Buffalo Sabres A to Z: Competition

As training camp opens on Thursday, let the battles begin to make the 23-man roster.

To get ready for the upcoming Buffalo Sabres season, I’ll be previewing most of those involved in the eventual successes and failures by going through the alphabet using a different word each time - a revolutionary theme if there ever was one.

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Competition

The Sabres celebrate a 6-3 win against the Montréal Canadiens at the 2023 Prospects Challenge at HarborCenter. (Photo: Joe Yerdon)

Buffalo Sabres training camp opens today and it’s the appropriate time to break down everything right? Well, let’s just ease into things instead of going gangbusters into it because there’s a lot to parse out.

We’re going to go over the likely roster and plot out where the position competitions lie. We got a taste for what the younger generation of future Sabres might bring to the table in training camp during the Prospects Challege.

We saw Matt Savoie, Jiri Kulich, Isak Rosén, and Zach Benson are all dynamite players with very bright futures. We witnessed Ryan Johnson being the best among the defensemen and that he’ll be a guy who won’t need a lot of time in Rochester to be able to provide help in Buffalo. We also saw there is a lot of raw talent that needs time, as well. Fortunately, the Sabres are well-stocked, and those players will get all the time they’ll need.

Let’s get to it — we’ll break things down by groups: forwards, defensemen, goalies. The Sabres are bringing 64 players to camp and only 23 healthy players will make it to the opening night roster October 12.