The Sabres needed a lot of things to go right in order to make the playoffs this season. Reliable goaltending. A competent power play. Stouter defense thanks to offseason additions. And, a healthy lineup.
Buffalo’s health issues started in training camp, keeping the likes of Zach Benson and Michael Kesselring out of the lineup to open the season. It took about 50 minutes of game one for Josh Norris to wind up on the shelf with a long-term and Justin Danforth went down shortly after. Now, the team is managing the absence of four key forwards and a leave of absence of their captain and best player.
In many ways the first 10 games of the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons have been a mirror image for the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres opened 0-3 in October of 2024 before scraping together a few wins, landing at 4-5-1 after 10 games. This year, the Sabres dropped their first three games but sit at 4-4-2 after 10. Both runs even featured convincing wins over the defending Stanley Cup champions (5-2 last year and 3-0 this year).
Yet, things feel more optimistic after the first 10 games this year. Maybe it’s just because we have the gift of hindsight to inform our view of this iteration of the Sabres. Don’t forget, after opening 1-4-1, the Sabres bounced back into the playoff race by the end of November, holding an 11-9-1 record after beating the Sharks on November 23. They wouldn’t win again until December 23, mercifully ending the 13 game losing streak that sunk the season. October 2025 has been promising, with a more potent power play and reliable goaltending improving the narrative around the team.
This week’s episode runs through the aftermath of the deadline, looking ahead to what comes next for Kevyn Adams and the Sabres. We walk through the remaining holes to plug in Buffalo’s lineup and how the Josh Norris acquisition fits within the larger scope of the club’s ongoing build. Prior to that, we talk through the explosion of takes spurred by Paul Bissonnette over Rasmus Dahlin drawing a line in the sand with Adams. While Dahlin strongly denied the report, there was no getting past the initial concern that the Sabres could alienate another star.
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By the end of this weekend, the Sabres will only have 30 games left to play meaning by the time they wrap up with the Devils on Sunday, they’ll be firmly in the stretch run.
The season went up in flames weeks ago, ending any realistic hope of ending Buffalo’s playoff drought. While an Andrew Hammond-esque miracle run could put the Sabres back into the playoff race, the reality is that these final 30 games will be little more than a formality as the club prepares for the offseason and the 2025-25 season.
While the outcome of the games won’t matter much, there are still a few storylines worth tracking in the coming weeks and months as the Sabres inch closer to game 82.
Sabres camp was barely 30 minutes old before the first crisis struck, as Rasmus Dahlin left the ice early on Wednesday. That changes things a bit as it pertains to this year’s camp storylines as Buffalo enters camp with a unique schedule ahead of their season opening trip to Europe.
Due to their early travel to Germany and then Czechia, the Sabres opened camp on September 18 with a clear line of delineation between what is likely their traveling squad, and the group that will stay behind to finish the preseason prior to the opening of Rochester Americans camp. This isn’t much of a surprise, as Don Granato received criticism throughout last season for spending too much time mixing in prospects with established veterans during camp and preseason. Between the additions made by Kevyn Adams and the onus to have a more effective and competitive camp, it seemed likely that Lindy Ruff would keep most of the key NHL group together. The upcoming departure for Europe made that all the more likely, as there is far less time for tinkering prior to the departure of the club’s 27-player group they will bring to Europe.
The first 24 players on the ice were exclusively established NHLers, with the exception of Kulich. One cut would give the Sabres their 23-man group, indicating Ruff already has a pretty good idea of who he plans to start the season with. Who the Sabres choose to round out their group for Europe is one of the lingering questions as camp opens. Jiri Kulich was a safe bet thanks to his his play the last two seasons in Rochester and his impressive showing at the Prospects Challenge. Being Czech born makes him an even more logical player to bring for the tour as a small gift for the player and the fans in Prague. I don’t think it’s out of the question that Kulich plays in one of the two games against the Devils given his nationality.
Accounting for Kulich, extra defensemen Dennis Gilbert and Jacob Bryson, and James Reimer as the likely third goaltender for the trip, there will be two spots left for Ruff to use at his discretion. As another Czech and one of the forwards in the running for the 13th or 14th forward spot, Lukas Rousek will be a likely candidate, as will Isak Rosen. Kale Clague, Ryan Johnson and even Nikita Novikov may have already been potential candidates to travel with the club, a possibility that would become much more likely if Dahlin’s status is in question. Beyond the players the Sabres opt to bring to Europe, there are four other storylines I have my eyes on for camp and the preseason.
Interest in the various streaming reality shows has been at a fever pitch, with the productions helping to pull in new fans and new markets for the sports and athletes they highlight. Perhaps no sport has seen as much of an uptick than F1 since the first season of Drive to Survive. It’s fitting of the NHL to get on board with the athlete-centric reality craze but to hitch their wagon to Amazon Prime as opposed to Netflix where the other shows (and sports) have found so much success. Nothing is ever easy with this league.
Kidding aside, this is a wonderful bit of news. The NHL has been pretty good about adjusting to the shifting dynamics of the modern athlete and finding ways to allow players to promote themselves. There is a notable evolution away from the team-centric mindset to one where the league puts its stars front and center. This is another step in that process and, barring a significant amount of overreach in the editing process, it ought to be a terrific product for the NHL and its stars to hang their hats on.
In a perfect world we will get the sort of unscripted, natural behind the scenes content we were treated to in the early days of 24/7 on HBO. I’m not sure anyone the show plans to feature will be quite as outgoing as the best parts of 24/7, but the magic of these similar shows has just as much to do with the on-field exploits of the athletes as it does their off-field activities. So long as the product is genuine, I think this will be a hit with hockey fans. And with any luck, it will be a hit with non-hockey fans as well.
It will be hard to fairly judge any of the teams in this tournament given its length. Finland’s roster doesn’t seem ultra impressive on paper, but if Juuse Saros is hot, or certain key players on other teams are injured, the results could be much different than what may be expected. I think in a more controlled setting, with more runway to get up to speed this Sweden team could really make some noise.
They have a well rounded defense corps and there are some serious players up front. They don’t have quite the same amount of depth of talent as the Americans or Canadians, but they’re close. It’s a solid group with some lineup flexibility that could come in handy. Their goaltending won’t get as much attention as the U.S. group, but the Swedes easily have the second best stable of the tournament. How it all translates in a round robin setting is tougher to determine.
It’s been hard to find many silver linings in the Sabres season thus far. A seemingly unending drip of injuries has kept the team’s lineup in flux for virtually the entire season and their inability to sting wins together has been fueled by a maddening pattern of inconsistent play.
It feels like another season is circling the drain and while goaltending was one of the primary reasons the 2022-23 season ended without a playoff berth, special teams is making a strong push as the chief antagonist of the 23-24 edition of the Buffalo Sabres.
Buffalo’s penalty kill had some flashes early in the season and had the look of a unit that was galvanized by personnel changes and tweaks to their strategy. But time has not been kind to the penalty kill unit (nor have injuries) and the Sabres have slid to the bottom half of the league in penalty kill percentage with a 78.5% success rate at the time of this posting.
But it’s been the power play that’s been especially ineffective. The Sabres’ 14.2% power play is better than only five other teams and only three teams have scored fewer than Buffalo’s 17 power play goals this year. Buffalo’s extra man unit isn’t immune to any ailment either. Their zone entries are erratic, they regularly turn the puck over in-zone due to sloppy passing and their lack of in-zone movement makes life exceptionally easy for the opposing penalty kill. Though, these issues aren’t unique to this season. In fact, it’s an issue that chased Buffalo’s power play for much of last season as well, they were just lucky enough to have such an impressive finishing rate.
Just looking at the raw goal scoring paints a pretty ominous picture for the Sabres. Of their 63 power play goals scored last season, they scored 33 before December 13. The Sabres scored three goals against the Kings that evening, bringing their power play goal total to 33 in just 29 games. They only went more than one game without a power play goal on three occasions during that stretch, each time enduring a two-game drought. Over the following 53 games? The Sabres scored 30 more power play goals with eight separate stretches of two or more games without scoring on the man advantage.
Going back to the spring, many Sabres fans have been waiting on a trade that hasn’t come.
As Buffalo morphed into a playoff contender, there was a growing expectation that Kevyn Adams would make some deals to round out his roster. But his action at the deadline was more measured than some may have guessed, and he completed the offseason without any notable deals being made (save for dealing Ilya Lyubushkin to alleviate a numbers crunch on the blueline). Victor Olofsson is on record saying he was prepared to be moved, but no deal materialized for him, a goaltender or any other position which could have helped the Sabres take the next step to the playoffs.
It’s understandable that Adams hasn’t been in a rush to shake up his group. The forward group is brimming with young talent while a pair of first overall picks anchor the blueline. Buffalo boasts a core many teams can only dream of. The need to materially alter this group is reserved to maybe two or three spots across the entire roster. Unlike previous years during this decade-long rebuild, the team isn’t in a position where they’re lacking depth on the NHL roster or in their pipeline. It’s a luxury which will put them in a position of strength when the time comes to take a big swing.
Zach Benson has been advertised and then some in the early stages of training camp and the preseason. He’s had two impressive games and has looked the part of a player who could threaten for a spot in the lineup. Of course, the Sabres tight pipeline makes that a much tougher feat and we talk about just how well Benson has played, and the opportunity he has to carve out a role on this roster. Our conversation leads us to discuss Jiri Kulich, Isak Rosen, Matt Savoie and several others. We wrap up this week’s show with a quick update on the Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power contract negotiations and remind you there’s no need for panic despite the lack of a deal.
Two in the Box 