Larkin: Owen Power’s calming presence signifies the Buffalo Sabres’ new dawn

“Where’s Owen Power?”

If someone asks that question about a rookie forward, it’s bad news. No one wants to be invisible making his NHL debut. But when it takes an extra second or two to identify a 6-foot-6, 213-pound defenseman playing his first shifts in his home market, with hundreds of friends and family in attendance…it’s actually great news.

It’s not that Power, 19, wasn’t noticeable in his first game. Let’s get that straight. It’s that he was so poised, so quiet in his movements, that he was oftentimes indistinguishable from his veteran teammates. Luckily he had the towering frame and No. 25 with which we could identify him.

Power is obviously more experienced than your average freshman. He’s played high-leverage hockey for Canada at the World Junior Championship, World Championship and Winter Olympics, and he just competed in the Final Four with the University of Michigan last week. Maybe that’s why, despite the spotlight in his hometown, his heart rate settled so quickly.

“There are nerves the first shift, but once you get into the full of it and the second time playing a regular shift, it’s just hockey,” Power said.

Just hockey? In your first NHL game? In one of the sport’s most smothering media environments?

Now that’s poise. It calls to mind a line from Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed: “Your heart rate is jacked, and your hand? Steady.”

And Power’s teammates recognized the steady hand instantly.

“Oh yeah, smooth poise,” said right winger Alex Tuch. “Right away there’s no panic in his game. Feels like he’s been in the league 10 years already in his first game. Made a really nice defensive play on the 2-on-1 early on and had some really good plays offensively moving the puck really well, sees the ice super well. Seems like a really easy game out there for him, so it was a lot of fun to play with him, and he’s a really nice kid, so it’s really good to be a part of his first NHL game.”

Perhaps that’s why Sabres coach Don Granato felt fine throwing Power over the boards to face, off all lines, the Michael Bunting/Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner trio. The Sabres held them off the scoresheet in a 4-1 victory at Scotiabank Arena. Power enveloped Matthews and thwarted what was shaping up as a prime scoring chance during a 2-on-1 rush in the first period. In 7:37 with Power against Matthews at 5-on-5, the Sabres held an even shot-attempt ratio of 5-5, and the Sabres outscored the Leafs 1-0.

“Just solid – I think his hockey IQ jumps out,” Matthews said after Tuesday’s game. “Not the flashiest guy out there, but he looked like he obviously belonged. He didn’t look like a rookie playing his first game. He was really steady.”

Power obviously has offensive upside in his game, but he admitted to being measured in his decision making Tuesday. He describes himself as someone “who likes to go” as much as possible, but he noticeably refrained from pinching a few times and chose a stay-at-home strategy. The ability to push the pace will show up soon enough, but what should inspire confidence in Sabres fans about the debut was the serenity. Power was so efficient and quiet out there. He seemed to make the right decision with the puck every time.

“Honesty, I had no anxiety with him because I’ve watched him play so much,” Sabres coach Don Granato told reporters Tuesday. “He is the No. 1 pick overall, an elite player, so he has such a calm to him, such a presence to him. You see his ability to slow the game down around him. I’ve watched that in him, that presence in him, for such a long time. I just knew he’d get a feel for the pace right away.

“He has such a good feel for the game and time and space, (and) that’s why he has a calm. So the game is less of a stress to him than to others who see the games and situations as random. He’ll hop over the boards and see patterns, pick up patterns, as all the top athletes do in any sport, and he looked comfortable as a result.”

And the idea of a towering, pacifying presence on ‘D,’ who, as many have pointed out, looks like Clark Kent when he’s bespectacled in his street clothes, just seems to represent the dawn of a new day in Buffalo. The Sabres were already trending positively before Power turned pro, of course, despite missing the playoffs for an NHL-record 11^th straight season. Their points percentage has risen from .390 last season to .433 this season. The hold a competitive 11-7-3 record over their past 21 games. Hulking first-line center Tage Thompson has broken out as one of the league’s best snipers, burying 33 goals in 71 games while forging exciting chemistry with the resurgent Jeff Skinner and Vegas import Alex Tuch. Center Peyton Krebs, who joined Tuch coming over from the Golden Knights in the Jack Eichel trade, is established as a full-time NHLer. And, most importantly, post-hype phenom Rasmus Dahlin is starting to find his game. Just like other big, celebrated first-round blueliners who preceded him, from Chris Pronger to Ed Jovanovski to Victor Hedman, Dahlin is blooming late to re-establish his sky-high ceiling after plateauing in his previous couple seasons. His full-season 2021-22 numbers don’t paint the whole picture. Since Feb. 1, with Dahlin on the ice, the Sabres hold noteworthy edges over their opponents in 5-on-5 shots and shot attempts while roughly breaking even in scoring chances and high-danger attempts. He’s still just 22 and, with nine games to go, he’s also set career highs already in goals (10) and points (46).

Power singles out Dahlin as an ideal mentor, which makes sense given they’re the first two D-men to be No. 1 overall picks and teammates in NHL history. But Power, with his freakish maturity, can help Dahlin just as much. Power’s calming effect on his teammates was evident on night 1, which, theoretically, should’ve featured him at his most jittery. He represents a step forward in the maturity of a young Buffalo D-corps that has seen strides from Henri Jokiharju, another slow-cooking first-round pick, and Mattias Samuelsson.

Does it mean Buffalo ends the playoff drought at 11 years next season? It’s still a tall order given how vicious the Atlantic Division’s top half is. But with Power’s presence almost acting like a team sedative, it’s a fair bet that we’ll see the Sabres continue to improve and show up looking comfortable in important games. That’s a start.

______

Larkin: Owen Power’s calming presence signifies the Buffalo Sabres’ new dawn

Recently by Matt Larkin