{"id":544257,"date":"2026-03-25T11:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/544257\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T11:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:44:13","slug":"as-trade-dust-settles-stanley-establishes-himself-in-3rd-pair-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/544257\/","title":{"rendered":"As trade dust settles, Stanley establishes himself in 3rd-pair role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Logan Stanley is settling into Buffalo, on and off the ice.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old had spent his entire professional career in the Winnipeg Jets\u2019 organization before the Sabres acquired him March 6. Since then, he\u2019s moved into a hotel, had his truck shipped in from Manitoba and made some trips to his hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, to see family. His girlfriend and daughter are in town visiting, too.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a smoother transition because of the team he\u2019s joined; vibes have been high as the tight-knit Sabres have soared to the Atlantic Division lead over the last few months.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an awesome group,\u201d Stanley said after Tuesday\u2019s practice at KeyBank Center. \u201cEveryone\u2019s kind of a similar age, and they\u2019ve been really good to me and welcoming, and that\u2019s made it easy, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Sabres play a faster-paced game than the Jets, defensemen included, which has taken some getting used to for the 6-foot-7 Stanley. But at its best, Buffalo avoids the high-event, chance-for-chance hockey seen in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/sabres\/news\/buffalo-sabres-anaheim-ducks-recap-alex-lyon-owen-power\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sunday\u2019s overtime loss at Anaheim<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was impressed by the attention to detail guys pay on the defensive side of it,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the things is, the less time you\u2019re playing defense, the more time you have the puck and play offense. I think the guys have done a good job of buying into that motto: play hard D and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A dependable third pair was a major need for Buffalo before the deadline, and Stanley and Zach Metsa have looked the part so far. They&#8217;ve passed the eye test, and their defensive numbers speak volumes.<\/p>\n<p>In 43 minutes together at 5-on-5, they\u2019ve allowed zero goals and just four high-danger scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick. And their\u00a0matchups haven\u2019t been pushovers. On Saturday in Los Angeles, they shut down the Artemi Panarin and Adrian Kempe line; Thursday in San Jose, they held up against the likes of Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Logan Stanley is settling into Buffalo, on and off the ice. The 27-year-old had spent his entire professional&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-544257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}