The Buffalo Sabres drop the puck on their 2021-22 season tomorrow night against the Montreal Canadiens. Every year I put together a bold predictions piece before the season starts and every year I miss on all of them.

A real hitter keeps stepping into the box and taking cuts. One of these years I’m going to hit one out of the park and maybe this is that season.

This time around I’m to grace you with my three bold predictions for this upcoming season for the Sabres.

1. Casey Mittelstadt goes to the NHL All-Star Game as the Sabres representative.

You’ve probably caught on to this point that I’m expecting a big season for Mittelstadt. The turnaround he made last season was impressive. He’s going to be their top-line center this year and will be playing with arguably the best wingers on the roster. He’ll also get that top unit power-play time this year.

Under Don Granato, Mittelstadt scored at a 49 points per 82 games pace to end last season. One of the reasons for this was that he was willing to use his shot. It has been one of his strongest traits, but he has been reluctant to use it at the pro level. The 23-year-old has tried to be more of a playmaker and passed up quality shooting opportunities before last season. He has been an average to above-average finisher throughout his NHL career.

The good news is that Mittelstadt has continued to lean on his shot in the preseason and is playing with confidence. If he plays at a similar level that he did to end last year, I would predict he finishes the year with 55 points.

2. Rasmus Dahlin finishes the year with an on-ice expected goal share of 53% or higher at 5 on 5.

Dahlin is going to take the place vacated by Jack Eichel and Rasmus Ristolainen as the hot button player this year. On almost a nightly basis you’ll probably be able to find a Dahlin thread about his play somewhere on social media.

This is a big year for the Swedish defender. All of the excuses are gone. He has his second contract. He’s getting the top pair minutes. It’s time to live up to that player the Sabres and most of the hockey world thought he was going to be when he was selected first overall in 2018. If he comes up underwhelming again in his fourth season, it’ll be time to accept that he’s likely never going to reach that ceiling.

His preseason was inconsistent, but I can excuse that for some rust at the start of the year. He also did have a minor injury that forced him to miss some practice at the end of camp.

I’m in the camp that he’s going to take that step this season we’re all waiting on. There’s no denying that Ralph Krueger played a part in some of the struggles that we saw from Dahlin over the last two years. Having said that, it wasn’t all on the coaching staff.

Under Granato, like most players, we saw an improved performance on the ice. Along with that came an improvement in his underlying numbers. He finished the final 28 games of the season with a 5 on 5 score-adjusted on-ice expected goals rate of 49%, according to Evolving Hockey. Not bad for a team that gave up a lot defensively over that stretch. A nice improvement over the 44% expected goal share during Krueger’s portion of the season.

I feel that he’ll embrace the opportunity as that top pair defender this season. There will be some speed bumps for the Dahlin and Henri Jokiharju pairing throughout the season. That’s to be expected with their age and the current makeup of the roster. When the dust settles on this season, I think we’ll be happy with their performances.

3. Owen Power will win the Hobey Baker Award

This may not be that drastic of a bold prediction, but I can see this happening for Owen Power. The top pick from this summer’s draft had a strong opening weekend for the University of Michigan. He picked up one goal and four assists in two wins over Lake Superior State.

He’s going to finish this season with crazy numbers as a defenseman playing on that loaded Michigan squad. Power also has the name recognition as the top pick in the 2021 draft that’ll put him in the conversation by default.

Any concerns people have with his production will be silenced this season, but that shouldn’t be what we watch. We’ll want to pay attention to his decision-making in the defensive zone and his defending of the rush. Those are two areas that were a concern for me last season. In his opening weekend, I didn’t have issues with those areas of his game, but we’ll see what happens when they face a superior opponent.

The level of competition will kick up a notch this weekend when the Wolverines face Minnesota Duluth.

Bonus: Jack Eichel will be traded to the Vegas Golden Knights by the end of November with Peyton Krebs coming back as part of the package.

Let’s throw in a Jack Eichel trade prediction for good measure. It seems like there is some momentum building in getting this saga ended sooner rather than later. I know we’ve felt that way before, but it seems real this time.

While the Calgary Flames are still a team to keep an eye on in this trade drama, the correct landing spot still feels like it’s in Vegas. They need a top-line center, a desperation to get over the top to win a cup, and a willingness to let Eichel sit on long-term injured reserve for most of the season while he heals.

The package won’t be as big as the ones we discussed early on in the summer, but I think they can eventually pull Peyton Krebs out of Vegas. After that, I would expect no more than two more pieces that trade that would consist of a draft pick and cap dump of some kind.

For all of our sakes, I hope this finally gets done.

Photo Credit: Sara Schmidle/NHLI via Getty Images

Data via: Evolving Hockey and Micah McCurdy