The Buffalo Sabres must make some decisions regarding the blue line. Here is who could be the odd man out when opening night arrives.
We are still a few months away from opening night but it’s never too early to talk about the Buffalo Sabres. Going into the offseason, the blue line was going to change and as expected, it has. Fans saw the blue line changing because of COVID or because of injury, so players would come up from Rochester to fill the void.
As of now, the only addition to the defense was Ilya Lyubushkin. With that being said, who will be the odd man out when the season gets underway?
Let’s talk about the starters who are penciled in already. Along with Lyubushkin, the Sabres have Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power and Henri Jokiharju. After that, that’s where it gets interesting.
Someone needs to be the odd man out on the Buffalo Sabres stacked blue line heading into the 2022-23 NHL Season.
Obviously this is way before training camp starts but assuming the team doesn’t make anymore additions, the names of the players who could be the odd man out are Mattias Samuelsson, Jacob Bryson, Lawrence Pilut and Casey Fitzgerald.
Before I talk about that, here are the two names that I think will complete the last defensive pairing. It’s a hard decision to make because we’re still far away from the season but I think Samuelsson and Bryson will make the cut. Which means it’ll come down between Fitzgerald and Pilut.
When all is set and down, I think Fitzgerald will be the odd man out. This is obviously just a prediction. Casey could have a great camp and beat out Pilut. Heck, any of these names could be the odd man out.
I will say this, I won’t be surprised if Fitz sneaks his way on the opening night roster. One thing I love about his game is he’s a physical player. For a guy his size, you don’t see a lot of grit out of those players but that’s what he does.
We’ll see what happens in October but I predict Fitzgerald to be the odd man out when the Sabres take on the Senators to kick off the season.