It might be easy to forget that the Buffalo Sabres not only ended their playoff drought last season but did so by winning the Atlantic Division. It was the first time the Sabres won the Atlantic Division after realignment in 2013, and the first time they have won a division title since 2009-10, when they were in the Northeast Division.
The Sabres this season are going to be looking to win consecutive division titles and if they do that, it will be the first time since they won back-to-back division titles in 1979-80 and 1980-81. However, it won't be easy as the Atlantic Division is arguably the toughest in the entire NHL.
When looking at the teams within the division, these are three teams that the Sabres probably need to be concerned with the most as threats to their pursuit of another division title.
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Tampa Bay Lightning have not won the Atlantic Division since the 2018-19 season and was their second division title in a row. Last season, the Sabres and Lightning had some incredible games against each other and Tampa Bay pushed the Sabres right until the end of the season, finishing only three points behind Buffalo.
The Lightning have essentially the same roster as last season, and the only change is replacing Darren Raddysh with John Carlson, which should be viewed as an upgrade. They also added forwards Ilya Mikheyev and Jeffrey Viel, but this team is going to be driven by Nikita Kucherov, Jake Guentzel, Brandon Hagel, and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
This is a veteran group that will almost certainly be there right at the end once again with a good chance to win the division.
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal Canadiens finished last year tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning in points at 106 but finished third due to tiebreakers. Unlike the Lightning, which is a veteran-heavy team, the Canadiens are a team on the rise and still developing.
However, in the playoffs, they got past both teams that finished ahead of them in the standings as they beat the Lightning in seven games before advancing past Buffalo with an overtime win in Game 7.
The Canadiens didn't have really any losses to their roster this offseason, but added Chris Kreider to their Top 6. Their improvement though, is going to come from those younger players in Ivan Demidov, Lane Hutson, and Juraj Slafkovsky.
If the Canadiens play as they did in the playoffs last season, they have a good chance to win their first Atlantic Division since 2016-17.
Florida Panthers
The Florida Panthers' season was derailed seemingly before it even got started last year when they lost Aleksander Barkov in training camp. After that, they saw players like Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart, and Matthew Tkachuk miss extended periods of time last season.
However, almost all of those players are healthy and ready, with Marchand the only one expected to miss the start of the season. The Panthers also made one of the biggest moves of the offseason after trading for Brady Tkachuk.
Their biggest question is how they do without Sergei Bobrovsky, who left in free agency and signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The pressure will be on Jacob Markstrom to replace Bobrovsky and if he can play close to that level, the Panthers are going to be right back in the discussion for the division after a one-year hiatus.
It has been almost four decades since the Sabres have won back-to-back division titles and if the Sabres don't win the Atlantic Division, it probably will be one of these three teams that take that title.
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