Buffalo Sabres Week 18: Bold Predictions for Make It or Break It Week

The Buffalo Sabres are heading into what might just be their most important, and most daunting, week of the 2022-23 season.

In case you haven’t saw it yet, here is the upcoming schedule for the Buffalo Sabres:

• vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
• at Tampa Bay Lightning
• at Florida Panthers
• vs. Washington Capitals

When you look at the above schedule, two teams are in the top three of the Atlantic (Toronto, Tampa), and two others are in the wild card hunt in the Eastern Conference (Florida, Washington). It goes without saying that the Sabres, who have been up and down, or to put it more accurately, down and up, recently, need to play their best hockey.

Win, and they’re light years closer to a wild card berth heading into March than they’ve been in years. Lose, and they’ll need to go on a miracle run in March and April just to remotely stay in the thick of things.

Can the Blue and Gold get there? Here are three bold predictions.

1 – Buffalo Sabres upset one of the Florida teams

One reason I like the Sabres against either Tampa or Florida is that they play so well on the road. This team is 17-8-2 outside their home arena this year, including 12-2-2 against the West and 5-6-0 against the East. By contrast, they’re only 11-14-2 at the KeyBank Center.

And while the Sabres aren’t as good against the East on the road as they were against the West, the teams they have beaten on the road include Washington and the Boston Bruins. They also beat a moderately decent Detroit Red Wings outside their home arena. So given their respective losing streaks against Tampa and Florida, one of them will end.

2 – Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will keep two of these games close

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen had a miserable game on February 11th against the Calgary Flames. But when no one on your team is shooting the puck and watching play after play break down, even a Ryan Miller in his prime may not have saved the situation.

But Luukkonen’s also put up a 0.943 save percentage in two of his last four starts. One was a shootout loss against the Minnesota Wild, where the Sabres also looked out of sync, and another was this past week against the San Jose Sharks, where he got little help until the game progressed into its second half.

Look for Clutch Luukkonnen to show up in two of these games. And one of those outings will come in a win against one of the Florida teams.

3 – Tage Thompson enters Hart Trophy discussions

What do the best teams in any sport do when they’re in make it or break it mode? They put the ball, or in this case, the puck, in their best players hands, or on their stick. The Buffalo Sabres are going to do this a lot this week, and they should.

Opponents will key on Tage Thompson, something we’ve seen routinely occur on the power play. But look for Sabres coach Don Granato to make some adjustments to free up Tage this week, especially when on the man advantage.

The adjustments will prove to be effective, and Tage will put up not one but two multiple-point games. And when the Sabres emerge from this week still in contention, he will at least show that he is worthy of being in the discussion for the Hart. So far, he’s got 71 points. Look for that number to be on the right side of 75 when this week’s all said and done.

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)

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