A split of two games. Lots of entertaining hockey, including plenty of nastiness on Saturday. The first NHL goal and assist for rookie JJ Peterka. Much better crowds than last season.
The Buffalo Sabres gave their fans a good tease to start the season in KeyBank Center, but that will have to suffice for a while. The Sabres open a four-game Western road trip Tuesday night in Edmonton and won't be home again until they host Montreal on Oct. 27.
Under the category of "major small sample-size alert", it's nonetheless interesting to see some of the takeaways from the first homestand of the season. It gives you a glimpse of some of the key elements the Sabres will be working on over the next 10 days.
Powerless power play
The Sabres are 0 for 8 in the first two games, one of five NHL teams yet to score with a man advantage. They had the third-fewest chances overall in the preseason, finishing just 2 for 18. In one of the home exhibitions, where the roster had many more prominent players, they were just 0 for 1. Buffalo's top power-play guys simply haven't had enough game-situation work at it.
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Comrie stopped 33 of 37 shots, including 11 of 13 on the penalty kill, to provide the Sabres with a second promising goaltending performance to start the season in a 4-3 loss to the Florida Panthers.
It’s good to see eight power-play chances in the first two games because it shows how the Sabres are attacking the puck and the offensive zone hard and drawing penalties. But they're not doing much with them, and three straight power play faceoff losses Saturday conspired against the Sabres during 4-on-3 and 5-on-3 advantages to limit how much zone time they could create.
"The first game, we gripped our sticks, were a little frustrated on the power plays," coach Don Granato said after Saturday's 4-3 loss to Florida. "That will all settle in. It's early. (In Thursday's season opener against Ottawa), the power play unit hadn't played in 10 days and it looked like they hadn't played in 10 days. ... It will be a natural process to get to where they feel good. That will happen."
You wonder when Granato will pull the trigger on either Peterka or Jack Quinn on the power play. He said he didn't want to give the rookies too much on their plate early on but Peterka has been so good, he probably deserves power play time as a reward. There's a school of thought that Quinn, who has not done much so far, could get his game going with some power-play chances as well.
Top-line troubles
Jeff Skinner got absolutely robbed by a Spencer Knight glove save on Saturday but the first line has been otherwise quiet. The trio of Skinner, Tage Thompson and Victor Olofsson hasn't passed the eye test thus far, and the numbers aren't in its favor either. In Expected Goals For percentage, multiple web sites list the trio as the bottom three of the Buffalo roster thus far, all under 25%.
Granato flipped Alex Tuch, who was flying up and down the wing much of Saturday, back with Skinner and Thompson in the latter portions of the game, and probably needs to go with that trio Tuesday night.
"We have 14 forwards that are interchangeable on this team, can play all the way up and down the lineup," Tuch said. "I think we have a lot of guys with a lot of skill and a lot of grit and a lot of work ethic and it doesn't matter who you're playing with. You don't have to change the way you're playing."
This matchup with the Florida Panthers had a much different feel than the Sabres' four losses last season, writes Mike Harrington.
Granato said he was trying to take advantage of line rotations and watching who Florida was using on defense.
"He's just looking to shuffle it up, to give different looks to play against different defensemen and different forwards on the other team as well," Tuch said. "I know he's going to do it, it's no surprise to me and it should be no surprise to anyone else it's going to be switched up. ... Whoever is going is going to play the most and you've just got to come in and work hard and do your job."
Department of Defense
It's been a huge first two games for Rasmus Dahlin. Average ice time of 25:03, two goals, three points, a plus-3 rating. Dahlin has scored in the season's first two games for the first time in his career, and in back-to-back games for the fourth time overall.
Granato put Dahlin back with Henri Jokiharju in the latter stages of the game Saturday, moving Mattias Samuelsson with rookie Owen Power as Power, the former No. 1 overall pick of 2021, found several struggle points in the first two games and put up a team-low Corsi For of 38.7% at 5-on-5.
In the net
An eye on goaltending is going to be a season-long story and there's been no real issues so far, with a .932 save percentage and 2.50 goals-against average. Craig Anderson stopped 35 of 36 shots against Ottawa and Eric Comrie was 33 for 37 against Florida, with a flubbed loose puck responsible for the Panthers' fourth goal. Other than that, he was crisp in his debut, especially early as the Panthers were driving play.
Buffalo Sabres beat reporters Lance Lysowski and Mike Harrington provide their opinions on six notable topics at the start of the season.
In Rochester, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen got off to a big start as well. He went 1-1 in splitting two games against Toronto, posting a 2.04/.937 while stopping 59 of 63 shots
At the gateÂ
The Sabres sold 16,339 tickets for the first two home games last season – and made a 64 percent jump to 26,845 for the first two this season. No Covid rules and the fully open Canadian border obviously help, but it's clear there's already much more of a buy-in from fans in the wake of how last season finished.
It took 17 home games for the Sabres to reach 11,000 tickets for a single game last season, a figure they cleared in both openings thus far. Thursday's home opener figure of 15,364 wasn't surpassed in the '21-22 season until the Rick Jeanneret Night sellout on April 1.
