As expected, the Buffalo Sabers came back down to earth a bit after a 4-1 start to the season that saw them skate to impressive wins against Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver, with the latter three coming away from home. The Sabers dropped two in a row to Seattle and Montreal before rebounding with a win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday to push their record to 5-3. Any fan in Western New York would have signed up for that, considering the team’s preseason expectations.
The Sabers host the Detroit Red Wings, who are writing a similar story, on Monday night. Buffalo is a -140 favorite on.
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Red Wings vs. Sabers odds (FanDuel)
- Red Wings: +122
- Sabres: -146
- Over/Under: 6.5
Red Wings vs. Sabers prediction: Red Wings +122 (FanDuel)
You can draw a lot of similarities between the Sabers and the Red Wings. Both teams are starting to trend in the right direction after a long rebuild, they each have a young star emerging as a No. 1 defenseman, and they’re off to nearly identical starts to the season. Still, the consensus before the campaign was that Detroit was the stronger team.
Although still considered an outsider to make the postseason, the Red Wings checked into 2022-23 with an Over/Under of 84.5 points, which was seven points higher than Buffalo.
The sentiment around the two teams hasn’t shifted that much, although it would seem that the Sabers are getting more respect in the market than they did in the early going.
And while it is well-earned, thanks to some impressive wins, there are still reasons to pump the brakes a bit with the Sabres. Buffalo owns a +3 goal differential at 5-on-5 through its first eight contests, but its expected goals differential sits at -1.5. Most of that modest over-performance can be attributed to the goaltending duo of Eric Comrie and Craig Anderson, who have combined for a .921 save percentage and +5.32 Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) to start the season.
Goaltending is wonky, and goalies can get hot/cold out of nowhere and stay that way for an entire season. Still, it’s hard to imagine that Buffalo will stay inside the top five in save percentage for an entire season with Anderson, who is 41 years old, and Comrie, a career journeyman playing his first significant role in the NHL, leading the charge.
Betting on the NHL?
Making matters a little more difficult for the goaltenders is that the Sabers are playing a pretty loose style out of the gates. Buffalo is creating a decent chunk of high-danger scoring chances at 5-on-5, but the Sabers rank 24th in preventing them. Detroit has had issues driving play to start the season, but the Wings should get plenty of looks against a defense that’s leaky and banged up right now.
And while the Red Wings have defensive issues of their own to sort out, they do have a deep forward group that should be able to mask some of the issues in their own end. If this is a back-and-forth contest, which seems likely given the form of both bluelines, the Wings should have enough firepower to turn this into a coin flip, which is more than enough to warrant a bet at +122.
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