We’ve made it to sunrise of the season opener. Let’s check in with our wonderful subscribers to see what’s on their minds.

Road Trips

*worst answer in mailbagging* It depends on the team.

But in this case, I think it’s really good for this iteration of the Sabres. If nothing else, the 2023-24 Sabres were a collectively over-anxious bunch that let the fear of losing lead them down the path to doing it more than the year prior. It was reflected in their over compensation on a style of hockey they weren’t built to win with and made the coaching change necessary.

Every season has a different flare of a roster, so it would be silly to think that building chemistry early on in this way wouldn’t be beneficial, but I think that if nothing else, these final weeks of the preseason taking place overseas will help to keep the perspective that being loose is what’s going to allow them to play their best hockey throughout the grind of the season.

Early Signs

This one might be off the cuff a little bit, but if Bowen Byram and Rasmus Dahlin have at least 5 combined goals in the first month of the season, I think it’ll be a sign that the blue line in general is a lot more comfortable and confident this season.

For me, the two most memorable moments from Byram last season came in his first game against Nashville, scoring goals and trying to direct the rest of his teammates on the powerplay to be more active. A strong start from him should align with the goals of a more creative powerplay and a more offensively-aggressive defense.

As for Dahlin, if The C carries over to his confidence level on the ice, then it will likely come with some early season goals to get off on the right foot.

On the other end, obviously those two struggling in their own end while not contributing offensively would be a sign for concern, but I think with the working of a “warning” sign, I think we’re going to get an answer on Dylan Cozens’s season by Halloween. His down season in 2023-24 cannot be repeated if the Sabres are going to be in the playoff conversation, and while he might not break out the way Tage did in his breakout season, even if there are other things to focus on in both directions. If Cozens isn’t in the spotlight, it probably means that he’s having a better season to get things going. Some subjectivity there, but he’s the part of the core with the most to prove this season under the new coach, and speaking of him…

(Bear with me here) Jason Zucker.

If there’s two things we remember about Lindy Ruff, it’s his presence on the bench and his line tinkering.

While it seems that the fourth line is going to be together for a lot of the season, and there are some reasonable pairings of guys who will probably stay together most of the season (Thompson-Tuch to name one), a lot of guys are going to be playing different amounts of roles on the team night in and night out.

And because of this, when there has been talk about “replacing Jeff Skinner’s production”, it’s not going to be a sub-out-sub-in and leave it there.

In this case of line shuffling and matchup creation, Zucker will be able to play in more places than Skinner, who was more limited in potential roles last season despite still mustering 24 goals, and while he doesn’t have the same scoring touch, he managed solid on-ice impact in the offensive zone, especially net front, while being much closer to a neutral defender than Skinner.

Now, Zucker has had durability issues at points the past handful of seasons, so this could very easily not be the best acquisition of the offseason, but in a world where the Sabres make the playoffs, a good season from Zucker is likely to coincide.

Numbers

Always the glass tap for this topic.

In a sport where you never truly “have” the puck the way you possess the ball in most other sports, it’s too easy to loser or recover the puck after winning a faceoff for the result of the faceoff in a vacuum to have too much influence.

If the Sabres aren’t better at winning faceoffs in 2024-25, they will be better chasing the puck and keeping it, especially with the Malenstyn, Aube-Kubel, and Lafferty line joining the fold, which will be very helpful especailly in the defensive zone.

If they are better at winning faceoffs, it’s an extra 10-15 seconds of control on powerplays and, in reverse, 10-15 less seconds of needing to defend to start penalty kills. More chances to close out games, or comeback late. And so on.

So while we’re nowhere close to statistical significance, you’re never going to hear me say that you shouldn’t try to get better at faceoffs.

Other Fellas

Yeah probably. I think he had to have known what he was signing up for this year in a UPL-Levi tandem, so with the chance of having to play a little bit down on the farm. Or who knows, maybe he turns into a conditional 6th round pick before *insert monthly holiday here*.

I think this is the year that Dahlin gets Norris consideration, he says very aware of how voters interpret defensemen talent.

Final Predictions

Alright, general prediction time. I don’t have too strong of predictions across the East this year because it feels like there will never be a break from the top of the Atlantic specifically, but I think there are paths so let’s do some sketching of the standings.

Carolina feels like a lock for the top 3 of the Metro, although they’ll be looking to answer an important question: Is there such thing as too many former Sabres in a single offseason?

Florida has overcome their close call in the 2022-23 regular season and are going to be the division (and conference) favorites this season. As much as we’d all like to meme, I think Toronto is going to join them. The playoff losses piling up is going to get more fatiguing as another year goes by, but they’re still very talented and a probable two seed.

Further in the Atlantic, even with the gymnastics going on with the contract negotiations with Jeremy Swayman, but until I see it with my own eyes, I am placing the Bruins in my playoff bracket. It’s about 90% of the same for me with the Lightning to say that they wouldn’t be a team that falls if they take a step back — the Sabres would need to compete with them directly for that implied spot.

The Rangers won the division last year so while a handful of models have them taking a step back this year, I think they’re also still in that hypothetical mix. On the other side, a return to the playoff mix needs to be taken into consideration for both Pittsburgh and New Jersey, which would mean one of them would take the top 3 spot over and the other would be in that mix with the Sabres. But I think the fall off answer reveals itself there.

If you want to be a playoff team, you have to be better than the Islanders. You can’t write off their games as being a bad matchup because you need as many of those points as possible. While their goaltending will once again be their strongest asset, if the Sabres are better at getting games to overtime in goalie battles, they can survive those Islander matchups more easily.

But outside of those first 3 teams I mentioned, I think any of those teams could be in the direct mix or just fall off. And that doesn’t include the team that did make the WC2 spot last year in Washington and a team that stuck around the playoff hunt a lot longer than a lot of people expected in Philadelphia (and the three other Atlantic teams who just always seem to glop themselves with the Sabres yearly).

Be good and control your own destiny. Simple, right?

Always, Francis. Always.

(Photo Credit: NHL.com)