BFHS 10/20/25: Are the answers in the room now?

BFHS 10/20/25: Are the answers in the room now?

All right, it’s a dreary Monday morning here in Western New York. We understand there’s some people that listen to this show or watch the show on YouTube that aren’t in Buffalo. If you’re one of those, hopefully the weather’s a little nicer wherever you are. But the show must go on. The Baker Fairburn Hockey Show is back here on Monday, October 20th, 2025. I’m your host, Chris Baker, here as always with your Sabres beat writer for the Athletic. That’s Matthew Fairburn. You can find all of Matthew’s work at theathletic.comsabers. And Matthew has been quite busy over the weekend here, following up on the Sabres three nothing victory on Saturday over the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, the Florida Panthers. And that win for the Sabres coming on the heels of their first victory of the year on Wednesday, an 84 drubbing of the Ottawa Senators. Thanks everyone for tuning in today. If you’re watching on YouTube, please like this video, subscribe to the Sabres Prospects YouTube channel, and hit that notification bell so you know when a new video drops or when Matthew and I go live. We still be going live at times throughout this season. And you can find the Baker Fairburn Hockey Show on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. And as always, if you could please leave a fivestar review. Matthew, quicker episode than normal today. Let’s just kind of dive right in. This is our second take of an episode, by the way. I wish I could blame it on Amazon Web Services being down, disrupting all sorts of websites and uh you know, Venmo’s down, Snapchat is down, everything’s down this morning. I can’t blame it on Amazon Web Services. I can just blame it on me not knowing how to use a laptop. But regardless, here we are. Matthew, let’s talk a little bit about Saturday’s game again. A three nothing victory by the Sabres. Josh Don scoring a pair of goals. Owen Power got one on the board. Alex Lion made 32 saves for his first shut out as a member of the Buffalo Sabres coming on the heels of his first victory on Wednesday in a Sabres uniform. But I think the theme that we should get into is if you go back to the off seasonason and Lindy Ruff’s preseason media availability, he talked about team attitude, more aggression coming from this team, kind of a pack mentality. And I think we’re starting to see those concepts coming together with the Sabres team on the ice. I think we certainly saw it on Saturday against the Panthers. What a difference six or seven days makes, huh Chris? I mean, last Tuesday we got together, the Sabres were 0 and3 and we had a lot of questions about how this team was going to respond to some of the pointed words from Lindy Ruff, the individual meetings, the the critiques that he had, and where this team was heading. I mean, they were the talk of the league at this time last week for the for the wrong reasons. The way they had started and skepticism was building. They have not erased all that skepticism, but a three nothing win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday was impressive. No Kachchuck, no Barov. Let’s get those caveats out of the way. This was not the Florida Panthers uh that we saw late last season, but still a tough, deep team that honestly without those top players is more the type of team to try to drag you into the mud and win games that way. And the Sabres almost beat them at that game. You know, they they got under their skin and didn’t get dragged into the mess. No better example than Raasmus Dalene midway through the second period gets away with a cross check to the back on Brad Marshand away from the play. Usually Marshand is the one keeping his cool in those moments getting somebody else all riled up. Marshon lost his mind. He hauled down in the slot away from the play a few minutes you know few seconds later. Tage Thompson immediately jumps in to defend Dene. What ends up happening is Marshon and Thompson get matching roughing penalties, but Marshon gets the extra two for interference. Dene skates away with nothing, including not his helmet because Marshon took it with him to the penalty box. Ripped the straps off, threw the helmet onto the ice. He was just he was having a fit a little bit. It looked kind of like my house uh at 4 or 5:00 in the afternoon with my two kids, four and under. Um he ends up getting fined $5,000. No extra penalty, but this was a one- nothing game at the time. The Sabres score on the power play that Marshon handed them. Marshon gets out of the box to loud booze. Uh the type of booze that the Sabres want to hear in their building, right? Directed at an opposing player. The crowd was really into it. Marshon’s next shift, he takes a minus on I think the best goal the Sabres have scored all year. I think everybody on the ice touched the puck. Beautiful passing play. Owen Power jumps into the rush and converts. All of a sudden, the Sabres are up three nothing in a span of a few minutes thanks to Dene getting under Marshon’s skin. You can quibble with the call this or that, but that pack mentality you talk about Thompson jumping in to defend being able to play that agitator style that we know he likes. He’s had a long-standing back and forth with Marshand. I feel like you saw it there. You saw Gearson after the whistle a few times. He ends up taking a a game misconduct for some abusive language at some point. Not exactly sure what happened. He didn’t play a huge factor in the game, but you saw a team that was between the whistles, physical after the whistles, not backing down. five guys in really kind of standing up for each other, playing with some passion, and it was hard to poke holes in the performance. I know the Panthers have injuries, but that’s a team that has won two Stanley Cups, that had three straight losses coming into this game, had every reason to want to get off the mat, and the Sabres didn’t let them off the mat. So, we’re sitting here on a Monday morning thinking, here come the Buffalo Sabres. Maybe, maybe, you know, to your point about rising up to the occasion and playing the Florida Panthers, I don’t care if it’s a Barovless team or they’re missing Kachuk and and Kulicov, you know, they lost him last week. He he went under uh some surgery. He’s going to be gone for a few months. It’s still the Florida Panthers. It’s still that uniform. You were driving down to the rink. You and I were on the phone and we were talking about it. It’s just like when the Bills were playing the Patriots and Brady was out and they had to face Jacobe Brassette. It shouldn’t matter. you still have to get up. You’re playing that crest and and I’m glad to see that the team did it. You mentioned I wanted to lead in with the toughness and kind of the aggression of the team kind of coming to the forefront, but to your point, it was a pretty complete effort. Even the power play, I think they went two for four on the power play. That’s an encouraging sign. Again, um this team, I think they were what, 0 for 11 was it on the power play to start the year? Something like that. All of a sudden, Quinn’s got a power play goal. It was kind of a weird one, right? I think that’s the one that bounced off the the the got him going glass and yeah, right went off the goalie’s ass and into the net. But now you have Jason Zooker with two power play goals. You have Josh Don with two power play goals. And I didn’t have that on my bingo card. You know, Quinn, Zooker, and Don leading the way on the power play right now early in the season. But I think if if this is um representative, I guess, of where the team can go, that’s a good sign because they still can get more out of their better players. But it seems like that middle lineup is raising the water level of the team. And now we’re kind of shifting into a big week right ahead for the Sabres. They have four division games, four more division games coming up starting tonight with the team going to Montreal, but they’re still kind of navigating their way through some injuries. There’s some new ones kind of uh that got dinged up, couple recalls from Rochester. You just want to kind of level set where the team is at with injuries as well as give some updates on the ones that we already knew about. Yeah, let’s before we do that, just want to point out they’re now sixth on the power play after starting 0 for 11, sixth in the league on the power play. So, that can change quickly, but even to dig yourself an 0 for1 hole and climb all the way up to sixth and we’re seeing how it can impact games, right? like that game changed because they converted and made Marsh paye. That is frankly special teams is going to be how this team is going to win on the margins. They lead the NHL in penalty kill percentage. They were seven for seven on the penalty kill on Saturday and Alex Lion is a huge part of that but yes they are still navigating some injuries. I do want to So Justin Danforth went on injured reserve. He is going to be out for about a month. Jacob Ryson left the game on Saturday with a concussion. So, Zack Jones and Noah Oelen came up from Rochester. That was announced on Sunday. The other situation I’m monitoring is Beck Menstein is not on the roster in on the NHL media site and Puckedia has him listed on injured reserve. So something might be going on with Malenstein which might explain Osland coming up because Danforth left last Wednesday. So they’ve had some time with that injury. But that’s one to watch as well. So Osland joins Mets who also came up and and Jones as guys that have been called up recently. Michael Kessler Ring had his first rehab skate late last week, so starting to get a little bit closer. He’s been out for going on about three three-ish weeks now, three four weeks, and he’s been dealing with that injury for a little while before that. Samuelson came back uh so his absence was brief. They’ve got Lucinan and Greenway back at practice, seemingly getting closer. Greenway, you know, has been ramping up. Lucinan, you know, doesn’t seem overly limited, you know, by anything that he’s dealing with. So potentially he could be available for this backto-back against Toronto over the weekend. We’ll see on Greenway. I don’t, you know, know for sure just because his ramp up might be a little longer since he really didn’t get any of training camp. Um, but he was skating at the beginning of training camp, so they’ve been carefully building him up. So, we’ll see if if he’s ready to roll, but other than that, you’re just looking at the ones that they, you know, had been dealing with um beforehand. So, we’ll see if you know, and you know, Norris is the big one in that group, but they’re starting to get a bit healthier, especially at the key spots. I mean, having Benson back has been a game changer, I think, for that top line. Saw it again. He had an assist. He’s up to five points and he and Don, the two dogs, five points a piece through five games. No, it’s good to see. I mean, we talked about Benson. We don’t need to harp on it. You know, his um re-entry into the lineup just changes the whole complexion of the team. Don was doing it right from, you know, puck drop on on uh opening night. So, yeah, it it’s it’s coming together a little bit in terms of the team attitude, the competitiveness that I was really really mad about watching this team. I mean, I came out after that second game and I was just like, I’m already tired of watching this team. I’m not, you know, I’m kind of excited to watch the game tonight. Big week again. Okay, I think that we should go through the forwards, the D, and get to the goalending a little bit. But just to kind of level set what’s up this week tonight, the Sabres are in Montreal, an exciting young team, can score a ton of goals. They got some toughness. I think we’re going to get into that a little bit. You know, we saw the Canadians and how they were kind of operating in preeason, not just Arborjack Eye. They always have Gallagher there to get under team skin. There’s other players that are kind of sneaky, pesky, but I think that this isn’t the same old Montreal Canadians. They have an element of toughness. They definitely loaded up. We should get into that. In Montreal tonight, they come back home and they play Detroit, who’s in first place in the division right now. Winners of five in a row, right? They lost their first game. They’ve won five in a row. Alex Lions old team. Get into that. And then you have a back-to-back uh home and home on Friday and Saturday with the Maple Leafs. So big week, Sabres coming into this week with a little bit of momentum. I know that there’s some excitement, maybe some renewed energy in the fan base. I do want to pump the brakes on it a little bit and see one game at a time and and see how they do tonight. It’s going to be a tough game tonight against Montreal, but let’s start with the forwards and how are the Sabres going to line up in this game. We saw some recalls. You mentioned Noah Oselin. I think I just want to kind of get right to it because we saw Lindy Ruff trying to pull some levers to motivate Yuri Koulik last week during practice. He ended up dressing him in that game against Ottawa. His effort was okay. Had an empty neter in that game. I don’t think he necessarily blew the doors off against Florida on that line with Benson and Thompson on Saturday. I could see Lindy keeping him there, but I guess really what I’m trying to grind this down into is Austin’s up. Where is the ideal spot to put him in this lineup? Because it sounds like they’re going to need him to play, especially in light of this Beck Malenstein development that you just mentioned. You know, it’s interesting. Yuri Koulik had, you know, by the metrics a pretty good day on Saturday. That line had a good day. You know, the the Thompson Benson Koulique line. I think we’re going to see that with the metrics a lot because of Zack Benson, right? I think he impacts a lot in terms of chances created, chances. I mean, anybody we’re starting to get a lot more uh tweets about Benson, comments about Benson on stories like people starting to see now that he’s maybe a little bit faster than he was last year, you’re starting to see some people notice him more. But I do feel like he lifts the boat a little bit. Like Koulik was on the ice for I think five high danger chances for and only one against on Saturday. That that’s a good number um for that long. There was one line that maybe there’s some work to do though, right? Like because if you go through the Mloud line had some decent numbers too on Saturday. Yeah, I think it’s, you know, when you look at, you know, the the group that was probably holding them back a little bit, it was Kreb, Zooker, and Quinn. And so when I think about Oscelin, there’s definitely the temptation like at some point I want to see him in the top six, right? Like this guy’s a top six talent. He’s a, you know, middle of the first round pick, really good playmaker. like the offensive mind of Noah Osland, you want to see him with some skill players. I like that he’s here over Yuri Koulik’s shoulder a little bit, right? Like light that fire, create, we’ve talked about it a bunch, but accountability only exists when there’s a guy behind you that is capable of taking your job. And Noah Oseland’s going to have to prove that before. I think they’re they’re not just going to toss them in there, right? when wins are at an absolute premium, but he’s an interesting potential addition to that line with Zooker and Quinn because it looks like you have a top six that’s kind of working right now. Koulique Benson Thompson worked late last year. Even if Koulak’s not quite going, you you need him going. So, you need to keep them with the guys that that he’s been best with. Mloud with with Don and Tuck. I mean, that’s it. Don is making a lot of stuff work for this team, but I don’t know if I would want to touch that. Zooker, could you put Oscelin between Zooker and Quinn and maybe, you know, add to your your scoring depth a little bit? Could Could he unlock something that Pton Krebs hasn’t quite, you know, he’s just hasn’t found that offensive game at this point in his career? I don’t know if it’s necessarily going to come. He’s had some moments up higher in the lineup. So then you have some pieces to move around on your fourth line, right? If Malenstein is out, you know, maybe Krebs can play the wing with Kak and Gearson, you know, maybe and, you know, Dunn, whatever you want to do down there, you have some pieces to move around. And I think you want to see Osland with some skill players. It’s not that he’s not good defensively. he is, but playing down the lineup, I think, hides some of what he does well and what he can bring to this team. And I think you want to keep the scoring momentum going. We saw in the first three games, this team can the scoring can dry out pretty quick. And so, you had the eight goals, you had a three-goal effort against a a stingy Panthers team. You want to keep keep the offensive momentum going. Maybe Oseland doesn’t even get into a game, right? We’ll see. But if you’re going to use him, I want to see him with some skilled players. Yeah. I think before the Malenstein injury, my question coming into tonight’s game, and I kind of mentioned it already, you know, Gearson, you could see having Gearson in the lineup tonight, even with more healthy bodies around him in that bottom six because of Arbor guy and just some of the things and having him out there to keep keep the other team honest. Look, Gearson only played a little over two minutes on Saturday. Well, but he still had the misconduct didn’t help, but even when he was even when he was out there in those two minutes, I think you witnessed some things that he was doing that maybe helped the team stand a little taller. Fair to say? Yeah. I mean, at one point he was grabbing he had one guy in each hand, you know, after the whistle. He he was ready to go. Like, he wanted to go at some point. And I think it was actually after the Bryson injury that Gearson was on the ice. wasn’t really any sort of dirty play or anything, but he was still, you know, tempers were were up and he was he was grabbing a couple of guys. Were the Panthers shaking in their boots? Probably not. But was I think it’s going to be less about are other teams afraid of Gearson and more about does his presence just help the rest of the team stand a little bit taller and maybe rise to that that level. We’ve seen Samuelson, you know, much more assertive and aggressive after the whistle and between the whistles. By the way, he leads all Sabres defenseman and on ice expect a goal share at five on five with 53%. Quietly having a good year. I know he’s the favorite whipping boy from a certain segment of the fan base, but they’re a lot better off if Samuelson is the Samson of old and he’s he’s looking like that. And I also I like what I’m hearing from Samuelson. Like he had this injury and he in the past he’s he’s had to get used to dealing with the highs and lows, the mental grind of being injured, but this one he’s just like it’s just pain tolerance and I just have to I just have to push through it. And so he’s just kind of I think realizing I mean some of the stuff he’s had in the past that wasn’t even possible but there’s a maturity that’s that’s coming with him if he can keep it up. I mean this blue line right now as we you know move through you know the move on from the forwards and go down to the blue line like Connor Timmons man he has been really solid. I want to talk about that’s the guy I want to talk about. shots on Saturday. Six block shots on Saturday. I think that you’re seeing him aside uh playing alongside Owen Power right now and that seems to be working again early in the season, small sample size, what however you want to put it, but I think he’s going to you can see it coming together where it’s going to give Lindy Ruff some flexibility to play around with some different pairs. And maybe when Michael Kessle Ring comes back, it allows you to ease Kessle Ring in and you don’t have to overextend his minutes as he’s gaining his footing. You’re going to want him out there. Not necessarily going to say you’re going to have to guard his minutes, but you might be able to kind of change some things around a little bit with, you know, we were all locked into, okay, it’s power and Kessle ring. Well, maybe having Timonss playing as well as he is right now buys you a little time to kind of get some flexibility going with the other pairs. And look, I’m not going to sit here and necessarily say that Bow and Byum and Rasmus Dalene are lighting the world on fire, right? I mean, maybe there’s potential to even tinker around with that as well and maybe throw a righty out there with Dene if you want to do that. We’ll get to that in a second. Before we get back to the D though, Noah Osen, I think that we found the ideal spot to put him in on that third line. I agree with your assessment. He’s gotten off to a nice start in Rochester with a goal and four assists in his first four games. team leading 15 shots on goal, but he is a playmaker. Okay, we’ve talked about this a lot with the Sabres. Even when Norris was healthy, your top two centerman coming into the season with Norris and Koulique, they’re more shoot first guys. They’re not exactly known as playmakers. They do have this responsible two-way prospect now, Noah Osen coming up who’s gotten off to a good start on the farm, could be hungry, defensively responsible, but he has that playmaking instinct. And that’s kind of a nice balance, by the way. You don’t have to disrupt the top six. You can put him out there with two guys that can score some goals. Quinn and Zooker. I think that’s the perfect spot to put him. I just wanted to put a bow on that. Let’s get back to the D. Timonss is just another in that wave of new faces. That’s really making an impression with this group. Might be making Kevin Adams look a little better. I mean, let’s be fair to Kevin. I gave him the clean slate coming in. You hated that I gave Kevin Adams a clean slate coming in, but it was almost like we had no choice. It’s a new season, right? But some of these additions, whether it’s Don up top, we haven’t even seen Kessle ring yet. Timmons, Timonss is looking like a pretty nice upgrade over the player that he was traded for. Fair. Huge upgrade over Clifton, I think, for the role they want. And I mean, you could never put Clifton with power. Like, you just couldn’t. And it it’s early and it’s small sample size, but Timonss with power looks like it’ll work. Even if it’s not a permanent thing, it looks like if you need it for a little bit, that will work. You know, because you could end up to your point, Bowen, Byum, Dene not necessarily going right now, right? You think that they’ll get it together, but you know, if one of those guys gets hurt, maybe you have the option of throwing Kessle Ring up there and you know, Timmans and Power can play together. Like having that option, Lindy Ruff was quick to pour cold water at the beginning of camp. Like look, this Power Kessle ring thing, I know everybody, you know, wants to write about it and talk about those guys as a pair and that’s what they went with, right? That’s what they’re going with. But he said, “We also need everybody to be able to play with everybody to an extent.” And I think you’re seeing why already with the injuries. But to your point, Kevin Adams off season isn’t looking too shabby at the moment, five games in. I mean, JJ Purka is off to a nice start in Utah. Um, he uh he’s scoring. He’s uh he fits in with what they’re what they’re doing there. Really nice stick lift on the overtime winner. He actually backtracked up towards the top of the zone. Stick lift quickly made a pass to set up the gamewinner last night. But that’s what you know flash like that. He did that here too. Yeah. You know, this is not meant to rag on Purka by any means. But Don has also been excellent for the Sabres and I think everybody would agree is more of what they need in terms of the all-around game and the forchecking and the tenacity. and his presence on the power play seems to have changed the mentality of the power play to where it’s not all set up the Tage Thompson one-time. They’re getting plays at the net front and they’re, you know, getting pucks to the net, funneling pucks to the middle of the ice, which is important. So, that trade is looking pretty good without Kessle Ring even stepping on the ice right now. Long time for it to play out, but that’s looking sharp. Like you said, Timonss is a big upgrade over Connor Clifton in my eyes and frankly, probably even an upgrade over Yoki Haru and what they got out of him most of the time. So, I think you’re you’re better off there. And you think about it when everybody’s healthy. If it’s Samuelson and Timonss on the third pair and Samson is playing the way that he is, that’s that’s a reason why everybody was talking about this this depth on the blue line that they have. And then Alex Lion is giving them outstanding goalending right now. I think he might be second in the league in goals saved above expected on on money puck. Let me double check that. Um yeah, and he’s got a you know 243 goals against 929 save percentage to start. I know that you’ll look at the advanced metrics and while you’re doing that though, you know, on the deep he’s better than it’s been, but it’s it’s definitely better. Uh they got really bad goalending last year and right now they’re getting really good goalending. I guess the downside here is like they’re getting really great goalending. They’re top six in both special teams units and they’re two and three. So it’s like they haven’t fully taken advantage of winning around the margins, but the fact that they’re capable of it, it makes them a different team and maybe one that can be more competitive and less prone to the the ups and downs of, you know, last season. you know, the defense itself. I mean, we’ve always said it’s team defense, but you know, just looking at the blue line and they’ve had some injuries and it was a trouble spot, especially in those first two games. The team defense and the compete was was questionable. You know, when when I go I just want to go back to Dene and Byron real quick. I mean, I’m a proponent of of those two playing together, but the fact that Timonss is coming out looking good, Samuelson, as long as he could stay healthy, is looking good. I mean, we’ve seen Samuelson and Dalene work, you know, but and I think that now, you know, Bryson, who’s been kind of holding down some minutes there in that bottom pair, he’s out, left Saturday’s game. I think you mentioned it’s an actual concussion, so he’s likely going to miss an extended period of time. Sabres have two farm hands that they brought up right now. Zach Mets came up late last week with Ryan Johnson going down and I think that you had mentioned that the Sabres did that as a way to just get Ryan Johnson playing more regularly, playing some minutes, goes out Friday night, had I think two assists in his first game back, had a really nice shot pass from the left point to find Victor Nechev’s stick right in front of the net. His game’s polished, but he’s going to play a ton of minutes while he’s down there in Rochester. And I think in the big picture, if you’re looking at that cluster of Johnson, Metsah, and Zack Jones, who just came up on Sunday, I believe it was, right, Johnson’s still the guy with the highest upside. He’s still the guy that’s definitely, you know, in the plans, I believe, for this team, or at least he should be. I understand the move putting him down so we can play 25 a night down in Rochester. But now you’re sitting here, if you’re the Sabres, you have Mets, who came up first. name the captain of the Amirs, which is usually the kiss of death. We could talk about maybe why he got the the recall and and I totally think it makes sense why they did it, but if you’re looking at Mets or Zack Jones as far as needing a guy to play tonight in Montreal, what’s your lean between those two? I lean Jones based on the fact that he’s got what over 100 games of NHL experience, 115 NHL. you what you saw in the preeason was a guy that you know I didn’t see a whole lot of separation between him and Bryson personally and Metsa would be making his NHL debut on the road in a really challenging environment. You know that that crowd right now is electric right now for for this Canadians team. This Canadians team is a exciting back and forth highscoring team. They owned the Sabres last year and put up a lot of goals against the Sabres. So throwing a guy in on his, you know, NHL debut, not my favorite thing to do if you have to play one of those guys, but definitely a nice gesture, a nice move to get him up. I think get him some NHL money for a little while. Uh, for as long as it is, that that’s no nothing to sneeze at for sure. and a guy that has grinded and earned everything. We’ve tal we we talk a lot about the the little things, right? That when it comes to these buzzwords like culture and accountability, it’s like these are the little things, right? Showing guys that have earned something and you know whether he gets in a game or not, getting that guy up, getting him a taste, showing him like, hey, like we’re paying attention and I think that matters. he goes back down with a little more confidence and a little different perspective and he might have an NHL future. I I thought when they signed him like there was a chance he would have an NHL future. There’s no guarantee because of his size, but if he were 6’1, you know, people would be talking about about what he could become at the very least. Uh it’s a nice move. And the Amirs don’t play until Wednesday. So, I’m kind of curious what they’re going to do with some of these guys. uh certainly doesn’t help when you take away uh take away the captain and you know Noah Oseland from that group but you know it’s about getting wins for the big club and some of these guys might might be able to help against Montreal in a grind of a week you know Montreal and and Detroit the two top teams in the division right now and you got to treat him like that Zack Mets 27 years old already forget that that is 27 years old actually that is crazy because you for you So, I knew he was old when he signed, but it’s like, man, time flies. He’s already 27. Uh, running out of time, but hey, you never know. You can you can catch on late. 59 right shot D. I think right shot helps him a little bit here, but a guy like that, you know, if it doesn’t work out for him, you know, look, we’ve seen like, you know, uh Chad Ruidel be a a perpetual number seven guy, just retired over the offseason, started his career with the Sabres, but he’s like Mets could have a role like that where he stays in the NHL, he gets those game checks. Maybe not an every, you know, everyday NHL player. I don’t think it’ll ever be like that, but also a guy who could probably make a lot of money if he decided to go over and play in Sweden, you know. So, it’s going to be interesting to see how long he continues his journey here. But to your point, a nice gesture to bring him up. Captain of the Amirs this year. Usually the kiss of death, but he’s up here for now. Get some game checks. We’ll see if he gets into action. But I agree with you. I think this is the the Zack Jones spot. It’s going to be a Zack Attack no matter what, I guess. But I’m going with Jones over Metsah here. We’ll see how it plays out um tonight in Montreal. Goalending. So, Lion, you’ve already hit it on. Uh he’s doing really good things in the crease. Seems like it’s his job. Lukanin getting healthy. Probably a spot for Lukanin coming up this weekend against Toronto, right? Because if you look, Lions going tonight. Lindy’s going to do what Lindy does, keep riding the guy, give them another start. Montreal, Detroit Lions former team. The Red Wings don’t play again, by the way. They’re going to be coming in on a fivegame eater when Buffalo gets here. Lucin Friday or Saturday, right? That’s got to be the spot where Assuming he’s ready. Assuming physically he’s ready cuz Colton Ellis is still on the roster. So, there’s always the chance if Lucinan’s not ready to go that he gets one of those games. But, it’s Alex Lion’s net right now until further notice. the the way he is playing. He mentioned after the game on Saturday that, you know, this is a different type of workload for him, especially right out of the gate. And he actually described it, you know, I asked if it was tougher physically or or mentally, and he said he described it really as mental and emotional is the bigger challenge, right? Because he likes to play with a pretty intense focus and a lot of emotion. and he said, you know, it’s you got to get used to doing that night after night, every other night, but it’s a bonus that it’s happening early in the season when his body is fresh. So, I mean, I I will say and it’s a long season, so we’ll we’ll see what happens, but I was I was skeptical of the goalie situation coming into the season, right? I even thought like Lion wasn’t that much better than Gueorgv right out of the shoot uh in the preseason, but I have been I I’ve been proven wrong to an extent on Lion to this point and have been very impressed by he’s giving them what James Rymer gave them late last season and the Sabres looked like a competent competitive team when they got the goalending that Rymer gave them. So, Lucin, despite his big cap number and and the nice large contract he’s got, to me, you’re mixing him in. And that’s a good thing because he’s we don’t know what he’s dealing with, right? He he had some sort of injury coming into camp and then he said he got sort of a deep muscle soreness that I think was related to, you know, you’re compensating for whatever else you’re dealing with. So, you don’t need to lean on him when he gets back. This should light a fire for him, keep him fresh. I think we saw Lukan wear down last year with the workload he got. So, Lion has also been, I think, a sort of understated leader in his own way, like a calming presence. We know that the goalie can have that effect on a team even if he’s not a rahrrah leader. But this is a guy that after the game on Saturday was like good to get a win, but just like we needed to manage those three games early, we need to manage this. Like we can’t, you know, feel like we’ve accomplished anything and, you know, we got to be able to park this the same way we parked the three-game losing streak. So, I think he has the right mindset. And look, this is a guy that is getting an opportunity, I would say, almost unlike any that he’s that he’s gotten in his career. He started 43 games for Detroit in 23-24. That was his career high. He started 26 last year and 14 in 22 23 for the Panthers. So, you know, he has a chance to set his career high in starts this year uh based on the early workload. And I think he’s just more capable. He said this, you know, a few weeks ago when we were talking like he’s just in a different place to be able to handle the opportunity that he’s getting than maybe he would have been five or six years ago. You know, 32-year-old guy like he’s just he’s got a different perspective on how to wrap his arms around this opportunity and he’s doing it so far and they’ve needed it. You know, I think they should have gotten better results for him in the first three games of the season, but they got a couple recently, and against Montreal and Detroit, you know, as hot as those two those two teams are, they’re going to need him on top of his game. Look, you know, I mentioning Kevin and the trades and he gets a lot of heat. We got to call it both ways. Absolutely. Absolutely. But but at the same time, I think it’s only two games that the Sabres have won, two in a row, not yet a winning streak. I’m willing to acknowledge that maybe some good moves were made, but yet I don’t know if the team is necessarily out of the woods yet, but I think we’re going to know. Top three teams in the division as it presently stands, four games against them here this week. This is go time and they got to start. You got to bank these points. We talked about it last year. We talked about it year before that. got to bank these points and they dug themselves a hole to start the year. Let’s see if they can get themselves out of it. I’m excited to see what happens tonight. Matthew, I know this is going to be a short show today. We’ll be back again tomorrow. I think we can commit to that. Kind of recap what we saw with a 7:30 start tonight. Sabers in Montreal. the sight of Terry Pagula getting on a plane and trying to go in and tell the guys that the answers were in the room. I think that was one of the talk tracks that Terry Pagula gave to that struggling Sabres team last was it December November December. Yeah, first week of December, something like that. That was 10 games into the 13 game winless streak. They made it 11 that night after the pep talk. And if the early part of this season has taught us anything, perhaps the answers weren’t in the room because the answers so far for the Sabres have been Josh Don, Alex Lion, Connor Timonss, among others. So, um, some of the answers weren’t in the room as it turns out. It appears to be the case, but I guess we’ll we’ll continue to get answers on that mystery starting tonight. Big week ahead. Like I said, can’t stress it enough. Matthew, I’m going to take us out of here again. short show today, but it’s good to get on the board early on a Monday. We’re going to get back on the board tomorrow. Would you like to do your plugs? You were I saw a lot of stuff going on with the Matthew Fairburn by line at the aletic.com/sabers last week. Get a plug in for yourself before we get out of here. Yeah, we got head totheathletic.comsabers. That’s where you can always find everything. And spoke to Alex Tuck late last week. uh had a quick story on a change the Sabres made on the business side and of course was covering all the the action on the ice as well. Um got a synopsis of the Marshand hissy fit uh if that’s your cup of tea and you know plenty of other stuff to come this week obviously it’s been uh been a busy start to the season and of course everybody should go to the Sabres Prospects YouTube channel if you haven’t already and subscribe. We’re closing in on 2,000 subscribers. So, let’s hit that number by the end of the week. And if we can keep cranking out these episodes like we’ve been early in the season, we’ll be at 100 episodes pretty soon. I think we’re somewhere in the low 80s. So, before you know it, we’ll be uh lighting a cigar for episode 100. Leaving some meat on the bone. You and I are going to get into Tuck. We’re going to get into tickets. I was looking at the attendance, by the way. I’m not really impressed by what I’m seeing right now in attendance. Maybe I know winning changes everything. Maybe fewer people will lose their jobs if they get more wins and thus more bodies in the seats. I’m sure we’ll get into all that. But um for Matthew Fairburn, you can find all of Matthew’s work at the athletic.com/savers for the production crew who hopefully has my raincoat ready because I got to get my dog to do her morning business. She will not go out in the backyard when it’s raining. I have to take her out front. That’s a whole other issue. That’s a completely different podcast. I’m Chris Baker. Thanks everyone for hopping in. Enjoy the rest of your Monday. We’ll see you again tomorrow recapping Sabers Canadians. Thanks for stopping by.

Kris Baker and The Athletic’s Matthew Fairburn discuss everything Buffalo Sabres.

Read Matthew’s recent work at The Athletic following the Sabres’ 3-0 victory over Florida: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6729344/2025/10/18/sabres-panthers-alex-lyon-josh-doan/