Bowen Byram deserves some love for his season with the Sabres
After a very slow start to the 2024-25 season, the Buffalo Sabres have turned things around in a major way, heading into Monday’s action winners of three straight.
The Sabres were 6-4-0 in their previous 10 games before the crushing 7-5 loss to the Montreal Canadiens. Still, they’ve become more dangerous in their push to make the postseason – and a major part of their recent success is the play of defenseman Bowen Byram. The 23-year-old blueliner is up to nine points through 15 games this year and is second on the team in ice time, averaging 21:54 per game.
Byram is playing in all situations and providing secondary scoring. Inunl; Buffalo’s 3-2 shootout victory against the Calgary Flames this past weekend, Byram played a whopping 32:24.
On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen discussed the Sabres’ hot streak and how Byram deserves a ton of credit for his recent play.
Yaremchuk: My weekend warrior, Colby I’m going to go first because mine seems pretty quick here, and it’s Bowen Byram out in Buffalo. The Sabres have been on an absolute roller coaster this year. As you can see, Byram averaging 21:55 on the year, but played over 32 minutes in the team’s win over the weekend as they took down the Calgary Flames in a shootout. Byram, and really the Sabres defense has to be the driver for this team. I think there’s legitimate question marks about this offense. The Sabres have now won three in a row, as the roller-coaster season continues on for them.
I wanted to give some love for Byram, who is up on the top pairing with Rasmus Dahlin, and those two are getting results for the Sabres, even though they’re taking really tough matchups on. I think those two together have the potential to the next (Canucks) Hughes/Hronek, next (Avalanche) Makar/Toews. I think they can be one of the best pairings in the NHL, so I wanted to give Byram some love. A trade, him for Casey Mittelstadt, again I think Buffalo may have gotten the better player here, and when you look at Colorado’s offense, that might actually be a true ‘win/win’.
Cohen: Yeah, Mittelstadt has definitely looked more comfortable there this year, and Byram was dying for this opportunity to go actually play somewhere in a top-four. So hey, good for him, but he’s got to do it for a little bit of a longer period of time to really convince us that this is the new norm.
For more on the Sabres turnaround, and all the very latest from around the NHL, watch the full episode here.