“You don’t learn to swim and not get wet.”
Those were the words from Sabres head coach Don Granato following a 2-1 shootout win over the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday afternoon.
Granato was referencing Tage Thompson’s presence on the ice in the waning seconds of the third period with the Sabres taking a key defensive zone draw. Thompson, who hasn’t played center at either the NHL or AHL level prior to this year, has so far exceeded any-and-all expectations regarding his switch to the middle of the ice.
Thompson finished the game with a 66% faceoff win total with 19:45 played during the game. That essentially puts him in first-line center territory in terms of usage and time played. Even more incredibly, in 11:45 second of even strength play, the line of Thompson, Rasmus Asplund and Victor Olofsson controlled play with 14 shot attempts for and 0 shots against, per Natural Stat Trick. That sort of domination, even against a weak opponent like the Coyotes, was seemingly unfathomable a year ago.
For years, the Sabres were unwilling to commit to Sam Reinhart at center, and finally the Sabres have a coach who is willing to try new things and think outside of the box to generate more positive outcomes. The fact that Thompson is excelling to this degree is nothing short of stunning. Thompson wasn’t the only Sabre who had a strong day on Saturday, though.
Rasmus Dahlin played one of his finest games as a Sabre, even if the score sheet only saw him get 1 assist. Dahlin played a team-high 25:21 during the matinee affair and completely avoided any gaffes during that time. Dahlin played with Will Butcher primarily, and the two of them alternated the right and left side, with Dahlin seeing a lot of time as a right defenseman, as opposed to a left-side defenseman which is what he has primarily played over the course of his career. The injury to Henri Jokiharju has necessitated changes the right/left balance of the defensive corps.
Dahlin earned second-star honors following the game due to his stellar breakout passes from the defensive zone to streaking forwards at the opposing blue line. The Swedish defenseman made several dipsy doodles and beautiful passes without committing any egregious turnovers despite playing nearly half the game. One minor nitpicky detail on an otherwise stellar game: it would be nice to see Dahlin use his shot occasionally to keep goaltenders honest instead of consistently passing the puck to a teammate. While shooting the puck will never be Dahlin’s forte, he has a reasonable wrist shot and the threat of it from the point will force goaltenders to play him rather than cheat to Olofsson’s side on the powerplay.
Speaking of powerplays, the Sabres should have had one or two more in third period with the Coyotes tripping Sabres players all over the ice while the refs swallowed their whistles. The young blue and gold squad did a nice job to stay the course and keep generating chances on Arizona rookie goaltender Karel Vejmelka, who earned first-star honors with 32 saves on 33 chances.
Side note here: the Coyotes are going to want to pivot to Vejmelka from Carter Hutton pretty quickly if they want to make this a competitive season. Sabres fans know Hutton’s track record all too well and he’s off to an abysmal start with an 8.04 GAA (!) and a .692 save percentage after one game.
At the other end of the ice, Sabres goaltender Dustin Tokarski played a clean and uneventful game as he made 20 saves on 21 shots for a stellar .952 save percentage. The Sabres heavily outplayed the Coyotes, so Tokarski had to remain sharp through some lulls in action as the Sabres carried the play at the other end of the rink. The Sabres goaltender came up with a huge stop in the waning seconds of overtime to send the game to a shootout before making 2-out-of-3 saves in the skills competition. The Sabres goaltending has been completely competent through two contests.
It wasn’t all rainbows, unicorns and jujubes though. Dylan Cozens muddled his way through 15:49 of ice time and often looked flustered and nervous. Cozens had a particularly rough shift in the third period where he entered the Coyotes zone, pulled up and then promptly passed the puck back to the opposition who took it the other way. Once in the defensive zone, Cozens retrieved the puck and then gave it away again. Upon entering the bench following his shift, Cozens slammed the butt of his stick against the ice in exasperation. He is clearly feeling the pressure to be the face of the franchise with the imminent departure of Jack Eichel.
He’s also learning to swim.
Hopefully the Sabres can get through to Cozens that all they need for him to do is play a hard, north/south game and drive the net using his speed and size. The team needs him to simplify his game focus on getting pucks to the net rather than looking for the pass and trying to be too pretty.
It was also unfortunate that there were fewer than 8,000 fans in attendance for Saturday’s game. It’s completely understandable that the Sabres faithful are jaded from a decade of losing, but they should take at face value the promise from Kyle Okposo:
The Sabres are an up-tempo, high-energy team whose feet often go faster than their hands can keep up. Guys like Vinnie Hinostroza, Anders Bjork and Drake Caggiula will sometimes be unable to cash the opportunities that are earned by the nature of their speed. That said, this group of Sabres is entertaining in ways that previous incarnations were not; mostly due to the fact that they’re incredibly fast and tenacious.
The fans that did attend the contest were quick to applaud Okposo for his tenacious forechecking on the penalty where he – and the rest of the killers – managed to kill off nearly :40 of PK time before the Coyotes could even muster a rush. It’s completely understandable that the ticket-buying audience isn’t ready to trust again yet.
Fans are learning to swim again, too.
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