Raise your hand if you thought the Sabres would go 4-0-0 on their current west coast road trip. I certainly can’t raise mine, but if they win in Seattle on Tuesday, they will have won all four games.
Buffalo has started the season 4-1-0, yet they’re only in third place in the Atlantic Division.
On Monday night during Sports Talk Live, we discussed if this can be different from some of the good starts they’ve had during their NHL record 11-year playoff drought.
There of course is no guarantee, but this good start does seem different. First of all, general manager Kevyn Adams has put together a team that wants to be Buffalo Sabres and will do anything for each other. There are no entitled players that think they’re better than the guy sitting next to them and they will do anything for each other on and off the ice.
Culture is important and it’s great, but if you don’t have talent with that culture, you’re not going to be good.
Adams seems to have hit a homerun in hiring Don Granato to be the coach. Granato has put together a system that emphasizes his players strengths. Many coaches have a system that they expect played whether the players are good at it or not. Granato has these players playing fast which makes them very difficult to play against.
There are many things that illustrate all this five games into the season. Buffalo is second in the NHL in goal scoring averaging 4.40 goals per game. That’s with Tage Thompson and Jeff Skinner having one goal between them.
On Monday, the Diamond In the Rough segment on STL featured Alex Tuch. In his career, Tuch averages 20 goals over 82 games, but this year, he's third in the NHL with six goals. That’s one behind the leaders.
Before the season I said I felt Tuch could be a consistent 25-goal scorer, especially in his top six role with Buffalo. He has been special so far in all five games.
Another reason for this surge is the NHL’s First Star of the Week for last week. Rasmus Dahlin is the NHL’s top scoring defenseman with eight points in five games. He has the NHL record for defensemen scoring goals in five straight games from the start of the season.
What really has been eye popping is his improvement over what was already massive improvement last year. Watching him survey the ice and find openings is stunning. Teams know he’s on the ice, yet he always seems to be open in prime scoring areas.
Dahlin has also worked on his shot. He gets his wrist shot off quicker and there’s a lot more velocity on it.
The Sabres depth on defense has already been tested with Mattias Samuelsson and Henri Jokiharju out. That’s put Casey Fitzgerald and likely Lawrence Pilut into the lineup.
I maintained all summer that it was important for the Sabres to take advantage of an easier schedule in October. So far, so good with four games remaining against Seattle, the Montreal Canadiens, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings. Opportunity continues to knock for the Buffalo Sabres.
