The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Sam Carrick on the Trade to Buffalo, Sabres Pack Mentality, the Tampa Game, and more

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Newly acquired Buffalo Sabres forward Sam Carrick joins Jeff to talk about his recent trade to Buffalo, his first impressions of the Sabres organization, adjusting to a new locker room mid-season, and what he hopes to bring to the team down the stretch. Carrick also shares insight into the transition that comes with being traded during the NHL season and what the opportunity in Buffalo means for him moving forward.Subscribe to the channel for more daily NHL coverage, interviews with players and insiders, and in-depth hockey discussion.#NHL #TheSheet #JeffMarek #DavidPagnotta #SamCarrick #BuffaloSabres #NHLTradeDeadline #NHLTrades #StanleyCupPlayoffs #Hockey #NHLNews #Sabres #NHLGlobalSeries #HockeyPodcastLeave a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheSheetEmail us: [e-mail] TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼Uber Eats: https://www.ubereats.com/caReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@FNBarnBurner🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoffReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The start of the NHL have been the Buffalo Sabres going back to December, even though they lost a tough one last night to the Washington Capitals. It is still a team that is making headlines and turning heads, and I was there for the game Wednesday against the San Jose Sharks, and good to see some old faces back at the Key Bank Center as well. And there's a familiar face, and it's Sam Carrick, newly acquired by the Buffalo Sabres, who joins us now. First of all, Sam, how are you today?

I'm doing great, thanks. Yeah, like you said, tough one last night. But, you know, we're riding this wave pretty good right now. I've been here a week, and it's been a fun, fun experience. But what a week, Sam. Like, honestly, like, what a whirlwind. You get dropped into, you know, the top team in the NHL going back to December. And, you know, I was making the point before he came on about, you know, after the Austin Matthews thing last night with Radco Gudas, we think back to Steph Nason on Tage Thompson.

And nobody did anything. And then I go to that Tampa game where, you know, you got Hagle chasing down Rasmus Dahlene and Ucapeka Lukin, like the goaltender is a first. want to charge out. Like, it's like that. And you've been on teams like this before. I'm sure, like there's a real, we're all in this together mentality that as someone who's followed the Buffalo Sabres since the French connection,

we haven't seen a whole lot of that in Buffalo. What does it feel like to be part of it? Yeah, it's, I think it just goes to show you, you know, how tight-knip our group is. We got a young, energetic group. Guys,

guys really care about each other. They love each other. And, you know, we saw it from the, from the first shift. I think Tage got hit from behind and, you know, with the guys, automatically shedding their gloves,

you know, running in there. And that just gets the juices flowing. It gets you want to get involved. And that's, you know, that game was, I think that was a good building block for,

for us, something that we can lean on. You know, that's the standard for sure. You know, anytime someone tries to take advantage of someone on our team, there's going to be a price to pay

and that's our model. Where does that, like, where does it come from? like a year ago that wasn't there and by and large it does a couple of new faces you're one of them Logan stanley and and luke shen at a deadline but like how does that happen to a collection of players which were pretty much identical to the ones that were there last year yeah i think it probably goes hand in hand with um you know you're you're winning when you're winning games yeah you're you're

feeling good um the crowd's involved um you have a little bit of swagger behind you where um You know, you just want to keep riding that wave. And when you're losing, I've been through it on the other side. When you're losing, you know, you got nothing to play for. It's March and, you know, you got the end of the season kind of circled. You're just trying to do what you can until that day. It's a little harder to stay emotionally involved. But, you know, when you're at the position where we're at right now, you know, we're in a playoff spot.

We're building to, you know, be peeking going into playoffs here. that's all part of it, all part of what you want to be doing to be playing your best hockey. You know, well, I think for a while we're going to go back to that Sunday game

against the Tampa Bay Lightning and look at that as like that moment where, like the game was fascinating because, of course, like there was all the scraps and a lot of goals

and it's an 8-7 final, but there was a time there where Tampa looked to be pulling away and you look at all the commentary on social media, and it's like, okay, Buffalo Sabres are up again.

This is like all, this is the Tampa Bay Lightning and like, okay, this is showing you how close they are to Tampa and Tampa and Tampa still the big dogs, et cetera, et cetera, and then you guys came back. Like just when like everybody is with you and then it's all like within one game with you, wrote you off and then came back by the end. I can only imagine what it was and I know you're miced up for that one and some of that stuff was really good. I can only imagine what that emotional roller coaster was like on the bench.

As best you can, can you walk us through the emotions of that game? Yeah, I mean, obviously we have. a great start. We got up, I think, up to like 4-1, and we're feeling good. But I think that was one thing we could have done better was we laid off. And Tampa's is obviously a great team. They're going to get their scoring chances and they came back. But in the third period there, you know, going into it, we knew it probably wasn't going to be the next goal that won. You know, there's probably going to be a couple of goals this game just the way it was going. And whether we score or they score first, we wanted to, you know, keep the same mindset. And obviously not. I'd do.

deal going down by two early there, but I think there was, we still had that belief that, you know, we were getting our chances and we can still come back. So credit to the guys, you know, we stuck with it. I think we fed off the crowd a lot too. You know, anytime we'd got in their zone, the crowd was absolutely amazing. And I think we, we used that to our advantage. The crowd's been fantastic. I mean, it's been a real story. I mean, I used to go to the old a ton when I was a kid with my dad and then when I was at university, we could never afford Maple Leafs tickets. So, you know, we'd load up and I'll pay, you know, $10 for a ticket and go see the

Sabres playing at the Memorial Auditorium. And just being there on Wednesday and seeing like faces that I haven't seen like in forever back. And like everyone's got Sabres jerseys. And it's not just like the new guys, but there's like, you know, older names. Like, hey, look, there's a, there's a Mike Pecca. There's a Joebert Perot. There's a, there's a Dominic Hasick.

Like, it's, for me, it's a real scene. Like, it's, it's really cool. You're a southwestern Ontario guy as well. Where, did the Sabres resonate for you at all as a kid? Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I mean, I do remember watching, like, guys like Mike Peck and I actually got to play for him last year a little bit, which was, uh, pretty cool. But, you know, Hasick as well, uh, always being on, we used to get those Don Cherry, uh, rock and sock him, sock him videos every Christmas and, uh, Don Cherry going on about.

but the Dominator is just engraved in my in my mind. So, yeah, they had some fun teams for sure. Obviously, you know, I was a least fan growing up, but I do have some buddies back in our Buffalo Sabres fans and have been for a while. So, yeah, there's obviously a huge Canadian fan base here, which is awesome. And it's great to see just how good, how rock in the building's been.

fans definitely this team right now and I think the guys are just feeding off all the energy the whole city of Buffalo doesn't right now and it's just it's just a blast to be a part of

so guys are guys are feeding off it you know it's I've always maintained you know Buffalo's like that kind of ultimate NHL market where it is it's a combination

of you know American fans and also Canadian fans like Hamilton St. Catharines that'll go down and one of the things that I love about it Not that I'm much of like, I'm not really a huge anthem guy, but I really like that even when there's two American teams playing, they play the Canadian National Anthem as a sort of tip of the hat to all the Canadian fans

that have season tickets or come down to see the Buffalo Sabres. That's noticed, right, by the players? Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. You know, we got a lot of Canadian players on our team too that, you know, it's just, yeah, like you said, it's so cool. It's so close to the border. A lot of Canadians come down. I know obviously with the bills being, you know, that's kind of like,

seems like everyone in Ontario's cheers for the bills and just really close roots here. And it's just a great town, blue-collar town. Yeah, and it couldn't be more fun to be a part of right now. Let me ask you about the trade. Did you have any idea that it was going to be Buffalo? No. I had a, I mean, I had a little bit of warning the day before the trade deadline. that some teams were interested.

Yeah. I didn't know which teams, so it really could have been anywhere. You know, I knew Buffalo was on my radar just because of how good they've been, and, you know, they were looking for some help in the faceoff. So that's something that they're looking for me to bring. And I just, yeah, I was,

just could have been happy when I heard Buffalo, just to be close to home and be joining this young group that's got so much potential and so much energy. And, you know, we're looking to make a run. run here. So, yeah, it was nice to finally get that phone call and just relieved when, you know, it really, it could have been anywhere. But to hear Buffalo, I was, I was pumped.

What's, whenever you get to a new team, there's usually that moment we're like, I knew this guy was good, but I didn't know that he was that good. You know, like, I think people are getting their eyes open wide about just how good Josh Donne is, for example, and he was great in that game against Tampa on Sunday as well. Is there a player or are there players on your team that you said, you know what, I played against them. I thought he was a good player, but I never knew he was this good. Is there someone like that for you on the Buffalo Sabres?

I would say our whole DECOR, starting with Dahlene, they are just unbelievable at breaking the puck out. It makes it so much easier as a forward. It just creates so much more offense when they can, when they're going back for a puck and they can shimmy shake the first four checker. And next to, you know, we've got numbers coming up the, So that part's just made it so much easier to play for sure when you have those kind of weapons back there. And yeah, like you said, our forwards are extremely talented.

I can't believe some of the trades that we got some of these young guys coming in. You know, I think they've done a great job of building this team just with a lot of talent, starting with the decort up. And, you know, our goalies have been awesome too. So there's been a lot of pleasant surprises since being here, you know, considering I don't really, you know, we don't play these guys too much when I was in New York. Okay, last one for you. You mentioned family getting closer to home.

What happened to mom? Well, she was at that Tampa game, and I don't know. I looked at my phone after the game, and one of the messages was a pitcher of her ankle. and she was in a wheelchair and her ankle would look like a softball. So I guess, I don't know,

you know, there was definitely some wine involved. She was probably pretty excited, you know, watching the game. It was a good one. And I don't know if she jumped up or she tripped. I don't know, she must have rolled it somehow. So she watched the third period in a wheelchair with her feet up in an ice bag and that's how she saw my goal,

I guess. So, yes. She's on the shelf for a week here. She might be coming tomorrow. We'll see. She's day to day right now. All right. Very good.

Yeah, I know a big thing of importance for her was to watch you score. So she got to do that. And you found the back of the net yesterday against the Washington Capitals as well. Listen, man, it's great to see in a Buffalo Sabres uniform. It looks like you've worn it for years. Your team is hottest team in the NHL, man, despite the loss last night. Keep it rolling. And we'll talk again soon, Sam.

Thanks so much for doing this. Great. All right. Thanks, Jeff. Good to see it. Bye. Be good. Sam Carrick of the Buffalo Sabers.