As part of The Leafs Nation’s Atlantic Division preview series, the TLN staff are examining the most compelling storylines and angles from each team. Here is our deep dive on the Buffalo Sabres and below is the second part of the Sabres preview:
It’s very rare to find a young defenceman who can immediately contribute and acclimate to the pace and skill of the NHL, but the Buffalo Sabres have seemingly found five of them, so it’s often a mystery why the team isn’t greater than the sum of their parts. Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Bowen Byram, Henri Jokiharju and Mattias Samuelsson (currently recovering from a lower-body injury sustained in January) form an under-25 defence quintet for the Sabres, that should be the envy of the league. Will the Sabres be able to actualize their stunning potential on the blue line into real results and snap the longest active drought in North American men’s professional sports?
This may not be particularly fair to Byram, who won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022. The 23-year-old lefty was traded to the Sabres in March, where he was immediately relieved by the prospect of increased playing time, as he was often stuck behind Colorado’s stellar rotation which includes Cale Makar, Devon Toews and Samuel Girard.
“I think it was a little bit of a disappointing season for myself,” Byram said in his end-of-year media availability via Katelyn Kardaman of the team’s official website. “I know that I’ve got to work extremely hard this summer and come in the best shape possible and work on my game.”
Byram is a terrific skater with great spatial intelligence and the eye test reveals that he has the potential for an offensive breakout this season, especially paired with Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin, one of the NHL’s ascending stars. Byram was immediately glued to Dahlin upon being traded and the duo played 138:33 at 5-on-5 via Natural Stat Trick, controlling just over 46 percent of the expected goals, with a -1 goal differential. These aren’t stellar numbers by any means, but it’s also not a large enough sample to be truly predictive either.
What’s clear is that Byram and Dahlin are both individually more talented than their partnership suggests and since they’ll be relied upon again as the Sabres’ clear No. 1 unit, how much internal improvement can we expect? Dahlin is firmly in the middle of his prime, two years removed from a 73-point campaign and there are few defenceman in the league that can match his combination of speed, power, size, physicality and power play skills. Byram arguably constitutes the best partner Dahlin has ever had: will it allow Buffalo’s centrepiece to emerge into a genuine Norris Trophy candidate? And will it be enough for the Sabres to finally punch their way into the playoffs?
Owen Power is the other first-overall pick residing on the Sabres’ blue line. Power very much looks the part. You can’t miss him, towering over opponents at 6-foot-6 and he’s a great skater with a booming shot, but he’s primed for a breakout year and the Sabres need more from him, despite some promising results. Power has boasted a positive goal differential in each of his NHL seasons and though the Sabres only controlled 42 percent of the expected goals when him and Jokiharju were on the ice at 5-on-5, they also sported a plus-six goal differential. Jokiharju split time between Power and Dahlin and it’s clear that Dahlin carried him in overflow minutes, while being best suited against second and third-line forwards.
It’s on Power to take a major step forward, even though he’s just 21 years old. Seattle’s Matty Beniers and Dallas’s Wyatt Johnston have already emerged as bonafide stars from the 2021 NHL Draft class, with several players beginning to establish themselves. There’s still plenty of time for the Sabres’ core to meet their potential but then again, time is so fleeting in professional sports.
In large part due to their tremendous prospect capital and young stars on the blue line, the Sabres are certainly one of the more intriguing teams in the league. Can the Sabres’ quintet of under-25 defenders turn galvanizing potential and individual displays of skill into team success? It’s one of the governing principles surrounding the team, both for this year and the near future.
