Game #1 Buffalo Sabres (0-0-0) vs New Jersey Devils (0-0-0) Puck Drop: 7:00 PM | HARBORCENTER | Buffalo, NY TV: Sabres.com SB Nation Devils Blog: All About The Jersey What to Watch For 1. Dahlin’s debut Sabres fans will finally get to see 2018 first overall pick Rasmus Dahlin play in his first real game action wearing the blue and gold. If practice is any indication, he’ll be playing on the top pair with Will Borgen. 2. Strong top line The top line the Sabres will put out there tonight may be a glimpse of a line we’ll see down the road in the NHL. Casey Mittelstadt will center Swedish sniper Victor Olofsson and newly acquired Tage Thompson. If that line can click over the weekend, it’ll bring some more intrigue to training camp. 3. Ty Smith The Devils will showcase their 2018 first-round pick, Ty Smith, this weekend. The 17th overall pick is an extremely smooth skater with high offensive upside. He’ll be another player to keep an eye tonight for entertainment purposes. UPDATE: Players unlikely to play tonight are Guhle, Stephens, Bisson, Atwal, Glotov, Eiserman and Peterson according to reports from practice this morning. Projected Lines: 41 Victor Olofsson - 37 Casey Mittelstadt - 72 Tage Thompson 70 Alex Nylander - 74 Rasmus Asplund - 52 Andrew Oglevie 83 Shane Eiserman - 77 Vasily Glotov - 75 Judd Peterson 73 Matej Pekar - 86 Kevin Hancock - 79 Cole Coskey 76 Pascal Aquin - 78 Myles Powell - 46 Eric Cornel 26 Rasmus Dahlin - 33 Will Borgen 45 Brendan Guhle - 67 Arvin Atwal 44 Brandon Hickey - 58 Oskari Laaksonen 24 Lawrence Pilut - 84 Nicholas Welsh 61 Devante Stephens - Tobie Bisson 70 1 Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen 34 Jonas Johansson<doc-sep>If you come across a Sabres fan pinching themselves tomorrow, do not be alarmed. It’s likely they’re doing their best to make sure they’re not dreaming following a 6-4 victory over the New Jersey Devils in the team’s first matchup at this season’s Prospects Challenge. Going into the game, there were certainly high expectations for first overall pick Rasmus Dahlin. In case you missed it, he got his first goal in a Sabres uniform, his first game winning goal as a Buffalo Sabre, and led all scorers on the night with three points. It wasn’t a pretty win for Buffalo, who saw a fair share of gaffes in the second period that allowed Jersey to hang around. In the end, though, a tight third period gave the Sabres’ prospects the edge and the first win of the season. The young Sabres demonstrated equal parts speed and physicality in the first period, and though both teams had several chances, Buffalo broke open the scoring at the 17:31 mark with a Cole Koskey goal at even strength. In what would become a recurring theme, the Devils tied the game less than 90 seconds later, when Brett Seney scored the team’s only power play goal of the game. The period ended in the 1-1 tie, with New Jersey holding a slight advantage in shots. The second period was a wide-open free for all that saw the Sabres’ penalty kill outscore the power play units of the Devils. The first goal of the period came from Rochester Americans standout Victor Olofsson, who took a nice pass from Rasmus Asplund to beat the Devils’ goaltender. Again, it wouldn’t take long for the Devils to tie the game - 35 seconds later, Nathan Bastian tied the game with 12:23 remaining in the frame. In another fantastic effort from Asplund, Alex Nylander scored his first of the night, shorthanded. Asplund out-battled the Devil’s penalty kill to give Nylander time to get to the net. Once the pass was on his stick, Nylander played goalie Mackenzie Blackwood like a puppet until he had enough space to bury the puck. Buffalo scored again a minute later when Dahlin picked up his first of the night; a shot from the point that errantly deflected past Blackwood. It wouldn’t be a minute before New Jersey buried two goals behind Jonas Johansson, tying the game at four. The second period ended with the two teams knotted. Clearly, the Sabres made the right adjustments in the second intermission. The team outshot the Devils for the first time all game, ending the third period up 13-8, despite being short-handed for a full two minutes. Dahlin scored at 4:26 to take the 5-4 lead, and Tage Thompson scored an impressive shortie to seal the deal for Buffalo. The scoresheet doesn’t necessarily indicate the flow of the game. Buffalo seemed to dominate for the most part, with all of the Devils’ goals coming amidst brief confusion. While not mistake-free, the Sabres’ prospects put on a solid show against players of similar age. The true test will be when the players face the older, bigger competition of the NHL. Final: Sabres 6, Devils 4 Shots on Goal: Sabres 32 | Devils 34 Sabres Goal Scorers: Coskey (1), Olofsson (1), Nylander (1), Dahlin (1,2), Thompson (1) Devils Goal Scorers: Seney (1), Bastion (1), White (1) and Zetterlund (1) Three Stars of the Game 1. Rasmus Dahlin (2 G, 1 A) 2. Rasmus Asplund (2 A) 3. Tage Thompson (1 G)<doc-sep>In a game filled with goals, hits, action, and a few odd occurrences, the New Jersey Devils fell to the Buffalo Sabres, 4-6, in their first game of the 2018 Prospect Challenge. It was a very entertaining and fast pre-preseason game. The home fans - the Challenge is based in the Harborcenter in Buffalo - were sent home happy and the Devils put up a fight all the way through. The Buffalo Sabres have one of the best prospect systems in the NHL and it was easy to see why tonight. Their roster for the 2018 Prospect Challenge featured many of their name players in their pipeline: Rasmus Dahlin, Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Asplund, and Victor Olofsson. Add in Tage Thompson, who played in the NHL for half of last season, on top of several other solid picks and developing players and that’s a tough group on paper. On the ice, they were mostly a better team from start to finish. Their passes were better. Their puck control was better. They committed fewer and less costly turnovers. They appeared to have more attack time than New Jersey. They definitely had more odd-man rushes and breakaways. Their special teams were better. Most importantly, their best players on paper were the best players on the ice. As much as I hate to rely on the eye test, it was clear to anyone with two working eyes that Buffalo has some NHL-ready players. While both teams had mostly AHL-level rosters, this only made the Sabres’ best stand out even more. This may have been a pre-preseason game, but I think we will see some of these players in Buffalo blue and gold against New Jersey later this year. Dahlin definitely will. Mittelstadt and Thompson better. Asplund and Olofsson should as well. And even some of the “lesser” names like William Borgen may get some longer looks in training camp if they keep up their game from this one. The Devils put up an effort and really made the game interesting by responding quickly to the Sabres’ first four goals. The Devils never led in the game, but the Sabres only led in the third period for more than a couple minutes at a time. Scoring went 0-1, 1-1, intermission, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 3-4, and 4-4. Both teams’ coaching staffs will not have a lot of nice things to say about the defensive performance in front of the net. Unfortunately for New Jersey, Buffalo went up in the third and never really looked back. They battled but it was not enough. Before I get into the details of the game, I would like to express my disappointment with the New Jersey Devils organization and the Buffalo Sabres organization. Last year, the Prospect Challenge was easily able to be followed online through a video stream. This year, the Devils did not stream this game and if the Devils Insiders are correct, they will not stream tomorrow’s game against Pittsburgh or the Monday morning game against Boston. In fact, the Devils only hosted Buffalo’s stream - which had blackout restrictions. What were these restrictions? I have no clue. There were fans in New Jersey who could not see this game. There were fans way outside of New Jersey and New York who could not see this game. I imagine where also fans in New York who could not see this game either. These are prospect exhibition games. They were not on TV at all! How in the world can anyone justify a blackout restriction for these games? Especially when there were not any last year. Yet, the Devils and the Sabres have been hyping up the Prospect Challenge on social media and on their sites. As this is the first real set of hockey games for both teams since April 2018, people were excited. You can’t hype up an event and then throw it to a stream that not everyone can see for no rhyme or reason and also having no news about the other two is a big disappointment. I hate the [Current Year] argument, but it rings true here: It’s 2018, show the games. Nobody wants to follow a Devils’ employee feed to know what is happening with players we want to see! I hope the Devils can correct matters by their 3:30 PM game against Pittsburgh and the Sabres can drop their stupid, stupid, stupid blackout restriction. Now that I’m done ranting, let’s talk about the game. The Story of the Game: The Sabres took control early on with the Devils struggling to establish offensive pressure or puck control. But they would get their licks in here and there. They also did a good job initially to deny Buffalo from a great chance or a great look. Mackenzie Blackwood looked solid early on as well. The scoring opened up with a miscue by Colton White. A puck popped up towards the slot. While off-balance, White tried to palm it away. He missed and tried to pass it to Xavier Bernard - and missed wildly. Matej Pekar beat Bernard to the sideboards and moved the puck to the corner. There, Kevin Hancock flung a pass to the circle to an open Cole Coskey. Coskey threaded in a one-timer to the near post for the game’s first goal. Not a bad goal to allow, but a bad decision by White that created the play. A little later, the Devils had a power play situation thanks to Rasmus Dahlin taking a holding call. It was one of the very few mistakes he made tonight. Brett Seney led a break out, gained the zone, and left a drop pass for Yaran Sharangovich. As Seney wheeled around to get to the net, Sharangovich made a pass to Joey Anderson entering the slot. Anderson did not cleanly knock it forward but got enough of it for Seney to get the puck. While skating across, Seney took a touch, and tucked in a backhander past Johan Johansson for a goal before he was taken down. It was very nice finish by the speedy winger. Here’s a clip by the Devils Insiders:<doc-sep>The pre-preseason series that is the Prospect Challenge continues on at the Harborcenter in Buffalo. This afternoon matchup is a divisional game - in that both teams are in the same division. The Time: 3:30 PM ET The Broadcast? : Who knows? The Matchup: The New Jersey Devils vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins (SBN Blog: PensBurgh) The Series Preview: No, there still will not be a game preview. I did write this preview for the whole three-game, prospect-specific series. Please check that out to get caught up on what this is all about and who will be present for New Jersey. Whoever was not in the lineup yesterday may get a shot today. If not, then maybe on Monday morning. (Yes, morning. I still cannot get over that.) The Penguins Prospects to Know: Here’s the list from the Penguins’ official website. The standouts on paper are forward Jordy Bellerive, 2018 drafted defenseman Calen Addison, and forward Sam Miletic. The Goal: No injuries and play well. Expect to see this in the next Gamethread too. The Song of the Day: Is there a more important band to have ever come out of Holmdel, New Jersey? If there is, well, they probably did not give you good advice about pedestrian safety that also makes you want to join a circle pit. From the mighty full length album The Posi-Machine, this is “Cross At the Green (Not In Between).” The Rules: As usual, keep it clean, respect your fellow Devils fan, and keep it relevant to the game. Go Devils.<doc-sep>
Welcome back to hockey. Welcome back to Gamethreads. These are posts where you can discuss the game as it happens. This pre-preseason series is the Prospect Challenge, hosted by Buffalo. The Time: 7:00 PM ET The Broadcast: The Sabres’ official site will have one for all three Buffalo games in this series. So, please go to the Sabres’ site. The Matchup: The New Jersey Devils vs. the Buffalo Sabres (SBN Blog: Die by the Blade) The Series Preview: No, there will not be a game preview. I did write this preview for the whole three-game, prospect-specific series. Please check that out to get caught up on what this is all about and who will be present for New Jersey. Whoever is not in the lineup tonight may get a shot tomorrow or on Monday morning. (Yes, morning. I still cannot get over that.) The Potential Debuts: If Ty Smith plays, it will be his Prospects Challenge debut for the Devils. The same will apply for the following non-invitees: Joey Anderson, Yegor Sharangovich, Mitchell Hoelscher, Fabian Zetterlund, Akira Schmid, Brett Seney, Tariq Hammond, Xavier Bernard, and Cam Johnson. I hope I didn’t miss anyone. The Sabres Prospects to Know: Here’s the list from the Sabres’ official website. I would expect tonight to be the debut of 2018 #1 draft pick, defenseman Rasmus Dahlin. I suspect he will do quite well because he oozes talent. Also expect to see Casey Mittelstadt, Alex Nylander, Brendan Ghule, and actual NHLer Tage Thompson among others. The Goal: No injuries and play well. Expect to see this in the next two Gamethreads. The Song of the Night: Since this is all about the youth, let’s go with the sounds of one of the most aware and important of youth crew bands from the late 1980s. From New Jersey, that band is, of course, Crucial Youth. From the Straight and Loud! 7” EP, this is “Just Say No, Be Just Like Me and Mr. T.” (Yes, this is two songs smashed together and I don’t care because it’s C.Y.) The Rules: As usual, keep it clean, respect your fellow Devils fan, and keep it relevant to the game. Go Devils.