Buffalo Sabres player survey: Best and worst dressed, least likely to pick up the check, more

Who is having more fun than the Buffalo Sabres?

No team in the NHL has had such a dramatic and positive shift in the mood around their locker room than the Sabres. Early in the season, the Sabres dealt with injuries, boos from the home crowd and their general manager getting fired.

But since that leadership change, the Sabres look like one of the best teams in the league. Multiple players have said this is the most fun they’ve ever had playing hockey. After suffering through some hard times together, this group is tight and enjoying the ride.

So we tried to peel back the curtain on what they’re really like by conducting a survey of some off-ice questions.

“My brain hasn’t worked like this since I was in school,” Josh Norris said while answering these questions.

“You can put this in there. My answers are to inflict as much pain on the other guys as possible,” Alex Lyon added.

In total, 23 Sabres players were polled. The deadline additions were not included, and injured players also weren’t available to weigh in. For a few questions, we allowed multiple answers, which is why some of the tallies add up to more than 23. Part 2 of the survey will run later this week.

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With the new relaxed dress code in the NHL, the players now have much more leeway to express their individual style. Some put in more effort than others, and it’s clear Tage Thompson takes the most pride in his wardrobe.

“Outside of me?” Thompson said when asked who the best-dressed player on the Sabres is.

Added Alex Tuch: “Tommer wants to say it’s him.”

Josh Doan: “He’s convinced it’s him.”

Michael Kesselring: “Hopefully no one said Tage.”

Thompson did pick up a few votes in this category, though.

Norris: “Tommer is very into that. I like his style. I think it’s cool, it’s different.”

Rasmus Dahlin: “Tommer has stepped up his game this year. I have to give respect to him for putting in effort.”

Mattias Samuelsson ended up as the runaway winner in this category and got a vote from Thompson. Jason Zucker, the veteran of the group who still wears a suit, was happy to learn he picked up enough votes for second place.

“OK, so every once in a while, they still understand what a suit is?” Zucker said.

Zach Benson, 20, is an easy target for his teammates. And he wasn’t spared in this survey. He became the default answer for a lot of players. But there were some strong opinions for the other contenders, including Owen Power.

“He doesn’t care,” Norris said. “He’ll just wear what’s comfortable. He’ll just show up to the game in sweatpants. That’s just what he rocks. I kind of love it.”

“OP by a mile,” Zucker said. “It’s not even close. If anyone said anyone other than OP, there’s issues. Could be (Benson), too, actually. He’s probably a close second.”

Power wasn’t surprised to hear his name come up for this topic.

A few players were eager to throw votes in for Thompson knowing how much pride he takes in his style.

“Is that consensus?” Benson said. “He’s the worst. 100 percent.”

“Probably Krebsie voted that,” Thompson said. “He’s a horrible dresser.”

Peyton Krebs did get a vote in this category, but it wasn’t from Thompson.

“Krebsie with the cowboy boots,” Noah Östlund said with a grin.

The road is where a lot of team bonding happens over dinners. And with so many big contracts on the team, there are plenty of candidates to pick up the check.

“We usually play for it,” Thompson said.

As you would expect, the highest-paid players tend to lead the way in this regard.

“Dahlin,” Östlund said. “He’s done it a couple times for me, so I have to say him.”

“Not Ras,” Samuelsson said with a grin.

“I have to give it to OP,” Benson said. “He picks it up every time I go out with him.”

“Thompson’s really good about that,” Zach Metsa said.

Ryan McLeod picked up a few votes as well, including one from himself.

Tuch ended up as the winner here, but Dahlin qualified that vote with some important information.

“Tuch runs the team fund,” Dahlin said. “So it’s not his money, but he pays for it.”

The more fun question is who is the least likely to pick up the dinner tab on the road. And this one was a landslide. Before I could even tell Krebs he was gaining steam in this category, he outed himself.

“I probably got some answers for this one, eh?” Krebs said.

“For a reason!” Östlund said.

“I bet Krebsie got a few votes for this one, didn’t he?” Lyon said.

To be fair to Krebs, he has a $1.45 million cap hit, relatively modest compared to some of his peers.

Zucker put his target on the players with the bigger numbers.

“Norris is pretty cheap, but I’m going to say OP is up there,” Zucker said.

“Don’t put OP,” Bowen Byram said. “That’s crazy.”

And the highest-paid player on the team didn’t escape this question, either.

“Dahls is in there,” Thompson said. “Sneaky.”

“I’ll put a vote in for Dahlin,” Lyon said. “He needs to come down a notch.”

Kesselring said Doan was high up in this category early in the season, but his freshly signed contract should change things.

“We told him he has to work on that now,” Kesselring said.

The team group chat is an essential tool of communication for NHL teams. And so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that Zucker, the veteran of the group, is actually most active on there.

“Mine is s— that has to get done for the team,” Zucker said. “ It’s not because I want to send text messages to the group. I’m not sending like, ‘Hey, what are you guys doing today?’ It’s, ‘Hey, we have this to do today.’”

“Yeah, sure, whatever he says,” Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen said.

Added Benson: “Zucker’s team dad stuff, but he’s ringing the group chat all the time.”

Benson picked up a vote from Byram, but he noted it’s only when Benson has enjoyed a beverage or two, presumably north of the border.

“He doesn’t say a word until he has a couple beers, then he’s popping off in the group chat every time,” Byram said with a laugh.

And while some players said the group chat isn’t that active, Kesselring noted that Byram and McLeod are in there quite a bit.

“The two of them together,” Kesselring said. “They’re always getting it going.”

We only get to see a sliver of the locker room interactions between players, and this question was evidence of that. When asking players who the funniest player on the team is, McLeod picked up a ton of votes.

“It’s not even close,” Tuch said.

“You guys don’t see it,” Dahlin said.

“He’s Mr. Fun Guy in the locker room,” Lyon said. “He’s a smart guy, too, so it’s not stupid funny. It’s smart funny.”

The other contender was Byram. And the two of them together even picked up a vote.

“Quinn, McLeod and Byram together is a lot,” Kesselring said. “Clouder is a jokester. Quinn is quiet, but Clouder and Byram are the loud ones.”

“We have a lot of guys who can crack you up pretty good,” Beck Malenstyn said. “Clouder and Bysie are more like stupid funny. They’ll say something outrageous. Sammy is more when he’s going to say something to make you laugh, he’s going to get you every time.”

“Samuelsson is low key one of the funniest guys,” Norris added.

Zucker tried to make the distinction between the players who make him laugh and those who are actually funny.

“There’s funny, and then there’s dumb funny,” Zucker said. “Dumb funny is like (Colten) Ellis and Benson. But funny would be Samuelsson and Bo for me. Maybe Greener (Jordan Greenway). McLeod would be in there. He’s a character.”

“We have a lot of characters,” Thompson said.

Byram, meanwhile, threw in a dark-horse honorable mention

“Osty, too!” he said. “Osty is low-key funny.”

We opened up a can of worms with this topic. Like most teams around the league, the Sabres have a group of players who warm up before games playing sewer ball. Players stand in a circle and have two touches to keep the soccer ball up in the air. If you mess it up, you’re out. The team leaderboard has been a fiercely debated topic in the locker room all season.

“This is a hot topic,” Dahlin said. “Wow.”

“This is a big debacle,” Norris said.

“This is an ongoing debate,” Tuch said. “Most skill is probably Dahls. Best sewer player is probably McLeod. I don’t play, but this is what I hear.”

“I would say Ras,” Kesselring said. “He definitely has the most skill, but guys go after him, so it’s tough on him.”

Dahlin and McLeod both voted for themselves, and a few players put in votes for Dahlin, McLeod and Jack Quinn.

“There’s only two of us that play in flip flops, Doan and myself,” Malenstyn. “You have to think that challenge puts us up there. Realistically, McLeod. He’s the consistent best. We seem to have a lot of guys who argue they have the most skill, but they don’t win very often.”