The Sabres return home after a tough European trip

The Sabres and the Devils were the headliners to start the NHL season over in Prague. New Jersey looked like the faster team and physical team on the ice against the Sabres in the first two games of the NHL season overseas.

Biggest Takeaway

For the Sabres it felt more like a Don Granato-led team than a Ruff-led team at the O2 Arena, the careless turnovers in the offensive and neutral zone to the losing puck battles in the corners, and mindless defense allowing several odd man rushes against UPL and Devon Levi.

The power play wasn’t good at all as Buffalo went 0-6 with a man up. The man's advantage looked very similar to last year, with little movement while in the offensive zone and having difficulty crossing the opposition blue line to set up. Something Lindy Ruff and his staff need to fix, or it could be another tough season for the Sabres’ special teams.

Buffalo now stands at 0-2-0 and holding no points through the first two games of the NHL season. The schedule doesn’t get much easier than Buffalo will play the Kings on Thursday night for their home opener, and the defending Stanley Cup Champions the Florida Panthers on Saturday.

Here is some good news though the Sabres haven’t started 0-3-0 since the 2014-2015 season, and the only two teams that went 0-2-0 to start last season went on to the Stanley Cup Final a year ago.

Three Stars of the Week

While it was tough to watch, there were several players that stood out for the Sabres while in Prague. The first two players that really stood out in the first two games were the goaltending crew. Both UPL and Devon Levi kept the Sabres in both games against New Jersey.

UPL in game one last Friday made 19 saves on 22 shots faced while Luukkonen allowed three goals against Luukkonen stood tall in the biggest of moments. Sabres defensively looked flat in Friday’s game and not giving the goalie much help to leave him on an island.  

Devon Levi on Saturday in Prague made 34 saves on 37 shots faced in the 3-1 loss. Levi stood tall. One of his notable saves came in the first period as the puck took an odd bounce off the wall and landed on Jesper Bratt’s stick.

He took a quick shot, and Levi made the important save early in the first. Levi showed his aggressive style of goalkeeping in the second around the 15:45 mark of the second. The Devils tried to take advantage of a careless turnover from the Sabres and turned it into a quick three on two rushes as the Devils played tic-tac-toe with Jack Hughes, Bratt and Timo Meier with Meier taking the shot Levi came well out of the blue paint to make the save. Something Bufalo fans will see more of this season from Levi is him coming out and challenging shooters.

The third star from last weekend’s series against the Devils was Tage Thompson. Tage opened the scoring for Buffalo in a big way. The six foot seven center used his big body frame in a net front scrum to find the puck underneath Jake Allen to squeeze the puck across the line for the opening goal of the second game.

That goal felt more like a Lindy Ruff style play than the previous game. If Thompson can use his body more to score more goals and screen opposing goalies from seeing, the puck clearly goal will come for Buffalo.

Looking ahead to this week

The Buffalo Sabres return home after a preseason stop in Munich and a trip to Prague just this past weekend. As mentioned, prior the Sabres will host the Kings Thursday night at 7 p.m. for their home opener. Los Angeles named Jim Hiller their head coach for this season as he went 21-12-1 with the and lost in five to the Oilers in the playoffs with the Kings as interim head coach last season.

Drew Doughty will most likely not play against the Sabres on Thursday as the Kings listed him as month-to-month with an injury he sustained in the preseason. Buffalo will need to attack Los Angeles goaltending early as Darcy Kuemper struggled last year as he posted a career-low in save percentage as a Capital.

Injuries are the primary concern for the Sabres currently, as they put Nicolas Aube-Kubel on IR and Ruff said he should be back in “probably three to six weeks”. Zach Benson and JJ Peterka also suffered injuries in Prague Ruff, listed Benson as “day to day” and Peterka as “doing better”. The forward depth is being challenged early and it will be next man up for the Sabres heading into the weekend slate of games.