The Buffalo Sabres were already staring at a tough road in the Atlantic Division, and now the Toronto Maple Leafs have another reason to feel dangerous: Auston Matthews says he’s feeling like himself again.
That alone is a problem for Buffalo.
Matthews said Tuesday that the nagging issues he’s dealt with in recent years may finally be behind him. “I'm feeling really good.
I think it's obviously a tough way to end the season last year, but I think there's always positives that you can take out of adversity (and) negative moments,” Matthews told the Leafs' Ryan Leslie on Tuesday. “I feel like coming back here now, probably the best I've felt in a long time.”
For a player who wasn’t quite right last season, that’s a significant update. Matthews finished with 53 points - 27 goals and 26 assists - in 60 games, his first sub-point-per-game season since his rookie year in 2016-17.
If the 28-year-old Olympic gold medalist really is back to full strength, Toronto’s push back toward the Eastern Conference playoff picture gets a lot more believable.
The timing matters, too. The Leafs are coming off a missed postseason, ending a run of nine straight playoff appearances.
Then they won the lottery for the right to select Gavin McKenna with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. That’s a strong run of news for a team trying to reset quickly.
But the Atlantic isn’t going to make anything easy.
Five teams from the division reached the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year - Buffalo, Tampa Bay, Montreal, Boston and Ottawa - and Florida should be right back in the mix now that its injury problems are no longer hanging over the roster. Even Detroit, projected by HockeyStats.com to finish last in the East, is not expected to be an easy out after its summer fire sale never materialized because of ongoing front-office changes.
That leaves all eight Atlantic teams operating with almost no margin for error. A bad injury stretch or a long losing skid could bury a club fast in a division this crowded.
It also sets up the Buffalo-Toronto rivalry to feel bigger again, with both teams entering the season carrying real expectations for the first time in a while.
Matthews has spent plenty of time making life miserable for the Sabres. Since entering the league as the No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft, he has piled up 38 points - 23 goals and 15 assists - in 32 career games against Buffalo.
Eighteen of those goals have come at even strength. His 20 penalty minutes against the Sabres are also his highest total against any opponent, a small but telling sign of the edge between these teams.
Buffalo, though, has more tools now than it did when Matthews first arrived. The Sabres are projected to lean on a deep defensive group that includes Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Mattias Samuelsson, Olen Zellweger, Louis Crevier and Conor Timmins as the top six for 2026-27. They also have two promising young defensemen in Daxon Rudolph and Radim Mrtka.
That blue-line strength was a major reason Buffalo was able to turn things around in 2025-26, and it’s the foundation the club will try to build on when the new season begins.
That kind of defensive depth will matter most against elite scorers, especially once spring arrives. A healthy Matthews sits in that tier, and Buffalo now has the kind of back end it needs to at least give itself a fighting chance.
The Sabres and Maple Leafs will meet four times in the regular season: Oct. 15, Feb.
27, March 25 and April 3. Those last two games could wind up carrying real weight in the playoff chase.
In Other News...
Sabres Suddenly Face A Bigger Goaltending Question Than Expected
Buffalos goaltending picture shifted again this summer when Devon Levi moved on to Edmonton after his development had stalled following an encouraging first NHL look. Levi had been one of the more important young names in the Sabres system, the kind of prospect who seemed capable of giving the organization a long-term answer in net, but his path never really kept moving forward the way Buffalo hoped. Now he gets a fresh opportunity with the Oilers, where playing time is suddenly more available because of Frederik Andersens injury situation.
For the Sabres, though, Levis departure only sharpens a familiar concern. The organization is left to sort through a pipeline that does not offer an obvious front-line solution, and the loss of a player once viewed as a major part of that future makes the search feel more urgent. Buffalo still has to determine where its next dependable option in goal is coming from, and Levis success or failure in Edmonton will only keep that conversation hanging in the background. [Read more 🡒]
Sabres Prospect Weekend Revealed A Bigger Concern Than The Scores
The on-ice results at Harborcenter were lopsided enough, with Bostons prospects taking both games in the scaled-down showcase, but the bigger takeaway for Buffalo was what the weekend said about the pipeline. The event itself has been pared back from the sprawling prospect gatherings of past years, and the Sabres are now at a stage where many of their highest-end young players have already moved on to the NHL or college ranks.
What remained was a forward group built mostly from undrafted players and late-round picks, a reminder that the organization is leaning more on depth development than star power at this point. Buffalo still had names worth tracking and the setting still offered a useful first look, but the gap in upside was hard to miss and it left the club with a familiar question hanging over the rest of its prospect pool. [Read more 🡒]
Sabres Just Added Two Rochester Names Worth Watching Closely
The Rochester Americans are already planting a few seeds for the future, adding forward Thomas Bordeleau and goaltender Talyn Boyko on one-year AHL contracts for the 2026-27 season. For a Sabres organization that leans on Rochester as its development pipeline, these kinds of signings are the sort worth filing away now, especially when the players involved come with different paths but clear pro experience.
Bordeleau brings a more established track record, arriving as a former second-round Sharks pick with NHL and AHL scoring on his resume. Boyko is much further along the developmental curve, having spent most of his time in the ECHL and logging only 10 career AHL games, so his fit in Rochester will be one to watch as the Amerks continue shaping their roster depth. [Read more 🡒]