If you are still in the mood to watch some members of the Buffalo Sabres play competitive hockey, you are in luck. Six members of the Sabres are competing in the IIHF World Championship. The tournament starts today and will run until June 6th, so you will have plenty of time to catch some players from Buffalo in action.
Team Germany is the team with the most Sabres players on their roster, with Tobias Rieder and J.J. Peterka playing for them. The other player’s Sabres fans would be familiar with are Colin Miller on Canada, Arttu Ruotsalainen on Finland, Victor Olofsson on Sweden, and Tage Thompson on the United States.
There are sixteen different countries taking part in this year’s IIHF World Championship. Last year this tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is great to see it is back in 2021. Team Finland is the defending champions as they won in 2019.
The preliminary round will take place from today through June 1st. The sixteen teams are broken into two groups. Victor Olofsson and team Sweden are in Group A, and the rest of the members of the Sabres are in Group B.
If you are looking to watch some Buffalo players, you may have to set your alarms to get up earlier than you are used to a few times, as the tournament is being played in Latvia, so there are some early morning puck drops. Throughout the preliminary round, games will begin at either 5:15 a.m., 9:15 a.m., or 1:15 a.m.
Although this isn’t the type of “post-season” hockey that Sabres fans would pick their players to be playing in, it is still a great opportunity for some of the younger players on the team to play more games and have more chances to develop and better themselves to prepare for the next NHL season to start.
If you are looking for a schedule of just the games involving members of the Sabres, click here.