The Buffalo Sabres quest to break the playoff drought begins with the New York Rangers

The Buffalo Sabres quest to break the playoff drought begins with the New York Rangers

We made it. The start of the regular season is tonight. Sabres and Rangers will preview the matchup coming up here on the Lockdown Sabres podcast. Your 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 game day edition of the Locked on Sabers podcast. Thanks for making us your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you listen to your podcast. You can watch the show on YouTube. Hit the like and subscribe button there and you could be a part of our Lockdown Sabers text club which is always a lot more fun once the season begins. So, if you would like to sign up for that and you’re not already on board, you could do that by heading over to joinsubtext.com/lockedonsabers. Today’s episode is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. Download the FanDuel app right now by visiting FanDuel.com and win $300 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Sneaky Jody Bassi here. Thursday morning, Sabres and Rangers. Tonight at 7:00, we will be at the arena. I will be at the arena, I should say. And I know it’s about a sellout. It’s basically a sellout. There’s like a hundred seats, I think I saw, that are left. So, the arena is expected to be packed. Um, I think the atmosphere should be pretty good for a beginning of a season in an era where you’ve missed the playoffs 14 years in a row. I think you should get about as much optimism tonight as humanly possible. But, we’ll get to all that comes with this matchup, what the Sabres lineup could look like tonight. We don’t know definitively. Lindy Ruff would not fully get into it. We’ll get to the Rangers, what we saw in their first game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, their lineup. They’re doing a really weird thing with the power play that I want to get to in a little bit. Then I have some of my best bets coming your way. All the the usual game day festivities. Player that I’m locked in on for tonight is on the way as well. Uh so a lot of good fun stuff coming your way here on a preview edition of the Locked On Sabers podcast. It is the season. Sneaky Jody Biosi here. All right, let’s get right into it on Sabres and Rangers. And again, as I mentioned, Lindy didn’t want to fully say what the lineup is going to be. He did point to yesterday as maybe the biggest indicator of what tonight’s lineup will look like. So, let’s start with the Sabres end of it before we get to New York. He did say though, Jacob Bryson will be in the lineup tonight. He will be on a pair likely with Owen Power. Said Ryan Johnson may play on Saturday in Boston, but it’s going to be Bryson tonight replacing Michael Kessler, who will not make his Sabres debut yet as he’s dealing with this injury. So, let’s look at the lineup. This is what you’re going to see for pregame introductions, by the way. Um, and very quickly before I put the lines up, I was wondering one thing about tonight that a texter asked us about during the summer, which is will they introduce Kevin Adams tonight and that is something they typically do do I I think is the GM gets introduced. I would be stunned though if they did that tonight. I think you’ll see the player introductions. They’ll all line up. They’ll do it that way. They’ll introduce the assistant coaching staff, Lindy Ruff, will get his announcement and that probably gets met with an ovation, I would imagine. And then typically after that is when you get and our general manager, you know, Kevin Adams. I I can’t imagine they are introducing Adams tonight because I think everybody’s feeling good and everybody’s a little bit more optimistic. The the most negative aspect about the Sabres right now probably is the GM is still in place. Um, so to have that kind of start you off on a very negative note, I I don’t think they’re going to do that. Uh, but we’ll see if they do introduce him. I think you’re going to hear the loudest booze that maybe you’re going to hear in a in a while. Um, so we’ll see what they do though for that. The lineup for tonight’s game for the Buffalo Sabres. So, a lot of this is about the same that it’s been for the last couple of weeks. I mean, Josh Norris, Tage Thompson, Zack Benson as your first line has been a staple since really day one of training camp that has not really been messed with. Now, Zack Benson dealt with a little bit of a a bumper, a bruise, whatever you want to call it, left, came back at practice this week. It appears that he’s good to go and he’s going to play with Norris and Thompson. That line, as we’ve talked about, is a big reason for my optimism. how good Norris and Thompson look together before the year. I’ve always liked Norris more than Dylan Cousins. And now we get a to get a real look at whether the Sabres are going to win that trade. And you know, I love Zack Benson. So, I’m very hopeful that that top line is able to just run rough shot on opponents from beginning to end this season. Yuri Koulik will be with Alex Tuck and Jason Zucker. They had been practicing that way. Real quick word on the third line. Ryan Mloud, Jack Quinn, and Josh Don. I think that line has some real potential to be defensively stout. I don’t quite know how Quinn fits into that. And I wonder what this looks like when Jordan Greenway returns because I think Greenway, Mloud, and Don, that’s got the makings of an incredible shutdown line. And I do not know if you’re going to see that done um with Quinn in the lineup. I think it will have it’ll have a little bit of a different look. Um, so we’ll see though. We’ll see what that does inevitably look like. But, uh, that’s what I’m looking at for tonight’s game on the third line is their ability to shut down another team’s top line. Fourth line is the one spot in the lineup where I really have a question. Pton Krebs, Beck Malenstein, Justin Danforth. Does Mason Gearston go in for either Danforth or Malenstein? And I think that’s a possibility. I’ve been talking about the the possibility of Gearston and Rempy, Matt Rempy of the Rangers fighting off the opening faceoff. I don’t know. There’s a lot of talk about how Gearston is setting tones for them, and I think a lot of it is nonsense. Um, intensity. Alex Tuck talked about it. I we had Marty Baron on WGR this morning. He mentioned it how he’s driving up intensity in practice like okay I a goon doing that should not really be necessary and I think it’s kind of fake but I’m if I’m predicting what it will look like I think all that might be meaningful to them. I think you might see him in the lineup tonight. My guess would be he goes in for Danforth but it really could be Danforth or Malenstein. I’m not really sure. blue line, Byum and Dene, Bryson and Power, Samuelson and Timonss. Bryson with Power, I guess you’re just you’re trying to get your pairings locked together, build chemistry, keep Byum and Dene together. Samuelson and Timonss is like going to be your third pair, so keep them up. And Bryson’s had some fine games, so I’m not anticipating he’ll get killed, especially with power on the other side of him. Goalie is the big one. Now, I’ll start off with the player that I’m locked in on for tonight’s game. And the player for me for that is definitively Alex Lion, who a lot is on his shoulders at the beginning of this season. Lion without Lucinin. I’m optimistic. I liked his numbers in the past couple of seasons, but he’s kind of all they got right now unless they get really lucky and Colton Ellis is something to to to go off of. But last season in the NHL, Alex Lion playing for the Detroit Red Wings. 5.59 goals saved above expected. Not bad. 8.96 save percentage. Not great. 149-1 record was uh was what you got in 26 starts last season. 26 starts last year, 43 starts the year prior. So it did go down for him in Detroit. And the numbers went down with that. So part of that was playing um play quality maybe attributed to why he wasn’t um playing as much. Lion is the guy that I am locked in on tonight. Can you give the Sabres great goalending? Can you even be within a breath of the goalie on the other side of you? Nobody should anticipate that he’s as good as Igor Shurken obviously who is expected to be in goal tonight for the Rangers. But can you just not get your team killed? If the Sabres are going to come out and outplay the New York Rangers, can Lion just hold down the fort? Not lose the game for them? I don’t know if he’s going to be a goalie that can steal games for them. I mean, you’d love that once in a while. Just my bar for him is just don’t lose hockey games for your team. Let the roster outplay the opponent and hold down the fort and hopefully that’s your path to winning some hockey games. So, that’s what the Sabres lineup is looking like for tonight’s game. When we come back, we’ll get to what the Rangers lineup looks like and a very interesting thing that the Rangers are doing uh on the power play. That’s when we return here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. Today’s episode of the Locked On Sabers podcast is presented by Indeed. You just realized that your business needed to hire somebody like yesterday. Well, how can you find amazing candidates fast? That’s easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed’s all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other sites. Indeed, sponsored jobs puts your post at the top of the page. It helps you reach the right candidates faster. I’ve been in a spot where you need the right hire yesterday. The pressure is on. Every day without the right person is a setback. That’s exactly when Indeed sponsored jobs comes in handy. They make sure that your post is seen by the right candidates right now. Well, now you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 sponsored job credit. So, go to indeed.com/lockedon right now. Support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Sabres and Rangers tonight, 7 o’clock. Got my best bets coming up in a little bit. So, stay tuned for that. I got one line that I really like tonight. I’m keeping record also of it. Uh this year I’m just doing single bets. The number one bet that I like I’ve been kind of shying away from the parlays and I’ve been going more for just the straight ahead bets. Um and I got one that I love for tonight. So stay tuned for that coming up. But the Rangers, if you didn’t see their opening game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, they lost. They got shut out. They did kind of get goalied and they didn’t really outplay a a a subpar hockey team. The Penguins roster-wise are not built to win anymore. They are so thin. Sure, Crosby is still unbelievable, but Malcolin is not what he used to be. Latang is not what he used to be. Carlson is probably actually the second best guy on that list. Carlson is maybe closer to what he has been than Malcolin and Latang, but he’s a diminished version as well. It It’s just and it’s not a deep roster. Uh and they’re missing some pieces in the lineup right now. Um I just don’t think the Penguins are a very good hockey team and the Rangers didn’t look that much better than Pittsburgh um in that game. I mean, all the chances were the same, 13 to 13 and high danger chances. Uh shot attempts were 58 to 54 and actually in favor of Pittsburgh in this one. They outshot the Rangers at five on five 29 to22 from the the bit that I watched of that game live and I watch back the highlights later but I saw a lot of the second period of that game and the Rangers just couldn’t get into the zone. They kept getting held up at the blue line. So I don’t know if that’s puck puck carrying, right? Like that’s kind of what that sounds like to me is how many great puck carriers do you have on your roster? On paper it looks like they got a couple, right? like Paneran is elite and Zabanad JT Miller are still pretty good players but what’s really happening in New York is Paneran who by the way is going into a contract year is being asked to do a lot JT Miller who’s now the captain of the team acquired from Vancouver last year he’s being asked to be the number one center and he’s a very good player very good player Zabanad kicks over to the wing by the way with Miller and Will Cully up at the top the the top six. It’s not loaded like it used to be. Krider taking a big step back and then getting traded off to Anaheim. Chris Krider is no longer there. Um that was a big hit for them because they really haven’t really replaced some of these talented players they used to have. Vinnie Trochek, another one like way down last season and maybe he bounces back, but he’s at an age where you might think that that’s not going to happen. So Vinnie Troche as a second line center at this stage in his career doesn’t really inspire a lot of confidence in me. Alexis Lafrenier has bounced back a little bit after starting to look like a bit of a bust, but not a not a player that I’m afraid of by any means. Last year, 17 goals, 45 points, advanced numbers, like eh all right. Like he’s had one great year so far for being a number one overall pick. Just not that’s going to hurt them, right? like when the old guys aged out, they were hoping that a guy like Lafrenier would really step up and that just hasn’t really happened. And then he’s got a bunch of guys in the bottom six. Connor Sherry, who was mostly in the AHL last year, he’s on their third line to start the year. Taylor Radish, um, and then you get down to the fourth line and there’s Matt Rempy, who is not really meaningful to how good they are. Um, he’s kind of a sideeshow, but one thing about Rey that I’ve teased here about the power play that is kind of indicative of where the Rangers are in terms of their offensive talent. Matt Rey’s on the power play. They’ve been trying him out on the power play. It’s mostly be been with the second unit to be fair because that top unit is Miller, Paneran, Troch, Zabanished, and Fox, which on paper still looks like a pretty good unit. It’s just uh Trocheek and even Zabanishad to a lesser extent. Like those are guys I’m not really counting on for tons and tons of goals anymore. Um but Reby on the second power play unit just let’s put the big guy in front. It never works. The Sabres did this with John Scott during the drought and it was it never worked. And they they kept trying it and trying it. The guy’s got no skill. Who who was in front of the net for the Sabres last year? Was their best power play player? Jason Zucker. Not big at all. It’s it’s not necessarily about size. Sometimes about moving side to side in your quickness because as the puck is moving around from the top of the point to the the two left flank, the left and the right flank, the goalie is moving side to side. It’s your job to be fleet of foot and stay in front of him when those one-times are coming through. And that’s why I think Jason Zucker is a very good netfront guy or was last year because he’s moving around with the puck and then he’s got the skill on rebounds to corral it and finish those chances sometimes even pass it out to, you know, do a quick stick handle if he needs to. And Matt Reppy is not going to do any of that. Matt Reppy is not going to move as efficiently as the puck moves around the point. He is not going to be expert at cashing in rebounds in front of the net when you got to kind of stick handle or finish in a phone booth. That’s not going to happen. And this is where the Rangers are at with their power play to start the year. It’ be one thing if in the middle of the year you were like the worst power play in the league and well, we got to try something. Let’s put the 67 guy in front. This is to start the year. They’re putting him on there. I don’t want to make a crazy big deal of it. It’s only you might not even see him on the power play tonight. Maybe the Rangers only get one power play and you don’t even see the second unit. Um, but it’s kind of representative, I think, of their decline as a team missing the playoffs last year. I’m not very optimistic about their chances this year, it really comes down to their goalender, Igor Schistkin. And while I don’t love their roster for the playoffs, I acknowledge they have a very good chance. You have to say that when a team has an elite goalie like that, a goalie like Shist Sturken can carry a subpar roster for an entire season. And while I kind of went in on the forward group there as not being all that impressive, I really like them signing Vlatis Gavricov. He was a player that I wanted to see the Sabres grab in the offseason. He got a big deal. Put him right at the top with Adam Fox. Um, sure they lose KAR Miller in the offseason. So, one in, one out, but I think Gabricov is a better player. So, modest upgrade on the blue line and you have an elite goalender. So, I kind of think the Rangers have the ability to make the playoffs, but I don’t think they can win big. I don’t think they’re a team that is threatening to win the East or a Stanley Cup um with the way that that forward group is currently constructed. So that’s what it’s looking like for tonight. And that kind of does lead into what I think about this game. One of my best bets about how the Rangers are built and how the Sabres want to play that when we come back here on the Locked On Sabres podcast as we get you ready for Sabres and Rangers. Today’s episode of the Locked On Sabres podcast is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. When I go through my best bet for tonight, going to have uh that courtesy of FanDuel. You could throw all your same game parlays in. If you like the old Bulldog special, Tage Thompson hat-trick Sabres to win the game. Maybe you throw in Dallene to record a point. Big big odds. Um if you want to check that out. So, a lot of fun stuff to be invested in um at FanDuel. Sometimes you just want to see like what the expectation is for a game. How big an underdog are you? Go over to FanDuel. Find minus 104 like about a pick them between the Sabres and the Rangers. So, go to FanDuel.com right now. Football of course right now. baseball playoffs and new customers can bet just $5. And if you win that $5 bet, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets. You can use that on anything. Futures, you could look at these hockey games, football tonight as well. A lot of stuff that you could look at unlocking the $300 in bonus bets to use all across the app. Get to what I like for Savers and Rangers in a moment. Um, but you can of course do that there. So, head over to fanduel.com. Visit FanDuel on the app or the website. Download the FanDuel app today and get started. All right, final segment here on the Locked On Sabres podcast. 7 o’clock for Sabres and Rangers. By the way, blue and gold carpet tonight. A lot of other festivities. The goal song, the goal song gets announced tonight. When they score, whenever they score is when we find it out. My guess is that every time we touch is going to be what wins. I don’t think Swords of a Thousand Men wins. I cannot fathom that Kickstart My Heart will be their goal song for a second consecutive year. I think Every Time We Touch is probably going to be it. That’s how the voting seemed to be going after the way that the Jeff Skinner goal song stuff went for a couple years where that seemed to be the most fun part of it. Um I think this is kind of along the same lines. I I expect that’s going to be the goal song, but I’m rooting for Swords of a Thousand Men. So, we’ll see if we get surprised there. For tonight’s game, best bets, my favorite bet for tonight, for this game, and it really goes in hand with kind of the both the sentiment that I had about both the Sabres and the Rangers recently. The Sabres want to play a defensive style. They want to play lock down defense, prevent chances. They want to be more responsible. That’s how they’re going to try to play coming out of the gates. Now, maybe there’s a chance during the season they adjust and maybe they can’t play that way. They got to play more run and gun. We’ll see. We know how they want to start the year. They want to start the year proving they’re a great defensive team. They want that they’re a team that’s hard to play against. That’s how they’re going to come out. So that coupled with the Rangers, as I just kind of went through, I’m not that impressed with their forward group. I love their top pair. They have an elite goalender. He did get chased twice last year. Worth pointing out in both trips to Buffalo last season. Igor Schustken allowed five goals on a very few amount of shots. I think it was 17 in one game, it was 12 in the other. and he got pulled in each of them, both half the game in or or earlier. So, he did not make it through a start in Buffalo last year. But that being said, he has a very good track record against the Buffalo Sabres. 103 and one is his record. And he’s an elite elite goalender. I’m willing to chalk up that him getting pulled twice last year in Buffalo was more coincidence than anything about him and the Sabres. So, I’m going to put that to the side and I’m going to go under six and a half goals in this game. Now, you are paying a little bit more. It’s minus 130. So, you know, you got it 130 to win 100, 13 to win 10, so on and so forth. You got to give a little bit more to get the under there. But I like the under. If you want to tease it down and go under five and a half goals, get better odds. I don’t even mind that. But I’m more comfortable with six and a half. You get a 3-2 game late, empty net goal, 4-2, you cash in on the under. And I think there’s a real chance tonight’s like a 2-1 hockey game. Real good chance of that again because of all the reasons that we laid out. So, that’s what I’m looking at. The Sabres and are are a slight underdog. Um, but it’s mostly a pick them minus 104 for the Sabres on the money line at FanDuel. The Rangers are minus 115. So, you can check that out. Um, the most likely goal scorer tonight by prop betting is Thompson. No surprise there at all. Tage at plus 150, Paneran at plus 170, Josh Norris at plus 210. Now, if I were going to go with a a individual bet, if I were going to go for a prop bet tonight, I would go to the points betting and I would scroll down a little bit and if you could find it, Zack Benson. However, Zack Benson is not actually up right now to find for uh for to record a point on tonight’s game. So, if you want to go Benson, I don’t love him to score a goal at plus 380. I guess if I were going to go with a Buffalo Saber for an anytime goal bat, I’d probably go Yuri Koulik plus 340. He’s playing with two veterans to start the year, including Alex Tuck. He I think is going to be the goal scorer of that line. And with Tuck at plus 230, Zucker at plus 260, Koulique at plus 340. Um I think Koulik is actually the most likely to score a goal of those three. And by the odds, he’s third. So that would be my prop bet. But my number one bet for tonight that I’m giving you is under 6 and a half goals at minus 130 over at FanDuel. All right, so Sabres and Rangers have fun tonight. The season gets rolling. Everybody’s hopeful. Not everybody’s hopeful. I’ve been putting it that way because I’ve been hopeful, but I must acknowledge there is a lot of negativity in the fan base. One thing I do want to say very quickly before we get this season rolling, and hopefully this is this is the year the playoff drought ends. I’ve been doing this show for six years. Anniversary just passed of that. And I’ve never done this show with a great hockey team, with a playoff team. And I badly want to do that. And I just want to see the the market again explode. You know, this morning on WGR, we compared it to a dormant volcano. That’s most fans, the ones that have checked out especially, they’re still there. They just you’re just waiting for the eruption. Um, and you got to get something to spark that. So, with with saying that, if you’re not bought in for this season as a fan, you have every right to be negative about them. I will never ever ever and because I’ll be this fan sometimes. I will never ever criticize fans for assuming the worst, being negative, being a party pooper, Debbie Downer, whatever about this hockey team. They have earned every ounce of that. In fact, they’ve earned more of that honestly. Or they’ve earned the fans checking out when the Florida Panthers were going through a decadong streak of misery, barely existing in the NHL. Terrible teams. Nobody believed they should even be in the market. When that team was bad for as long as they were, they didn’t exist in their market. They didn’t exist at all. Fans just didn’t show up. No passion whatsoever. Nobody calling in, you know, to a radio show demanding somebody be fired, caring about the moves in the offseason, nothing. And that’s half the teams in the league. This team, the fact that there even is anger still is a good sign that this is a great hockey market. That’s how I always feel about it, and I don’t disparrage anybody that will assume the worst because they’ve earned it. 14-year playoff drought. It’s never happened in the sport. So, if you’re able to work yourself into a position where you’re hopeful or you’re optimistic, credit to you. I’ve even been able to do that the last couple of weeks. But if you don’t think they’re going to make the playoffs and you think the GM being in place, like you won’t buy anything about them being good until Kevin Adams is fired, that’s earned. That’s earned by the Buffalo Sabres. But I think I tried to lay out for the last couple weeks why I’m not there at this moment in time that I think that this actually can work and uh that is even with this GM, you know, sitting at the helm at the moment. All right, Sabres and Rangers, enjoy the game. We’ll talk about it when it’s done. And if you want to sign up for a text club, perfect time to do that. Join subtext.com/lockdowns. You want to chat throughout the game, you notice something you want to pass along for the show, you got a comment, you got a question, um you maybe just want score updates, you can do that as well. So head over there. You want more on the sport, Eel last night, four points. Him and Marner look unbelievable. They lost though, so there’s a lot of good stuff happening around the league. Check out Locked on NHL game night u on lockdown and YouTube wherever you listen to your podcast as well. Talk to you after game number one. You’re on the Lockdown Savers podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.

The Buffalo Sabres 2025-26 regular season is here! The Sabres, while dealing with some injuries to Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Michael Kesselring, open the year against the New York Rangers who were shut out in their first game of the season. Sneaky Joe looks at tonight’s lineup, including who Owen Power will play with, and whether Mason Geersten will work his way into the lineup to possibly fight Matt Rempe.

Plus, why Joe likes the under on tonight’s game featuring Lindy Ruff’s defensive style against an elite goalie in Igor Shesterkin. Also, why the Rangers forward group is underwhelming past Artemi Panarin at the top of the lineup.

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