You can’t make the playoffs in October, but — if you’re a bubble team to begin with — you can sure go a long way toward missing them with an awful start. At 1-4-1, the here-we-go-again vibes were radiating out of Western New York, where they hadn’t seen post-season hockey since 2011. The Buffalo Sabres, though, have commandeered control of their young season with three straight wins and now have an excellent opportunity ahead of them to enhance their standing as a club moving toward something meaningful.
On Saturday, the Sabres faced a Detroit Red Wings squad they’re often lumped together with in yay-or-nay conversations about the playoffs. Though they coughed up a 3-1 lead, Buffalo pulled off a 5-3 win on home ice to snag two valuable early-season points against a division foe.
Before we even dropped the puck in North America, the Sabres kicked off the NHL season in Czechia with back-to-back losses versus the New Jersey Devils, losing those contests by a combined score of 7-1. Then they came home and lost 3-1 to the Los Angeles Kings. Three games, three goals for, zero wins.
Since that L to L.A., however, Buffalo’s offence has come alive. Starting with a critical 5-2 win over the Florida Panthers on Oct. 12, the Sabres have put up 4.50 goals per game in a half-dozen outings. They’ve downed the defending Stanley Cup champions and, in the form of the Dallas Stars, a team many think could go the distance this year.
The Sabres’ power play stinks — it’s dead last in the league at a nearly invisible 3.9 percent — but the flipside to that is the fact Buffalo has been very strong at full strength, netting 3.50 five-on-five goals per game in the past six outings. Their underlying numbers tell the story of a team that can certainly hang with most outfits.
Tage Thompson — who scored against Detroit — is soaring with seven goals in nine games; Owen Power looks to be making an offensive leap with six points in his past half-dozen outings; J.J. Peterka is taking another step with four goals in his past five and even newcomer Ryan McLeod had a recent stretch of finding the net in four straight contests.
After an 0-2-1 start, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has a .924 save percentage in his past three games, all wins.
Look, nobody is saying life under new/old coach Lindy Ruff has been perfect. Ultimately, a team that really could have used a hot start is still just .500 and if that popgun power play doesn’t fire soon, it’s hard to see a world where the Sabres keep winning games.
For now, though, the Sabres got a grip on a season that seemed like it could slip away fast. On Monday, they can beat the defending-champion Panthers for the second time this season as part of a stretch that sees Buffalo play eight of 10 at home. By mid-November — on the verge of that telling American Thanksgiving demarcation point of the schedule — the Sabres could be in pretty good shape as they look to snap a streak of 13 years outside the post-season. That may not be thrilling, but it’s a much better spot than where this all felt like it was headed a couple of weeks ago.
Weekend Takeaways
• Speaking of the Sabres, we’ve reached peak parity in the Atlantic Division. Five teams — Buffalo, Boston, Toronto, Montreal and Detroit — sport identical 4-4-1 records after nine games. A sixth, Ottawa, is 4-4-0 after eight.
• It’s been a bit of a quirky start to the season for the Carolina Hurricanes, who have had a road-heavy schedule and are one of four teams to play just seven games so far. The Canes — who endured some tough off-season departures — started the year with a 4-1 loss to Tampa. Since then, they have not scored fewer than three goals in a game, including Saturday’s 4-1 win in Seattle. On Monday, Carolina wraps up a lengthy six-game road trip in Vancouver with a chance to earn its fourth straight victory. Goalie Frederik Andersen has the best save percentage in the league (.941); Martin Necas — who seemed like he might be one of the guys leaving Carolina this summer before he inked a new two-year deal — is off to a great start with nine points in seven games, while newcomer Shayne Gostisbehere is kicking in offence from the blue line with four goals so far. Not a bad way to start the season for a club many expected to take at least a minor step back this year.
• While they haven’t exactly taken down a murders’ row of teams, we still must tip our cap to the Colorado Avalanche for a crucial five-game winning streak. Not one of the teams the Avs have beaten in the run — including Ottawa on Sunday night — were playoff squads last year, but it still has to feel good for Colorado to jump back into a playoff spot after starting the year winless in four outings. The offence, of course, isn’t the issue and Casey Mittelstadt — in his first full year with the club — is racking up points as the club’s 2C. The former Sabre had three apples in the 5-4 win over Ottawa for his second-straight three-point outing. Of course, the key in Colorado will be reducing the 4.0 goals-per-game it’s currently surrendering, a number that ranks 29th in the NHL.
The Week Ahead
• Two monster homecomings kick off the week. Steven Stamkos plays his first game in Tampa Bay on Monday night since signing with the Predators in the summer and Marc-Andre Fleury is set to visit Pittsburgh for the final time in his NHL career on Tuesday when the Minnesota Wild visit the city where the goalie hoisted three Stanley Cups beside Sidney Crosby. With 997 career starts, Fleury will very shortly join Martin Brodeur (1,251), Roberto Luongo (1,044) and Patrick Roy (1,029) as the only goalies to start 1,000 NHL games.
• The still-winless Sharks will try for the 10th time to get their first victory of the season in Utah on Monday.
• Calgary captain Mikael Backlund is set to play his 1,000th NHL game — all with the Flames — on Thursday when his squad visits Utah. The Swede has not missed a contest since the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 campaign.
• Speaking of Alberta teams, we should probably be on Connor-McDavid-1,000-points watch, as the Oilers captain is now just eight shy of the mark for his career after picking up a pair of apples in Detroit on Sunday.
• European road trip! This may be one of the best Global Series matchups in recent memory, as the powerhouse Dallas Stars and defending-champ Florida Panthers face off Friday and Saturday in Tampere, Finland. It’s a home game for Finns Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell, Roope Hintz on Dallas and Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen, Niko Mikkola and Aleksander Barkov on Florida. There’s a sense Barkov could return from injury Monday night in Buffalo, so hopefully he’s good to go in front of his countrymen and women later this week.
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Winnipeg Jets (8-0-0) The Jets host Toronto on Monday and with two more W’s, Winnipeg will tie the 1993-94 Leafs and 2006-07 Buffalo Sabres for the most wins (10) to start a season in NHL history.
2. Vancouver Canucks (4-1-2) The Canucks got their first home victory of the season on Friday over Pittsburgh. The victory kicked off a stretch that will see Vancouver play nine of 12 in B.C.
3. Edmonton Oilers (4-4-1) Nothing like a three-point game — including the overtime winner — to celebrate your 29th birthday, as Leon Draisaitl did during Sunday’s 3-2 win in Detroit.
4. Calgary Flames (5-2-1) Following Saturday’s 5-3 loss to the Jets, the Flames suddenly don’t have a regulation-time win in four tries.
5. Toronto Maple Leafs (4-4-1) The Leafs may be winless in three, but Matthew Knies is finding the net with goals in three of his past four outings, including one in the 4-3 extra-time loss to the Bruins on Saturday night.
6. Montreal Canadiens (4-4-1) What a start by Cole Caufield, who’s now up to eight goals after potting two more in weekend wins over St. Louis and Philadelphia.
7. Ottawa Senators (4-4-0) You want goals, watch an Ottawa Senators game. The Sens are scoring 3.75 goals per game (seventh in the NHL) and giving up exactly 3.75 goals per night (28th).
