Buffalo Sabres fans have long known Rasmus Dahlin is one of the NHL's best defensemen, and now the rest of North America is finally starting to wake up to that reality.
Paul Pidutti of Daily Faceoff released his High Noon rankings of the league's best blueliners ahead of the 2025-26 season on Wednesday. Dahlin checked in at No. 7, the highest mark of his career and a sizable jump from his No. 14 placement last year.
The 2018 first overall pick was the only Sabres defender to make the list, which was comprised of the NHL's top 40 players at the position. Owen Power and Bowen Byram both fell short.
Dahlin's steady High Noon progress
The 25-year-old Swede has climbed Pidutti's High Noon rankings consistently over the past three years, going from No. 22 to the fringe of the top five.
Dahlin's on-ice performance has warranted his rapid rise up the list, which is based on a weighted average of a player's last three seasons of production.
The Sabres cornerstone has recorded 200 points (52 goals and 148 assists) in 232 games over the past three years. That's the sixth-highest point total among NHL defensemen over that span.
Now comes the tough part, trying to crack a top five that features the best of the best. Here's a look at the defenders ahead of Dahlin in this year's ranking:
2025 High Noon Top NHL Defensemen |
|---|
1. Cale Makar (Colorado Avalanche) |
2. Quinn Hughes (Vancouver Canucks) |
3. Josh Morrissey (Winnipeg Jets) |
4. Adam Fox (New York Rangers) |
5. Evan Bouchard (Edmonton Oilers) |
6. Victor Hedman (Tampa Bay Lightning) |
Hedman is 34 and his production has dipped slightly in recent years, so it's possible Father Time is starting to take a modest toll. The other players on the list figure to remain in the Norris Trophy conversation for the foreseeable future, though.
So, Dahlin is going to ramp up his production even more to jump over any of those marquee names.
Sabres captain's 2025-26 outlook
Dahlin's importance to Buffalo's hopes of ending its 14-year playoff drought can't be overstated. His injury absence last season was the main reason the Sabres fell into a 13-game losing streak, which essentially ended their postseason dreams before the calendar even flipped to 2025.
The three-time All-Star does it all. He plays on the top pair, quarterbacks the No. 1 power play unit and is often called on to kill penalties, although head coach Lindy Ruff would probably prefer other defensemen to step into that role so his captain can get a few more even-strength shifts.
His more important role will probably be as a 5-on-5 play-driving creator. It's an area where the Sabres roster is extremely limited, especially following the offseason trade of JJ Peterka to the Utah Mammoth. They simply don't have many high-assist playmakers.
Dahlin led Buffalo with 51 assists last season and Peterka was next on the list at 41. Nobody else had more than 33, which was a tied between Power and Ryan McLeod.
In turn, the 6-foot-3 blueliner will be leaned on heavily to create high-danger scoring chances for his teammates, both at even strength and on the power play.
Dahlin will likely need to score at over a point-per-game pace if the Sabres' offense is going to produce at a high enough rate to keep the team in playoff contention.
He's capable of that production, but he'll still need help from the players around him on a Buffalo roster that simply can't match up with the NHL's top-tier squads.