The Buffalo Sabres have concerning injuries to Owen Power and others going into their first game

The Buffalo Sabres have concerning injuries to Owen Power and others going into their first game

It is game week. The latest news, reports, and a new goalie all ahead here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast as we’re getting you ready for Sabres and Rangers. [Music] You’re Locked on Sabres, your daily podcast on the Buffalo Sabres, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What is up everybody and welcome in to this Monday edition of the Locked On Sabers podcast and thanks for making us your first listen every day free and available wherever you get your podcast. You can check us out on our YouTube channel where you can watch the show, hit the like and subscribe button there and also great time of year to get in our Lockdown Sabers text club with the season approaching couple of days away. Always fun hanging out with everybody in the text club. If you would like to sign up for that and you not are not already a part of it, you can go over to joinsubtex.com/lockedon savers, head over there and join us for uh the 2526 season. News updates, stuff throughout the game, thoughts, observations, your questions, a lot of good stuff in there and um we’d love to have you. So join subtext.com/lockedonsabers for that. Today’s episode is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. Download the FanDuel app right now by visiting fanuel.com and win $300 of bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Sneaky Jody Bassi here on a Monday. It’s game week. We’re getting you ready for Sabres and Rangers in a couple of days. We’ve got a practice to talk about today, injury updates, a waiver claim that is very interesting as well. And also a little bit later on today’s show, I got a couple of thoughts on the new Conor McDavid extension, whether that has any impact on Alex Tuck and like the really the whole NHL marketplace. McDavid going for a shorter term deal. Very interesting. I got some thoughts on that later on at the back of today’s show as well. So, here we go. Here we go. The start of the season and optimism, I think, is in the air. Fans are feeling, I think, hopeful about this year. Um, more and more people are that I’m reading are saying, “All right, this is a team. This is a good team that should be able to compete for a playoff spot this year. If not, grab one and take it.” I did last week a show going through all the people that were projecting the Sabres to make the playoffs, and there’s a there’s a good amount of them. Uh, another one I often will reference the evolving hockey site on this channel and Evolving Wild, the guys over there, they have the Sabres finishing in second place in the Atlantic division. You can check out their write up on it. 98 points. So, more and more you’re seeing people bring their projections to the table as the season is, by the way, Sabers start on Thursday. The NHL gets rolling Tuesday night. So, I mean, I’ve got my fantasy hockey draft tonight. like we are it is full speed ahead in the next couple of days. I don’t know maybe we should be scoreboard watching right away at the beginning of the year. I’m not opposed to that. I mean if you really want to get dialed in and invested in the year I mean that’s a part of it. All right. So tomorrow night all right go Chicago against Florida. Um go Montreal Toronto. I guess it doesn’t really matter one way or the other. Um, so I guess at least Chicago in the first one, but we’ll uh we’ll figure that out as we go. Maybe Pittsburgh over the Rangers because you think the Rangers are more likely to commit. Whatever. Uh, it’s very early in that. Enjoy the hockey. So, lot to get to on today’s show. We are going to get to the the the updates from practice and the guys that are on the ice for the Buffalo Sabres, but just before we got rolling here, before we start recording, the Sabres made a move that I want to lead the show with because it’s a it’s an interesting little move the Sabres just made. There’s some good and some bad to it. The the good is I think the Sabres just added a player that could actually play for them early in the year and it might go well. There’s a chance at least of it going well. The Sabres claiming on waiverss Colton Ellis, goender of the St. Louis Blues, um never has appeared for the St. Louis Blues, but was placed on waiverss by the St. Louis Blues in the last 24 hours. The Sabres make a claim. So, why am I interested in a move for a player that is 25 years old and has never appeared in the National Hockey League? Well, mostly because he’s a goalender and he is waiver exempt. So, what that means is the Sabres cannot claim him and then put him in Rochester. they would have to put him back on waiverss and I would imagine at that point the Blues would just reclaim him or somebody else further down in the order would. So this is a Buffalo move. This is a guy that is going to be with the Sabres for as long as he’s here at the start because again whenever they would put him back on waiverss I would just imagine the Blues are going to are going to pick him back up. So, this is a saber, Colton Ellis, 25-year-old goalender, long time in the not long time in the AHL, but it’s it’s mostly the last two years that he has been playing in the American Hockey League. Third round pick of the Blues in the 2019 NHL draft. So, for a goalie, moderately high, right? A a day two pick. Um, but a third round pick of the St. Louis Blues. He is coming off of a fantastic year in Springfield in the AHL where he played 42 games, had a record of 224 and3 and had a 922 save percentage. That was the fourth best save percentage amongst qualifying goalies in the American Hockey League last year, just ahead of Deon Levi, by the way. Levi, I think, ended up finishing sixth. Coltton Ellis ends up finishing fourth on the year. And that followed a year where he was really strong, but in a lesser amount of games. 16 AHL games for Springfield in 2023 24. Even better save percentage that year. 924. I think there are better numbers than save percentage, but you don’t always have them available in the AHL. That same year, by the way, he also played 21 games in the ECHL for the Orlando Solar Bears. If you care, he had a 923 save percentage there. the last two years, mostly in the AHL, but a little bit in the ECHL as well, this guy has performed really, really well as a third round pick who, as a goalie, 25 is not really, really young. It’s about when guys start taking that jump to the National Hockey League. This is a this is a a a prime age where goalies go through the minors, they do their development. When do you want to make your jump? All right, 24, 25. Like that’s a that’s a sweet spot. So that could be in play here for Ellis who just had his best season of development. So smaller goalie, 6’1, 191 pounds. He’s not big. So we’ll we’ll see what he looks like. Is he one of these athletic guys, crazy athletic guys like Devin Levi? Is it more technical? Um we’ll we’ll get a look at him um and practices and probably in games. The the good news is I think it’s very possible that Colton Ellis if if I can give him the he’s the last year he’s the fourth best goalie in the AHL. I think it’s very possible after what we just saw in the preseason and what we knew about Alex Georgiev last year, mostly in San Jose that the fourth best goalie in the AHL is a better option for the Buffalo Sabres right now than Alex Georgie Ev. And what it is, even if you don’t want to buy that, because this guy has never played a second of NHL hockey. All right, it’s another dart throw. It’s another kick at the can. Let’s see if this guy can be an answer in goal where goalie can be random and you never know what you’re going to get with a guy. So I’m like and he’s free. He’s free and if it doesn’t work out, you put him back on waiverss, he probably goes back to St. Louis. So or to to Springfield really. So this is fine. This is a this is a good move and I I think you’re going to see him play. I think you’re going to see him play and I think he’s a nice plan B to Alex Georgiev. um given that Ukapukin is still not on the ice and I just I don’t know how much you could trust Georgiev right now to play. I think you give him a a couple of starts and if it goes poorly you give Ellis a couple of starts and whoever looks better that’s who you ride with Alex Lion for the foreseeable future. And right now I might want to bet on Ellis being more likely to produce than Georgiev. The bad news about this signing is that it can’t mean good things for UPPL. that the injury he can’t be close because if he was days away, a week away, then they’re not bringing in another goalender, I don’t think. And then you would have four NHL goalenders. I think you might see UPL on IR. I wonder what kind of update we get for him. All that we have at the moment is that Lindy Ruff said he is he is unlikely for the opener. So, Colton Ellis, all right, they’ll get a couple of practices. Maybe he’s the backup even on Thursday. It is possible that Alex Georgiev is waved between now and Thursday. So, it might not even be a competition. He might just be the new Buffalo Sabres backup um for a little bit of time. We’ll see how it plays out as the week progresses, but just wanted to pass that along. That was a move right before we got rolling here. And I think it’s a little interesting one. He is still to summarize though, I think when you when you have a guy at that age, I want to be a little open to all right, you might there might be something here. Um, and his last two years in in the minors tell you that he might be tracking towards that, but we’ll see. All right, so UPPL, that’s the injury update on him. He’s not likely to play on Thursday against the New York Rangers. What about everybody else? The blue line is super banged up. We got the Zack Benson injury that has been deal been been going on. Lines today at practice and all the injury updates that we got for Thursday. That’s coming up here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. Today’s episode of the Locked On Savers podcast is presented by Monarch Money. Most people can’t name where all their financial accounts or even what they’re worth, whether it’s 401ks or properties or investments. And when you don’t have the full picture, you can end up leaving money on the table. That’s why there is Monarch Money. It’s an all-in-one personal finance tool that helps bring your entire financial life together in one clean, easy to use interface on your laptop or your phone. Monarch’s built for people with busy lives. If you’ve put all put off organizing your finances, Monarch is for you. Monarch does the heavy lifting for you. You can link all your accounts in minutes, see clear data visuals, get smart categorization of your spending, and finally fe finally feel in control of your money without ever touching a spreadsheet. So, don’t let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. You can use the code locked on NHL at monarchmoney.com in your browser for half off your first year. That’s 50% off your first year at monarchmoney.com with the code locked on NHL. All right, the Buffalo Sabres, we’re back at practice on Monday as they are entering a game week and they’re getting ready for the New York Rangers on Thursday, who by the way, I did do a a quick check this morning. They are a lot healthier this today than the Buffalo Sabres are. The Rangers that I saw don’t really have any injuries uh to speak of going into the week and the Sabres have a bunch. So, all right, let’s run through it. the lines today at practice. Josh Norris with Taige Thompson and Zack Benson. Good news on the Benson front. He also was not wearing a non-cont jersey. He was just at practice. Now, when Lindy updated everybody on these injuries, he took he put Benson in the column of, you know, iffy to play on Thursday along with Matias Samson. I feel like I’d be surprised if Benson is not going to play on Thursday given that he’s back on the ice already. He’s not wearing the the red jersey or whatever. Um I have a feel I feel like Benson’s going to play. So good news there. He was on the ice for their with their top line. Second line, Yuri Koulik, Alex Tuck, Jason Zucker. All right, Zucker on line two. Now I think we’re starting to see a clear picture of what these are going to look like for Thursday. Second line, Koulique Tuck and Zucker. That’s Tucker over Zucker over Jack Quinn. And I’m into that. Jack Quinn actually had a pretty poor preseason finale, I thought. So Zucker more productive last year by a lot. Um I’m I’m good starting the year. He was very close with Koulique last year, by the way. And surrounding Yuri Koulique with two veterans, Tuck and Zucker on each side. I think that’s a good environment for him to take a big step this year. So, I’m into that line. Ryan Mloud, Jack Quinn, and Josh Don. So, the only thing I don’t like about this line is it wants to be a shutdown line because of Mloud and Don, and Quinn just doesn’t really fit that. I don’t really think Quinn fits much of anywhere, but I guess this is where you put him. So, not that Quinn’s been bad defensively in his entire career. I think last year left you wanting, you wanted him to be stronger, you want him to win more battles. Let’s see if he did that during the offseason because he’s going to be playing on a line that’s going to need it, right? could be if you want that to be your shutdown line playing against other teams top lines. That’s a tough assignment for Jack Quinn. Line four, Peyton Krebs, Beck Malenstein, and Justin Danforth. No surprises there. The blue line. All right, patchwork a little bit because right now they’re missing their second pair. Owen Power not on the ice. He’s dayto-day. He is skating on his own. I think it’s totally up in the air whether Owen Power is going to play on Thursday as we enter the week. I think it’s 5050. We’ll see if we get a a better update. Michael Kesslearing is probably not going to play. Uh that’s that’s the vibe right now. That’s the update that he’s probably not playing on Thursday. So that’s disappointing because really what we’re looking at right now is that this this new found second pair that you’d be putting together with Kessle Ring and Power that had started camp together, started the preseason together, and you might think would ride the whole regular season together. They’re both not on the ice to start the year. So that’s that’s a little terrifying. Um because now what I have is I’m mixing things up. Dene on the left with Connor Timonss is my top pair. I don’t mind that pair. I think Dene can lift up almost anybody. I think Timonss actually probably does well with Rasmus Dene. Um second pair is what really really scares me because Dene could only play so much and how much you want to play Timonss. You want to play Timonss 28 minutes. That’s crazy. You don’t want to do that. But that second pair is really terrifying with Matias Samuelson and Bo Byum. Don’t love that at all. Byum carrying his own pair was a struggle whenever he was kind of called upon to do it last season, especially during that losing streak where Rasmus Dalene was out. and Samuelson, who by the way was wearing a non-cont jersey. Even he’s iffy for Thursday, an injured Samuelson with Bum. I just, man, I Anybody optimistic about that? I’m not hopeful that that’s going to give you positive results going up against the Rangers second line. Like, I just I can’t see how you win that. The third pair and a fourth pair are just kind of we just need guys to practice. So, I don’t know why they didn’t just do Ryan Johnson and Jacob Bryson together. Instead, it was Ryan Johnson and Tyson Kak, who of course is a forward and is bound for Rochester, I’m sure, eventually here. And then Mason Gearston, who is a fighter that could play D or forward, but really can’t play either. Uh, he was skating with Jacob Bryson. So, I guess that’s your third pair. I I thought Ryan Johnson was having a really good camp. So, it’d be weird to me if he wasn’t in the opening night lineup with all of the injuries that they have. But, when I look at those two pairings, I mean, one of them’s got a forward on it. So, what’s the likely pairing for Thursday? It’s it’s probably Gearston and Bryson. Honestly, I think Gearston opens the season at defense and when they get healthy, he goes back to forward. Um, and I guess he’s on a pair with Bryson. And this is again where it gets scary because you don’t want to play Mason Gearston more than six minutes. I you just you don’t want him on the ice and then you’re down to five defenseman and one of them is Samson who is playing with an injury. Just not a good situation to be in. I would just go with Bryson and Johnson, but I bet you they’re going to go with Gearston and Bryson. I said it on uh last week’s show. I think that the season’s going to start with an opening faceoff fight between Mason Gearston and Matt Rempy. I like I legitimately think that is going to happen on Thursday. So, I think he finds his way into the lineup. I just guess I thought it’d be fourth line forward instead of third pair defense, but here they are. Third pair defense. Yikes. It’s a tough tough looking blue line. And then obviously the UPL injury uh that we already went through. It’s a lot of injuries. It’s a lot of injuries, man. That second pair, Samuelson and Bum. Godspeed to Rasmus Dalene and probably Connor Timonss. Hoping that they can they can lug 25 minutes at least. And it’s got it’s got to probably be more than that. All right, that’s the start of the year. We’ll see if we get a better update on Owen Power. Everybody, you know, fingers crossed that Owen Power is going to be able to play in this game against the New York Rangers. When we come back, I got some thoughts on the McDavid signing and how it impacts Alex Tuck and the whole NHL marketplace. That when we return here on the Lockdown Savers podcast. Lockdown Sabres presented by FanDuel Sportsbook hockey this week. Tomorrow you got games. So, you know, you got a couple of uh 7:00 games. You got a night game. A lot to look at. Sabres, of course, on Thursday. Football is here. We know that. FanDuel has an offer that you don’t want to miss. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get 300 in bonus bets if you win. That’s right. just pick a bet, put down five bucks. If it hits, you unlock $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Go check out some of those hockey bets. Um, you know, tomorrow night the Panthers are really injured. I’m just saying I don’t think Chicago’s good, but you can get really good odds. They’re they play at five, by the way. Chicago a young team, probably not a great team. Florida’s a great team, but banged up. You know, it’ll be an emotional night, but we’ll see what kind of crowd they get, by the way, 5:00. So, I kind of I kind of like Chicago with a lot of odds in that one. So, check it out. FanDuel Sportsbook. What are you waiting for? Visit FanDuel.com. Download the FanDuel app today and get started with that $5 bet for 300 in bonus bets if you win. Check it out. FanDuel.com for FanDuel sportsbook. Wrapping things up here on the Lockdown Savers podcast with a little McDavid talk because he signed he signed. been waiting for these dominoes to drop in the marketplace. And you know, if I’m an NHL player that was waiting for these dominoes to fall, if I’m Alex Tuck, if I am uh Kempe out in LA, if I am um that means a lot of these guys, right? If I’m one of these guys looking for a big deal and I’m waiting for the big guys to set the market, I’m really let down by the McDavid contract. So, after Carrill Capri off signs a long-term eight-year deal, right, for $17 million, McDavid flies in and he signs a two-year deal. That’s not surprising. I mean, there was a lot of talk that that was going to happen. But $12.5 million for Conor McDavid. What? 4 a.5 million lower than Capri off signed for by percentage of cap. Conor McDavid signed for as low a number as I’ve seen a superstar signed for since I mean at least when Crosby signed that painfully low deal 8.7 million however many years ago that just brutal. It’s actually worse than that deal. It’s It’s one of, I think, the most cheap deals for a star player that I’ve ever seen in sports. Now, again, part of it, though, is McDavid is only doing a two-year deal, and he’s going to probably look to cash in in two years. But in the meantime, what has he done to the marketplace? What he’s done to the marketplace is tell teams, this is no different. Business as usual. Cap the cap went up. What do you mean? Don’t even pay attention to that. The cap didn’t go up. That’s kind of what this contract says. It says the cap didn’t go up, even though it did. It’s a team-friendly deal. I don’t think McDavid’s doing this to harm his other players in the league and the salaries that the that the players will get. I mean, the union’s probably not happy today, right? But he’s doing it to help his own team win. And it the contract kind of sounds like, hey, I’m going to give this thing two years here. everything we got for the next two seasons. I’m an Oiler. I’m locked in. Give me everything I need to win. I’m trying to win rings. I’m trying to cement my legacy as one of the best players in this league’s history. And I want some hardware to go with all my stats. So, all right. I’m going to take $6 million less than I’m probably worth, probably more than that, because that’s going to help us build a better team. that’s going to give me a better left winger this season than I otherwise would have at my disposal. So like, all right, here’s all the room you need, Edmonton. Let’s go. Let’s go win a Stanley Cup. That’s what McDavid is doing. And he’s doing it for two years because in two years, if it doesn’t work out, he can go, “Okay, well, fine. See you. I’m going to Tampa.” Or, “Hey, it worked. All right, cool. Now I can sign for 20, right? Everyone cool here? I’m going to sign for 23.” Uh, he could cash in then. But in the meantime, what happens to the marketplace is I don’t think Alex Tuck can go to the Buffalo Sabres now and say, “I’m going to get I want $11 million.” And a week ago, I don’t think that would have been that crazy because that’s where the salaries are going. Everybody’s got all this cap space. Eichel’s worth 17. Capri’s off sign for 17. McDavid’s worth 20. If those guys are all in that neighborhood, Alex Tuck getting 11, not that unreasonable. But when McDavid’s making 12 and a half, that’s just a roadblock. I can’t see these players getting over. There’s no way that an Alex Tuck is gonna go into a meeting with Kevin Adams say, I want $1 million less than Conor McDavid got. Even if you have all the right reasons behind it of, well, this is why McDavid signed for this and I’m signing for eight years, so it’s not really the same. I get it. But sometimes it can just get boiled down to I’m not giving you a million dollars less than the best player on planet Earth. You’re Alex Tuck. You’re a great player, but come on. You’re not McD you’re not making McDavid money with us. So here you go. Let’s do nine. That argument gets a lot stronger today after what happened to Conor McDavid. So the odds to me that Alex Tuck signs for double-digit millions of dollars a year, I think went down today. And I think that went down for everybody after McDavid signed this deal. So, it sounds like McDavid really did a disservice to his players. I mean, he kind of did. Again, though, I get why he did it. He did it because he wants to win, and I’m not going to blast him for that. Um, nor should anybody. It’s I do want to see him leave Edmonton. So, I guess in that way, I’m disappointed. Um, but I would be more disappointed if I were a guy like if I were Alex Tuck, I would be more disappointed this morning uh than I am personally. So, really interesting contract. Really weird. And maybe this is the last two years that he’s in Edmonton. Um, it’s two-year extension, by the way. So, I think what that means, just I I’m imagining that I read this right, that he’s locked up for three more years. So, that would take him to age 31. Um, he’ll still be a great player at 31. He could sign an eight-year deal at 31 easily if he really wants to. Uh, yeah, he’s got this year and he’s got two more years after that. So, he will be done with his deal at 20 27. It’s not updated on uh Puck Pedia where I’m looking, but yeah, two more years in addition to what he’s got right now, I believe. No, let me double check that. Would you think that’s how it works, wouldn’t you? Uh, yeah, there it is. Sorry. 2027 28. That’s the final year of the deal. So, he’ll be a free agent on July 1st of 2028, uh, if he makes it that far. All right, that’s going to do it for us today here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. We’re really hoping for better injury updates in the next couple of days. We’ll let you know about that. We’ll start looking at the New York Rangers as an opponent as we get towards Thursday. Uh, a lot of fun stuff. We’ll really check into the SE season mode coming up in the next couple of shows here in the Locked On Savers podcast. Be sure to check out Locked On NHL. Um, top 100 list. Really cool. Dene and Thompson both in the top 40. Really cool there. Um, check them out. Locked on NHL game night every game, every night till Stanley Cup Champions Crown. They got your preview for the season and then uh I mean there’s games tomorrow so we’ll start reacting to games as well. So f find Lockdown NHL game night wherever you listen to your podcast on YouTube as well and we’ll talk to you tomorrow. You’re in the Lockdown Sabers podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

Owen Power, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Michael Kesselring, Jordan Greenway, Zach Benson, and others are all banged up going into the Buffalo Sabres 2025-26 regular season. With a game coming in just days, just how depleted are the Sabres going to be? Of the injuries, the Sabres could really use Owen Power who is going to be close to playing on Thursday against the New York Rangers. Can the Sabres survive without their second defense pairing available to them?

UPL’s injury means another new goalie on the scene as the Sabres have claimed Colten Ellis off waivers. Sneaky Joe breaks down the Ellis claim which could be a nice little move for the Sabres behind Alex Lyon. Plus, why Connor McDavid’s new contract could bring the new NHL marketplace down to where it’s been in recent years.

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