5 things to know ahead of Sabres at Blue Jackets

Buffalo Sabres hockey returns tonight as the team opens its preseason schedule against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena.
Fans in the Buffalo market can stream the Columbus broadcast live on Sabres.com. There will be plenty to watch, from an intriguing young forward line to early looks at position battles.
Here are five things to know ahead of tonight's game.

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1. The lineup

Here is a look at the group traveling to Columbus tonight:
77 JJ Peterka - 24 Dylan Cozens - 22 Jack Quinn
96 Anders Bjork - 28 Zemgus Girgensons - 29 Vinnie Hinostroza
57 Brett Murray - 25 Arttu Ruotsalainen - 15 John Hayden
65 Linus Weissbach - 49 Ryan MacInnis - 27 Michael Mersch
78 Jacob Bryson - 64 Oskari Laaksonen
4 Will Butcher - 6 Ethan Prow
88 Brandon Davidson - 45 Casey Fitzgerald
80 Aaron Dell
31 Dustin Tokarski

2. The Cozens line

Quinn and Peterka - Buffalo's top two selections in the 2020 NHL Draft - will make their preseason debuts with Cozens as their center.
Sabres coach Don Granato said he hopes to see the trio of under-21 forwards learn together on the fly. It's the same thinking he used when pairing defensemen Rasmus Dahlin and Henri Jokiharju together upon taking over as interim head coach in March.
"There's nobody that's going to bail them out," Granato said. "… There's certainly things they can do from a skill standpoint. I don't think anybody would be surprised if they scored, but there's a lot of details that I think they're going to pick up on just by playing together."
The Sabres have been giving Quinn - a winger during his junior career - experience at center to open camp, including his lone game at the Prospects Challenge. Granato said to expect Quinn to see time at both positions moving forward.
"First NHL exhibition game, I've played a little more wing than center in the past year, so a little more comfortable there maybe," Quinn said. "So, I think it's a good thing I'm starting there tonight."

3. The plan in goal

Granato said Dell and Tokarski will each play half of the game. He expects goalies to get full games during the latter half of the preseason schedule.
"I'm sure it will happen as we move to games four, five and six," he said. "We'll be thinking more of that preparation. Right now, even for the whole team, we don't want to be too critical. We want to see what we have."

4. An early look down the middle

The Sabres are giving a variety of players opportunities at center. Cozens and Casey Mittelstadt figure to see prominent roles down the middle. Beyond them, candidates include Cody Eakin (a centerman throughout his career) along with Zemgus Girgensons and Arttu Ruotsalainen, both of whom spent last season on the wing.
Girgensons and Ruotsalainen will both be in the lineup at center tonight. Girgensons entered the NHL as a center before moving to the left wing in 2017. He recently played the position during Latvia's Olympic qualifiers in August.
Ruotsalainen moved to the wing last season but played center professionally in Finland.
"I think Arttu has a really good feel for it," Granato said. "He's got a lot of detail in that position, a lot of patience, his reads are really good so I've been happy with him."

5. On the power play

Here's a look at the power-play units that practiced this morning:
Unit 1:
Murray
Hinostroza - Ruotsalainen - Cozens
Butcher
Unit 2:
MacInnis
Quinn - Weissbach - Peterka
Bryson