Buffalo Sabres: 3 bold predictions for Week 2 of the 2023-24 season
The Buffalo Sabres are off to an 0-2-0 start, but there is still plenty of hockey to go in 2023-24, and plenty of reasons to get bold this week.
For the foreseeable future, I will make one pact with myself: I will not make a bold prediction involving Zach Benson. The kid has been the Buffalo Sabres best-kept non-secret so far, but unless he’s here beyond Game #9, he won’t be part of any piece that pushes the limits of reality.
But given the Blue and Gold’s pedestrian play involving a few players in the lineup, I’m perfectly okay with going bold in other avenues. It won’t be as much of an outing this week when I make one of them regarding the Tage line. Even if I lost that venture last week when I said Jeff Skinner would score a game-winning goal.
I also (boldly) projected Rasmus Dahlin would have a hot start, and he instead had one good performance and one not-so good outing. However, I was half-right involving the goaltender duels, as Devon Levi had a good game the other night against the New York Islanders.
So what bold projections are in place this week? Well, you know what won’t be.
3 bold predictions for the Buffalo Sabres in Week 2 of 2023-24
1 – Tage scores five points in three contests
After two games last season, Tage Thompson scored exactly zero goals and zero assists, before he snagged three in his next three contests. This week, he’s getting three goals and two assists, with at least two of those points coming tomorrow vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning.
While it’s still too early in the season to make a lot of assumptions here, we also know Tampa won’t have it easy defensively for a while. And it showed in the fact that they allowed 11 goals in the past two games. Their game against the Buffalo Sabres will be their third in four days while the Blue and Gold are coming off of a two-day rest as well, so that also pays dividends.
While Tage also has no points to show yet this season, he logged four shots on goal this past Saturday and was starting to rediscover that groove he had with Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch. We know it won’t be long until Tage has that game, and it’s coming this week.
2 – Sabres penalty kill continues its upward trajectory
As mentioned in the previous section: It’s only been two games, so we can’t take the following information with much more than a grain of salt. However, the Buffalo Sabres 85.71 percent penalty kill is over 4.5 percent above the league average following Week 1, and it’s been noticeably more aggressive this year.
That aggression stays in Week 2 as the penalty kill will be successful at least 86 percent of the time. This prediction isn’t claiming that the PK unit will always experience the outings it had in Week 1 as there will be lean periods, but their confidence will continue to build this week.
And it will serve as a decent launch pad to becoming at least a unit ranked in the top half of the league this season, along with the power play when it finds its groove.
3 – Sabres fourth line logs a 92 percent on-ice save percentage at even strength
The Buffalo Sabres fourth line was one of the best defensive forward lines in hockey last season, but they have gotten off to a rough start. So far, Kyle Okposo, Zemgus Girgensons, and Peyton Krebs are three out of four forwards with the worst on-ice save percentages on the team.
Of the trio, Krebs’ is the best, clocking in at 83.3 percent, while Okposo’s sits at just 81.8 percent, and Girgensons, an ugly 80.0%. These numbers will steadily rise back into the 90-percent range as the season wears on, but they will get quite the boost this week when Krebs, Okposo, and Girgensons find their respective defensive grooves and hit the 92 percent mark.
Related Story. Looking ahead to Week 2 of the Buffalo Sabres 2023-24 season. light
Week 1 can be a rough one all around for some teams, and the Buffalo Sabres were one of them in 2023. Other teams will overachieve, but the median almost always wins out, and that’s what this week’s bold predictions were based around.
Update: Peyton Krebs is currently skating with the Cozens line and Jost has taken Krebs’ spot on the fourth. Therefore, the fourth line will likely include Tyson Jost at least on Tuesday.
(Statistics and analytics provided by Hockey-Reference)