Wow. That is the best word that I can come up with to describe the Buffalo Sabres’ performance last night in their season opener. Buffalo absolutely steamrolled through the Montreal Canadiens, a team that is just a few months removed from competing in the Stanley Cup Finals, by the score of 5-1.
Everything seemed to click in last night’s dominant victory for the Sabres. The puck movement was great, Craig Anderson shined in his regular-season Sabres debut, and Buffalo cashed in a goal on 50% of their power-play chances. They were a very fun team to watch last night, miles ahead of what we saw under Ralph Krueger at the beginning of last season.
Don Granato might just be the man for the job in Buffalo. We saw him take an abysmal team partway through last season and turn them into something that was at least watchable by the time the season closed. The players have really seemed to buy into his coaching style and the proof is on the ice, even dating back to last season. And it is hard to argue that based on last night’s performance. Yesterday was one of the more enjoyable Sabres games to watch in a very long time.
Yes, one game is an extremely small sample size. And no, we should not base our entire opinion of the team based on this one performance. But, even with that being said, it is much more fun to have a positive mindset than a negative one. So Sabres fans have the right to be excited about what they saw last night.
The next opportunity for the Sabres to get a win is tomorrow at 1 pm against the Arizona Coyotes. Arizona is coming off a demoralizing 8-2 loss at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets, so this could be a golden opportunity for Buffalo to start the season with back-to-back wins.