Bowen Byram is only seven games into his Buffalo Sabres chapter, but he's already playing crucial roles on the NHL's youngest roster. And that Mexico trip with his now-teammates didn't hurt, either.
Counting regular season and playoffs, Bowen Byram had suited up for just 79 NHL games when he hoisted the Stanley Cup overhead on June 26, 2022 — 13 days after his 21st birthday.
With that bucket-list achievement out of the way, he now has a very different task ahead as the Buffalo Sabres look to turn a plethora of impressive young talent into a team that can get back to the post-season and, eventually, make a Cup run of its own.
Since Byram was acquired in exchange for Casey Mittelstadt on March 6, the Sabres have gone 4-3-0. But with so many Eastern Conference teams in the mix for just a couple of playoff berths, Buffalo will need to do even better in order to make a real push to snap that league-high 12-season drought.
Coach Don Granato hasn't shied away from throwing Byram into the deep end. His ice time is up by more than four minutes a game as he plays the power play, the penalty kill and on the team's top defense pairing with Rasmus Dahlin, who has seamlessly shifted over to the right side.
"They just want me to go and play my game," Byram said after Tuesday's 3-2 loss in Vancouver. "Obviously, there's different things with the systems and whatnot that I'm still adapting to and getting used to. I just try to go out there and play hard and have fun while doing it."
Granato is impressed by what he has seen so far.
"He's going to be a big, big part of our future — another competitive young defenseman," he said. "He has some experience in the league but still a very young guy. So, lots and lots of potential. High compete and certainly high skill."
After trading away their veteran captain Kyle Okposo and experienced defenseman Erik Johnson at the deadline, the Sabres are now officially the youngest team in the NHL — icing a roster with an average age of just 25.41 years on Tuesday night.
At 23, Dahlin came close to singlehandedly changing the outcome with two third-period goals and a couple of impressive save attempts in front of Buffalo's empty net — one successful, one not.
"He's an unbelievable player," Byram said. "Thinks the game really well, has unbelievable skill and he's a great guy and a great leader on the team."
Byram is getting to know Dahlin for the first time but has ties to several of his new teammates. He goes way back with fellow WHLers Dylan Cozens and Peyton Krebs, who were also world juniors teammates with Team Canada.
It was those three, plus Sabres defenseman Jacob Bryson, who spent the all-star break together in Mexico — perhaps triggering some kind of hockey karma that led to them being united barely a month later.
"It's something we always talked about," Byram said. "We played together when we were younger; it'd be pretty cool to play together in the NHL.
"Obviously, I loved it in Colorado. It was a great place to play and I kind of grew up there and kind of grew into a man there. But it's been awesome to get to come here and play with some close friends of mine."
That's not the end of it.
Jack Quinn, who's currently on the injured list, was also on Canada's 2021 world junior team. And the starting goaltender was Devon Levi, who was recently recalled by the Sabres and delivered a strong performance on Tuesday in his first NHL game in two months.
"Obviously, he's a really good goalie with a lot of talent," Byram said.
It's fitting that Byram would be among friends when he finally played his first NHL game at Rogers Arena. Even though he hails from Cranbrook, in eastern British Columbia, he considers Vancouver his "home away from home."
As a child, his first-ever live NHL game was in Vancouver, between the Canucks and the Nashville Predators. Later, he became a junior star with the Vancouver Giants. In the 2019 WHL playoffs, Byram was the leading scorer, as a defenseman, as the Giants reached overtime of Game 7 of the league final before falling to the Prince Albert Raiders.
Between injuries and the abbreviated division-only schedule of his rookie NHL season in 2020-21, Byram didn't get to step on the ice in Vancouver as a player until Tuesday — with his dad and some other close friends in attendance to cheer him on.
It's ironic that he had to move to the Eastern Conference to finally get a chance to play in Vancouver. But even though he only spent one week in Buffalo before the Sabres embarked on this five-game western swing, there's one thing he has already figured out.
"The travel is pretty nice in the east, for sure."