Locked On Sabres - Daily Podcast On The Buffalo Sabres

Training camps are about to open around the NHL, including the Buffalo Sabres' camp which have have tons and tons of battles for roles in their lineup before the start of the regular season. The most interesting of which will be who plays on the top line with Tage Thompson. Much of that will depend on whether Tage is a center or wing. If he's a winger, like he was to start last year, Jiri Kulich could be a darkhorse to open the year as the Sabres #1 center. Konsta Helenius is also an option to open the season on the top line. Down the depth chart, there will be competition on the Sabres fourth line, and can Ryan McLeod stay in the top nine?

Plus, Olen Zellweger vs Louis Crevier to be Owen Power's partner. And Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen vs Alex Lyon to be the opening night starter. Lindy Ruff will have a lot to figure out before the Sabres open up against the Blue Jackets in three weeks.

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The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off their worst season in years, and it sets up a big question about Auston Matthews' future in Toronto. Will a poor start to the season cause Matthews to push his way out? The Leafs amazingly won the draft lottery and selected Gavin McKenna, who could be their savior.

However, the hire of Jim Hiller as head coach presents a new style of play for Toronto. Likely an ultra-defensive, conservative style of hockey that should keep the Leafs competitive, but limit their ability to win big.

If they decide to play that way, it's only good news for Lindy Ruff's style of play that the Sabres employ.

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The Buffalo Sabres are the defending Atlantic Division champions, but the Florida Panthers are still the gold standard of the division. The back-to-back Stanley Cup Champions had a forgettable season in 2025-26 due to countless injuries to Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart, and several other important players. It didn't help that Sergei Bobrovsky had the worst season of his career behind an injured squad.

The Panthers had a big summer, trading away three 1st round picks to acquire Brady Tkachuk, pairing him with his brother in their forward ranks. The Tkachuk brothers will be one of the most intimating lines anywhere in the NHL. The Sabres were able to take on and beat the Tampa Bay Lightning playing a physical, ugly style multiple times, but the Panthers are better. Can they do the same against Florida?

The likes of Zach Benson and Josh Doan will be very important when the Sabres play their four matchups with the Panthers this season. And the division could very well come down to these two teams.

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The Buffalo Sabres soared past the Detroit Red Wings last season, ending their 14-year playoff drought, while the Red Wings collapsed to extend their playoff drought to 10-years, now the longest in the NHL. Detroit now owns the second longest drought in NHL history, and their offseason makes it seem like catching the Sabres record is very realistic.

Dylan Larkin wants out and maybe the only reason he hasn't been traded yet is the Red Wings don't have a General Manager. With Steve Yzerman being fired this offseason, are the Red Wings looking at baseball people to take over?!?!

Patrick Kane already hit the ejector seat. Will Alex DeBrincat follow? The Red Wings are headed in the wrong direction and the Sabres should dominate them head-to-head this year.

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Sneaky Joe picked the Ottawa Senators to win the Atlantic Division last year. They did not. However, they showed to be an elite level team, that just happened to have historically bad goaltending at the same time. The result was Ottawa squeaking into the playoffs and getting swept by the eventual Stanley Cup champions. The thing that did Ottawa in, was the first truly bad season of Linus Ullmark's career. You'd think this season all Ottawa needs is to get a better Ullmark and they'll challenge for the division. But with Brady Tkachuk demanding out this offseason, the Senators core group has a big test ahead without their emotional leader, and one of their best players.

Without Tkachuk, who steps up for the Sens? The forward group has a bunch of really really good players, and the blueline is one of the deepest in the Eastern Conference. Will the Senators break or improve on last season?

Plus, how the Sabres matchup with Ottawa, after Buffalo took last year's season series.

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The Boston Bruins fell to the Buffalo Sabres in the playoffs last season, showing they were not a great team, getting run over in most of the six games of the series. The Bruins defense core could not handle the pressure from the Sabres forwards, and the depth could not go four lines with the Sabres. Their answer? Add three former Sabres. JJ Peterka, Will Borgen, and Connor Clifton. None of which seem to help the Bruins with the things they struggled with against the Sabres. Sneaky Joe believes the Bruins will be closer to the bottom feeder team they were two years ago, than the 100 point team they were last year.

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The Buffalo Sabres and Montréal Canadiens might be the best two teams in the league for signing their best players before the salary cap jumped way up, meaning both are set up to be really good for a long time. The Canadiens might not have been a team worthy of the Conference Finals last season, but that doesn't mean their season overall was a fluke. Led by Lane Hutson, Nick Suzuki, and Cole Caufield the Habs have a core of incredible young players.

Were the Sabres the better team when the two teams met in the second round of the playoffs? Games 6 and 7 would say the Sabres were better, but just couldn't finish the job. The Canadiens offseason has been super quiet, but there are smoke signals that they're ready to make a move for a big name forward if one gets moved. And what will their goaltending situation look like going forward? Keep an eye on Jacob Fowler.

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The Buffalo Sabres finished ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Atlantic Division last season by three points, and went one round further. A huge reason for this was the Lightning being the most undisciplined team in the NHL led by their fraud of a head coach Jon Cooper. Will the Lightning improve on this next season? They will need to to finish first in the Atlantic. The Lightning did lose their top defenseman this offseason in Darren Raddysh to Toronto. Is adding 36-year old John Carlson enough to replace him? The Lightning still look like a slow blueline that can be taken advantage of by young fast teams.

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Winnipeg Jets star goaltender Connor Hellebuyck has gone public with his trade request after months of not seeing a deal get done, as training camp gets closer! Hellebuyck pushing the Jets to get a deal done comes as excellent news to any hockey fan hoping their team acquires him, including Buffalo Sabres fans! The Sabres reportedly came the closest to acquiring him at the NHL Draft, but a deal did not get done. Now that Hellebuyck is making it clear he will not stay in Winnipeg, the price should come down, making a deal more likely.

The problem is a deal is now harder for the Sabres with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen having the ability to say no to a trade. Despite that, Sneaky Joe believes there are trades that make sense for Buffalo where Hellebuyck and UPL would co-exist in the same net. Could Ryan McLeod still be a center-piece to a trade?

Plus, which other teams make sense to deal for Hellebuyck, and which teams the Sabres could try to send UPL to if they don't want to carry $13M worth of goalies at the same time.

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The Buffalo Sabres have a couple years to think about what they will want to do in the next round of NHL expansion drafts, as it seems to be almost a certainty the league will add a second team in Texas and a team in Atlanta. When that does happen, the Sabres will likely have six easy decisions to make at forward, but the seventh forward to be protected could be really debatable. Jack Quinn, Peyton Krebs, Josh Norris, and Ryan McLeod could all be options to be protected, but multiple will be exposed. Plus, why the Olen Zelleweger experiment could just be a three-year experiment because of the expansion rules. If Mattias Samuelsson does not regress as a player, it seems unlikely the Sabres will protect Zelleweger.

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