price, Buffalo is likely looking at Enroth and _____ on the backend -- not as good -- and they have a high-quality 2-way pivot in Plekanec that Buffalo doesn't yet possess. So that's a top-flight veteran defenseman, a 2-way center to handle tough assignments and still produce offense, and goaltending where Buffalo is in the hole compared to the Habs.
As for Colorado, the Avs... the talent they've accumluated over the past few years up front trumps Buffalo in a major way. They have three 200' players the likes of which Buffalo does not in Landeskog, O'Reilly, and MacKinnon. They have also have Matt Duchene who is a fine, fine hockey player. Varlie has been good under Roy, so it remains to be seen if they supplment their defense, but at the start of the season, they already had significantly more talent up front than Buffalo does, both new and returning.
So again, the short answer is no.
