PRAGUE – Billboards and posters featuring Rasmus Dahlin are hanging outside Vaclav Havel Airport to promote the NHL’s Global Series games at O2 Arena.
Businesses across the city are bracing for the possibility that droves of hockey fans will travel here from Buffalo, New Jersey and elsewhere to see the league’s season-opening series between the Sabres and Devils.
The sport is so intertwined in the culture here that there’s currently a hockey-themed exhibition at National Gallery Prague, which holds the country’s largest collection of art. It is situated along Old Town Square, where thousands gathered in 1998 to watch Dominik Hasek lead Czechia to gold at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
Czech hockey fans will be cheering for the Sabres when their season opens with their game against the Devils on Friday at 1 p.m. Eastern time. Not only are two players on Buffalo’s roster from Czechia, but the Sabres are beloved by a group of rowdy supporters who made the trip to Western New York last season.
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Viktor Maudr, a play-by-play broadcaster for O2 TV Sport in Prague, organized a fan section and pregame tailgate. The entire arena won’t be hollering the names of Buffalo players, as the crowd did Friday in Munich to welcome JJ Peterka back to his hometown, but Maudr and his crew plan to shout like they did in KeyBank Center several months ago.
“Buffalo, we won’t have as many people in our chanting group as it is in Munich,” Maudr tweeted Friday. “We probably won’t be that loud. But, still, you can expect a decent group of people cheering for the Sabres during the whole game.”
The festivities in Prague begin Monday with the Sabres and Devils practicing at a facility called, “ICERINK,” which is in nearby Strasnice.
Lindy Ruff and his assistant coaches will run their 27 players through drills, then the coach chosen to replace him in New Jersey, Sheldon Keefe, will do the same to prepare the Devils for opening night. Ruff was fired in March, less than one year after leading the Devils to their best regular-season finish in franchise history. New Jersey opted to hire Keefe after he was let go by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
One team has a head start on the trip, though. The Sabres arrived five days earlier than the Devils because of their obligation to practice in Munich and play the city’s professional team, EHC Red Bull Munchen.
Ruff told reporters following the 5-0 win in Peterka’s hometown that he was pleased with the effort and attention to detail shown by most of his players in the preseason tune-up, but there are several areas of their game that needed to be addressed before the opener. The lineup may already be set, though.
Peterka, Dahlin, Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch, Zach Benson, Dylan Cozens, Jack Quinn, Jason Zucker, Ryan McLeod, Jordan Greenway, Beck Malenstyn, Sam Lafferty, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Owen Power, Mattias Samuelsson, Henri Jokiharju, Bowen Byram and Connor Clifton seem entrenched in roles entering the final week of training camp.
Dennis Gilbert, Jacob Bryson, Devon Levi and Peyton Krebs are expected to round out the final 23-man roster when the Sabres must make cuts after the Europe trip. Lukas Rousek, Jiri Kulich, James Reimer and Kale Clague were brought along as extras, but none of the four is settling for a free overseas trip. Though Kulich had the best training camp of the four, Rousek is also trying to prove that he belongs. The 25-year-old winger, and Prague native, has only two goals in 17 NHL games, but he’s a versatile, hard-working forward who could contribute as a depth scorer and penalty-killer.
Rousek will need to clear waivers if the Sabres decide to assign him to Rochester following the back-to-back games against the Devils.
“Lindy’s a hard coach, but this is what we need to prepare for the season because it starts so soon,” Rousek said before the Sabres left for Europe. “I just want to keep continuing the way that I’ve played the last two years and be a better player. I want to show that I can play on every single line. I play on the top line in Rochester, but here is a different spot for me right now. I just want to show the coach I am ready to play any position or role.”
Special teams are going to be a focus for the Sabres in the three practices before they play. The power play showed promise again Friday, but the group also squandered an opportunity by overpassing. The penalty kill will also come into focus as they try to build on the improvement they showed last season. Ruff and assistant coach Marty Wilford plan to rotate as many as eight forwards in those situations, and they can begin to focus on this specific matchup against the Devils, who are led by Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier.
Both teams will also practice Wednesday and Thursday, then hold morning skates Friday before the games begin. Maudr estimated that 150 fans from across Europe and the United States will gather at a pub near the arena to prepare the chants they’ll holler throughout the game and share stories about their love for the Sabres.
The atmosphere will be unlike anything the Sabres encounter during a typical regular-season road trip, but their focus shifted to winning Game 1 as soon as the exhibition in Munich was complete.
“We’ll have the first standing cheering section at an NHL game, so hopefully people back in Buffalo see this and decide they can’t miss it the next time the Sabres are in Europe,” Maudr said by phone Sunday as he prepared to call a game.
