If you could use one word to describe the play of the Buffalo Sabres so far this season, what would it be? Some popular answers would be “relentless” or “gritty”. Heck, the word “fun” could be used to describe the Sabres for the first time in a long time. There are plenty of right answers for this question, but forward Cody Eakin may have found the perfect answer.
After grinding out a very gritty win over the Arizona Coyotes 2-1 in a shootout on Saturday afternoon, Eakin was talking about how he feels other teams view the Sabres after the first two games of the season.
“We’re always playing with speed on the forecheck, the backcheck, and it just kind of gets annoying to other teams.”
Annoying. A word that has so often been negatively used by Sabres fans to describe watching their favorite team on the ice now has a whole new meaning for them. For a team that does not have the talent of most of the other teams in the league, priding yourself on being a team that gets “down and dirty” and just flat out out-works their opponents is the perfect mindset to have.
And the Sabres have done just that through their first two games. Buffalo has outshot their opponents in each game, they are still perfect on the penalty kill, and have been producing on the power play. This is the type of play that Sabres fans have wished for, and haven’t seen in a very long time.
Obviously, two games are not enough to make a confident assumption of how this team will pan out throughout the rest of the season. But it is impossible to argue the fact that this team looks infinitely better than they did last year. And if they can keep being “annoying” all season long, Sabres fans could be in for some enjoyable hockey.