Pinnacle    -1½ +220    BET365  -1½ +220   Sportsinteraction  -1½ +220  888port  -1½ +220

Posted at 8:00 AM ET. Odds are subject to change

N.Y. Rangers -1½ +220 over Buffalo

KeyBank Center – Buffalo, NY

7:00 PM ET. Regulation only. Buffalo is one of those teams the market keeps wanting to believe in. Every October, the Sabres are framed as “the breakout team” — all that young talent, the offensive upside, the promise of taking that next step. Yet here we are again, and it’s the same old story: leaky goaltending, soft play in their own end, and a lack of identity. They opened the season exactly how you’d expect — tentative, mistake-prone, and already looking like a team searching for answers.

Meanwhile, the Rangers aren’t searching for anything. They’ve got theirs. New York looked every bit the seasoned contender in their opener, playing with structure and pace, and once again leaning on the league’s best goaltending tandem. Igor Shesterkin is confirmed for this one, and that alone changes the math. He’s the great eraser — the kind of netminder who turns average efforts into wins and good efforts into blowouts.

This is as much a fade of Buffalo’s defensive situation as it is a play on New York’s strength. The Sabres are still trying to make Devon Levi work as a No. 1 option, and while he’s got potential, he’s also got a .901 career save percentage and a bad habit of giving up rebounds in the slot. The Rangers don’t need a second invitation. Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin looked locked in from the jump. This is a bad stylistic matchup for a Sabres team that wants to trade chances and can’t defend the middle and we're going for the kill. Rags on the puck line is our call.

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