It's just a preseason game, but...

Some takeaways from the Sabres 7-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday

BUFFALO — It’s said that sometimes you can have clearer thoughts about a subject if you sleep on it, so that’s the approach we’re taking after watching the Buffalo Sabres beat the virtual Pittsburgh Penguins 7-3 in the preseason opener.

We’re calling them the virtual Pittsburgh Penguins because their lineup featured nearly as many players who participated in the Prospects Challenge in Buffalo last weekend (six) than played NHL games in their career (nine). The Sabres, meanwhile, with a bit of a crunch given their NHL group is headed to Europe on Tuesday iced essentially an opening night roster.

It was never going to be close and winning or losing wasn’t really the focus of the whole thing given the discrepancies in talent and experience. Still, the Sabres did what they were supposed to (win, score a bunch of goals, play well) and it’s good for us to break things down a little bit.

“The pace was good. I still think we've got a ways to go with pace,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “The decision making and the trust that we're going to be somewhere, and it's not the guy with the puck. It really is the guy away from the puck that has to do the work and if he doesn't do the work, you saw it tonight a couple of times, we had some turnovers and I don't blame it on the guy with the puck. If we have guys hitting the hole a little bit sooner, we would have had better play. So, it's just something that we're going to continue to work on.”