'We've matured a lot' | What we've learned about the Sabres at the quarter mark of the season

Rasmus Dahlin walks past the NHL standings each day in the Buffalo Sabres’ dressing room, posted on a large screen as a reminder of how their team has grown in this young season but also of how much work remains in front of them.

The Sabres moved into third place in the Atlantic Division when they beat the San Jose Sharks on Saturday afternoon. By Tuesday, they were in the second wild card spot – still just five points from the division lead, but with a large group of teams biting at their heels.

“You have a great road trip but then you look up in the standings and nothing really changes,” Dahlin said. “It’s good. It keeps us humble, so you’ve just got to continue to work hard every day.”

The Sabres have fought their way into contention with a 7-2-0 run in their last nine games, including a three-game sweep of their recent California road trip. Their focus remained squarely on the path ahead as they returned to KeyBank Center for practice on Tuesday, preparing for a difficult 14-game stretch between now and the holiday break in which they will play:

• Seven games against opponents currently in playoff positions (Minnesota, Colorado, Winnipeg, the New York Rangers, and Toronto twice).
• Four games against teams currently trailing the Sabres by three points or fewer in the Eastern Conference standings (Boston, Detroit, and the New York Islanders twice).

“We’ve got an extremely tough schedule,” coach Lindy Ruff said. “And the teams that we’re playing, starting [Wednesday against Minnesota], are extremely tough teams to generate opportunities against. You go up against Minnesota, who’s really put together a nice year, and they’re not giving up a lot, it’s going to be a really tough game.

“You’re coming off a road trip and you’re hoping that the team can be ready to exceed the intensity that we were able to bring on the trip. It’s the only way to get better.”

But while the players set their sights forward, now – 21 games and roughly a quarter of the way through the season – is a good opportunity to check in with what they have shown so far.

Here are five takeaways from the first quarter of the season.

1. The Lindy effect

Ruff stopped practice on Tuesday and demanded the players restart a drill and up their pace. Even amid their best stretch of the season, the coach was demanding more.

That approach is exactly what veteran members of the Sabres asked for when they called for accountability during their end-of-season interviews in April, and it’s been welcomed.

“You never have any days off,” Dahlin said. “He’s hard on us. He wants us to play really, really well every single day. He pushes us really hard and that’s what I really love. If something pops up that he doesn’t like, he goes to you right away and he’s honest and hard on you. So, I really appreciate that.”

Ruff has been direct in his assessment of performances on both a team and individual basis. He spoke proudly of how the Sabres found ways to win on their California trip despite entering the third period of all three games either tied or trailing but was also candid in listing the areas he’s focused on improving, namely net-front scoring and penalties.

Ruff promised ahead of the season that there would be “non-negotiables” for players to follow such as backchecking, filling shot lanes, and going to the net when it’s your turn. Those habits have shown up in their performances. The Sabres have scored eight goals in the blue paint according to NHL Edge, already matching their full-season total from 2023-24. They own a 51.6 percent share of 5-on-5 shot attempts, the ninth-best mark in the league, a testament to their ability to maintain possession. And, despite limiting shot attempts against, they’ve still managed 14.53 blocked shots per 60 minutes.

“Just how black and white he is with everything as far as our systems, what he expects from us, I think it’s easy to have that accountability when you have something you can point to that’s concrete and say, ‘You didn’t do this, you missed this assignment,” Tage Thompson said.

“And at the end of the day, I think regardless of what systems you’re running, he just demands that you work hard. I think he just holds you to another level, and that’s what you need.”

2. Special teams

The Sabres’ power play opened the season 0-for-22 through nine games, contributing to the team’s 3-4-1 start. The unit finally broke through when Jason Zucker buried a rebound in front of the net against Detroit on Oct. 26.

Assistant coach Seth Appert described the process the power play had been going through later that week.

“It’s been a slow, steady march of buying into the process of how we enter, how we get pucks back, how we attack retrievals, how we solve pressure out of retrievals, and all of those things need to be in order for the players to then allow their skill to shine,” Appert said.

Since that first goal against Detroit, the Sabres boast the NHL’s fourth-ranked power play at 26.8 percent. Zucker scoring around the net-front has become a familiar recipe – often on shots sent through traffic from Rasmus Dahlin at the point. Dahlin leads the Sabres with eight power-play points. Zucker is next with six points, including a team-high three goals.

The penalty kill, meanwhile, ranks 12th in the NHL and has stepped up for significant stretches, including a 12-for-12 showing in the three-game sweep out west. Alex Tuch is tied for the NHL lead with three shorthanded goals.

3. Offense from defense

The Sabres rank third in the NHL with 14 goals scored by defensemen, one off the lead league shared by Seattle and Edmonton. Their 56 points from defensemen rank fourth.

The production stems largely from the team’s trio of early first-round picks. Dahlin is tied for third among NHL defensemen with six goals and tied for fifth with 19 points. Owen Power ranks second among league defensemen with 15 even-strength points, with Bowen Byram right behind him at 13.

Dahlin and Byram, meanwhile, have formed an effective top pair since they were put together for a game against Detroit on Nov. 2. The Sabres have outscored opponents 9-4 with the duo on the ice at 5-on-5, usually against opposing top players.

The Sabres also own a 56.8-percent share of shot attempts with Dahlin and Byram sharing the ice at 5-on-5, the 10th-best mark among defense pairs with at least 150 minutes played.

“I feel like we continue to get better every day and we learn each other more and more every day,” Dahlin said. “I really enjoy playing with him. He’s a smart hockey player.”

4. Luukkonen’s encore season

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has picked up where he left off last season, when he broke through as a starting NHL goaltender with a .910 save percentage and a career-high 54 games.

Luukkonen has a matching .910 save percentage through 14 starts this season. He’s allowed two goals or fewer in six of his last seven starts, including a three-game stretch from Nov. 5 to 9 in which he was named NHL Third Star of the Week.

“He’s an unbelievable goalie,” Zucker said following Luukkonen’s first shutout of the season, a 23-save performance in Los Angeles last Wednesday. “I love the way he plays. He’s calm in the net. There’s a poise to his game that I think carries through our D corps into our forwards and throughout the entire bench, so it’s nice to see.”

5. Don’t lose two

Ruff had a directive for the Sabres following a loss to Montreal on Nov. 11.

“We’ve got to become a team that doesn’t lose two games in a row,” the coach said. “Stop it at one. That’s when you know you can really start putting things together, so that’s our test.”

The Sabres won the following game against St. Louis. They lost two nights later in Philadelphia but responded again with wins in the next three games.

Reacting to wins and losses has been part of the Sabres’ growth through the early part of this season, Dahlin said. The Sabres did not have a single three-game winning streak last season; they already have three this season. They go for a fourth straight win Wednesday against the Wild.

“We’ve matured a lot this year, honestly,” Dahlin said. “Not satisfied with one win, we want more. We’re all in this together, so we’re ready for whatever comes up. We’re not accepting losses. That’s not part of what we’re doing.”