This was supposed to be one of the easy fixes. Add Eric Staal as a coaching consultant, tweak the personnel, and surely the Buffalo Sabres would stop treating the power play like a recurring tax on every good feeling they create. Instead, after two games, they are 0-for-8 with the extra man, and Owen Power is already tied to a problem that has now followed this team across multiple seasons.
That is the irritating part. This is not some tiny early-season blip that can be waved away with a shrug. The Sabres were 20th in the league last season at 19.5%, and the season before that they were even worse at 24th and 18.8%. So when a team starts this season without a power-play goal, it does not feel like a coincidence. It feels like the latest chapter in the same old story.
A problem that keeps refusing to go away
Last season offered one especially ugly detail: the Sabres were one of only four teams that failed to convert a 5-on-3 power play. That is not a quirky stat. That is a flashing red warning sign. If you cannot cash in when the ice is tilted that heavily in your favour, then you are not just underperforming — you are wasting opportunities that swing games.
And that is why the early 0-for-8 matters. Two games is a tiny sample, yes. But it is also exactly the sort of sample that tells you whether a problem from last season has actually been addressed. Right now, the answer is not encouraging.
Ruff has already started moving pieces around
Lindy Ruff has not stood still. On Monday, the Sabres had Noah Ostlund on the top power-play unit in practice and Josh Doan back on the second unit. That is a clear sign the coaching staff is already searching for a better blend before the frustration turns into a proper crisis.
Ruff’s explanation was simple enough: when you line up two lefties, the hands line up better, which makes it easier to operate off the left-hand side, with two players on their forehand. He also pointed out that this can help with passing against righties such as Quinn and Thompson. In other words, this is not random tinkering. It is an attempt to make the unit function more naturally.
That is sensible. It may even help. But it also reinforces the bigger point: if the alignment needs changing after two games, then the power play was not properly solved in the first place.
More than a short-term slump
The Sabres do not need a lecture on how important special teams are. They need production. They need cleaner movement, quicker decisions, and a unit that does not look like it is trying to solve a puzzle every time the puck crosses the blue line. The talent is there for the power play to be better than this. The record is telling you it has not been.
That is why this is not just about 0-for-8. It is about the fact that the Sabres are already back in familiar territory, staring at the same weakness that dogged them last season and the season before that. Adjustments have been made. Help has been brought in. The results, so far, are exactly what they have been too often in Buffalo: not good enough.
For Owen Power and the Sabres, the message is plain. This cannot become a season defined by the same old power-play excuses. Not again.
