The Buffalo Sabres kick off their 2022-2023 regular season against the Ottawa Senators tonight, and this one should be a memorable outing.
Well Buffalo Sabres fans, we have made it!! It is October 13th which means the Sabres will get their 2022-2023 regular season started tonight. The Sabres will host the much improved Ottawa Senators tonight and the Sens present a good challenge for Buffalo to open the season.
Everyone knows that the Sabres didn’t do a whole lot in the offseason to improve the team but that’s because they have their younger homegrown talent to come in and make an impact. As for the Senators, they did both.
During the offseason, Ottawa added more talent to a young talented roster. They were able to sign Claude Giroux from the Florida Panthers. Even though Giroux isn’t getting any younger, he’s still a solid player and will be a good leader for that young Senators team.
No move was bigger than the one that landed Alex DeBrincat from the Chicago Blackhawks. DeBrincat had a very solid season with a bad Blackhawks team and will make the good young Senators even better. It’ll be a good test for the Sabres who are also young and it’ll be interesting to see how they do.
As for Buffalo, the lines at practice looked like this according to Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News:
Forwards:
Skinner-Thompson-Olofsson
Quinn-Mittelstadt-Tuch
Krebs-Cozens-Peterka
Girgensons-Asplund-Okposo
Defense:
Samuelsson-Dahlin
Power-Jokiharju
Bryson-Lyubushkin
Buffalo Sabres vs. Senators: Puck Drops tonight at 7pm
Nothing is confirmed but the goaltending matchup is looking like Craig Anderson for Buffalo and Anton Forsberg for Ottawa. What I’m looking forward to in this one is to see if the Sabres can build off from last season.
I know it’s only the first game of the new season but I want to see if they can perform like they did in the second half of last year. The Senators are not a pushover and will be a tough opponent to kick off the season but I think the Sabres will be fine.
It may take a while to get going but it will be a good test for the team to kick off the season. After all, I personally see the Sabres and Senators battling it out for a wild card spot so I expect both teams to be ready to go once the puck is dropped.