Then the puck dropped, and Power played as though it were any other day at the rink. He skated 19:50 and had a plus-2 rating in a 5-2 win for the Sabres over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
"Smooth poise," Alex Tuch said. "Right away, there's no panic in his game. I feel like he's been in the league 10 years already and it's his first game."
Don Granato expected no less from Power, whom he had tracked for more than four years before the Sabres drafted the defenseman with the first-overall pick last July.
Granato was attending a minor hockey tournament in Toronto, watching another future No. 1 pick in Jack Hughes. A colleague from his days scouting with the Maple Leafs told him to jump to the other rink and catch a glimpse of the defenseman playing for Mississauga.
Granato liked what he saw so much that he continued to follow Power in the coming years. Both ended up in Chicago, Granato as an assistant coach with the Blackhawks and Power with the USHL's Chicago Steel. Granato would attend Steel practices to watch Power play.
The Sabres coach had no hesitation, then, when it came time to start Power against the NHL's leading goal scorer.
"I had no anxiety with him because I've watched him play so much," Granato said. "He is a number one pick overall, an elite player. Honestly, he has such a calm to him and such a presence to him, you see his ability to almost slow the game down around him.
"I've watched that in him, that presence in him for such a long time. I just knew he would get a feel for the pace and everything right away."