Buffalo Sabres: Making the case for a Samuelsson-Power pairing

Mattias Samuelsson and Rasmus Dahlin were by far the best defensive pairing on the Buffalo Sabres, but that should change in 2023-24.

Rasmus Dahlin is coming off the best season from a Buffalo Sabres defenseman in recent memory, and he has one of the NHL’s best two-way games. Last year, Dahlin put up 73 points in 78 contests, and defensively, he logged triple digit blocks for the first time with 132, plus 105 hits.

Dahlin also averaged over 24 minutes of ice time for the second season running, and he nearly hit the 26-minute mark. Overall, the man who finished eighth for the Norris in 2022-23 also showed us that it didn’t matter if he had Mattias Samuelsson or someone else lining up alongside him, thanks to the 27 contests the vintage, stay-at-home blueliner missed.

Dahlin is a rare breed, and he showed us last season that he can fare with even unspectacular talent next to him. Not that he could expect the same results with Jacob Bryson or someone who has no business playing in the NHL with him on the first pairing, but let’s not forget that he was still an effective player when he lined up with Henri Jokiharju for most of 2021-22, a player who is, at best, serviceable.

An Owen Power-Mattias Samuelsson pairing would work for the Buffalo Sabres

One piece from Jacob D. Strozyk of The Hockey Writers (link at the end of the article) made the case for Connor Clifton to line up next to Power. And if head coach Don Granato wants to keep the Dahlin-Samuelsson pairing intact, I agree with their notion: Clifton is the next-best player to line up alongside Power.

Clifton provides an excellent complementary game to Power, and he is a much better asset than Henri Jokiharju, who seemed to regress last season. But Clifton and fellow newcomer Erik Johnson were both playing third pairing minutes for the most part with their respective teams last year.

Asking Clifton to play Top 4 minutes on a nightly basis immediately is a stretch, at least as far as 2023-24 goes. An alternative to Strozyk’s take, which again, should be the case if Samuelsson ends up lining up next to Dahlin, would be for Johnson and Clifton to split time on the first and third pairings, which would do a couple of things:

1. It gives the experienced Johnson a “pitch count” in the Top 4, allowing him to see more time on the bottom pairing as the season progresses.
2. It allows Clifton to ease into playing Top 4 minutes alongside one of the NHL’s best overall two-way defensemen, while keeping pressure off of him from playing on the Top 4 every night.

Samuelsson would put Power in the best position to succeed

We also know that Samuelsson helps the Buffalo Sabres win games more than arguably anyone else on the team. He’s the type of player whose “boring” approach to the game makes the Buffalo Sabres a better overall unit, and that will benefit the sophomore in Owen Power better than anyone else in the rotation.

It would be one thing if Dahlin were still growing into his game, as opposed to having already entered his prime. If that were the case, then I would be pulling for Samuelsson to keep lining up alongside Dahlin, and for Clifton and Power to form chemistry on the second pairing.

But with Johnson and Clifton rotating, with Clifton seeing more ice time as the season progresses while Johnson takes more of a back seat, Dahlin still has that stay-at-home presence on the first pairing. This will allow him to create and take scoring opportunities with the puck. Clifton can do the same for Power, as Strozyk pointed out.

But someone with more experience in Don Granato’s system at the NHL level and a proven track record of winning that Samuelsson already has despite just 109 career games gives Power the best chance to shine, at least in theory.