With October over, and with it the first month of hockey, the Buffalo Sabres have a good jump on the season.

A start like this can only help a team, especially one trying to prove itself after two fruitless seasons, but how big a deal is it? Will the Sabres continue to run rampant over opponents, or will they whither in the second half, or even the second month for that matter?

Let’s take a look at the positive and negative aspects of this season’s solid onset.

The Gathering Storm
Alright, so yes, the Sabres have a fine start going, but it only gets tougher from here. Here’s how:

Let’s take a look at the records of the teams played so far.
o    Montreal – 7-7-0
o    Phoenix – 9-4-0
o    Nashville – 6-6-1
o    Detroit – 5-4-3
o    New York (Islanders) – 4-4-5
o    Atlanta – 5-4-1
o    Toronto – 1-7-4

Combined, the Sabres opponents are 37-39-14. That gives this imaginary team 88 points, and knocks them out of playoff contention in any of the last five seasons. The last teams to get into the playoffs with 88 or less points were the Islanders and the Boston Bruins in the 2002-2003 campaign. That’s not even counting the fact that a 37-39-14 team has played 8 more games than the rest of the league (90 games instead of 82).

♦   With the Olympics being this year, it will give some players time to rest and heal. Not Ryan Miller, however. With his thus far fantastic play, Miller is the presumptive starting US goalie in most experts’ books. While playing in the Olympics is a great honor for anyone, it means that Buffalo’s top net-minder will get little time off, and previous seasons have shown that a tired Miller can mean curtains for the Sabres post-season hopes.

♦   The Sabres also had a nice start last year, starting 6-0-1 early in the first month, but that didn’t spell success on its own. After the hot breakout, they quickly cooled off, slumping over the next 7 games to 8-3-3.

♦   Divisional games in first eleven games for Buffalo: 2

♦   Divisional games in last eleven games for Buffalo: 7

Buffalo’s end of the season will be a rough one. Of those seven in-division games, only two of them will be played on home ice. In fact, the Sabres only have one home game in April; it’s against Atlantic Division’s New York Rangers.

The Silver Lining
Enough of this doom and gloom stuff, now let’s look on the bright side:

♦    Not only are they leading the division in points, but the Buffalo club has a game in hand on the rest of the Northeast. Only one team in the league has played fewer games, and that’s Atlanta with 10.

♦    Projected over the season, the 8-2-1 Sabres would be around 60-15-7, giving them 127 points, and with that probably the President’s Trophy. The league’s point leader has only bested 120 once in the last ten seasons (Detroit with 124 in ‘05-‘06).

♦   Even with the hiccup in Saturday’s game against the Islanders, Ryan Miller is still in the top five in the league in the three most important stat categories for goalies: Goals Against, Save Percentage, and, most significantly, wins.

♦   Buffalo now has three defensemen in their first two years in the league; Chris Butler, Tyler Myers, and Andrej Sekera. The top three Time on Ice (per game) skaters for Buffalo? Myers, Butler and Craig Rivet. Despite only playing four games so far, Sekera is also in the top 10 for the team. A good young defensive core should mean that the Sabres will be able to cope better with the defensive injury bug that inevitably hits teams around mid-season. Younger players heal faster and can take more punishment before going off at all. Injuries on defense have killed this team before (See: the 2005-2006 playoff run).

♦  The Sabres’ big guns have yet to start firing. Derek Roy has yet to put one in the net, though he does have eight assists already. Vanek has four goals, but he’s looked a little off lately. If these two can get up to the level of teammate Tim Connelly, who has ten points so far, this team could really kick it in to overdrive and hit teams hard on the scoring side.

♦   Speaking of hitting teams hard, Buffalo’s fourth line has been doing more than its fair share on the ice lately, and not just with shoulders and fists. Like the post-lock out Buffalo teams, the current incarnation of the Sabres can roll four lines, with the Ellis-Gaustad-Kaleta line already chipping in for five goals between them, and a total of 16 points.  Looked at pre-season mostly as an energy creating line, these guys are a combined +15, on top of doing their expected job of pumping up their team with big hits and grinding play.