Buffalo Sabres: Making the case for a Samuelsson-Power pairing
By Sion Fawkes
At the end of the day…
Heading into Year 2, I’m looking to see Owen Power take that next step in his offensive game as he started to show during the latter half of the 2022-23 season. He will create more opportunities for himself and others, and to score more than the 35 points he put up last season.
Regardless of how you look at it, both Samuelsson and Clifton would make a good complement to help Power make those improvements. But the question is: Which complementary piece will take Power’s game further?
At this point, with just over a month before camp begins, that player is Mattias Samuelsson. Though my opinion could change once the Buffalo Sabres take the ice and we see how everyone looks in a game setting.
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It will be interesting to see if head coach Don Granato experiments with different pairings in the preseason and even during the regular season’s early stages. We know Granato loves experimenting, so don’t be surprised if we see both a Power-Samuelsson pairing and a Power-Clifton pairing early, and the better pairing might just win out.
Source: Sabres Need To Pair Owen Power & Connor Clifton Together by Jacob D. Strozyk, The Hockey Writers
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)