Scott Sabourin wants you to know him for more than that Panthers game
Scott Sabourin might be the most popular Lightning player who hadn’t played in a regular-season NHL game for the team before this week.
There’s no doubt that many a Lightning fan threw air punches along with the 33-year-old when watching the team’s final preseason game on Oct. 4 in Sunrise as Sabourin lowered the boom on Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad. Just 19 seconds into his first shift, Sabourin zeroed in on Ekblad, leveling him behind the net, then unleashing fists of fury.
“I show up every night ready to compete, and I might have gotten a little ahead of myself that time,” Sabourin said Wednesday. “I might have kind of overshot the runway.”
That night, Sabourin was the first of five players to be ejected in the game’s first 23 minutes. By the end of the night, 16 players were tossed. Some hailed the carnage as the next chapter of what might be hockey’s bitterest rivalry. Others thought it never should have happened. The league believed the latter and fined the Lightning $100,000 and coach Jon Cooper $25,000.
Sabourin received a four-game suspension and $16,145.84 fine for his role. But for taking out Ekblad, who might be Public Enemy No. 1 among Lightning fans for his elbow to Brandon Hagel’s head in last season’s playoffs, Sabourin immediately became a fan favorite.
Nearly six weeks later, Sabourin is back in a Lightning uniform, recalled along with forward Boris Katchouk from AHL Syracuse ahead of the home loss against the Rangers on Wednesday night.
Sabourin’s Lightning debut was his 48th NHL game in 14 years of professional hockey. And while he’s spent most of his career as an AHL enforcer, he’s still out to prove he’s more than just that. He’s shown some scoring touch with the Crunch, recording three goals and five points in 11 games.
“I’m excited to be back and to show some more stuff, some hockey side of it, and play my game,” Sabourin said. “And obviously there will be times when physical stuff will be part of it, too. But I want to present as a hockey player as well. … But anytime you get an opportunity to play, you know, in the top league in the world, you jump at it. So I’m excited to get here, and I’m excited to get going.”
With intermittent call-ups, Sabourin fulfilled his four-game suspension. And even though the Lightning have a need for healthy forwards, it can’t be totally coincidental that he’s rejoining the team with its first regular-season meeting against the Panthers coming up Saturday in Sunrise.
Against the Rangers on Wednesday, Sabourin scored the Lightning’s first goal six minutes into the opening period. It was his first NHL goal in nearly six years, the last coming Feb. 29, 2020, while he was with the Senators. The Lightning are Sabourin’s third organization since.
“It was great,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “The boys were pumped. It was awesome.”
But when detailing Sabourin’s story beyond that night, there are more reasons to root for him. He’s played parts of 13 seasons in the AHL.
He had an 18-goal season just two seasons ago in the AHL but has struggled to stick in the NHL. After playing 35 games with Ottawa in 2019-20, he’s appeared in no more than seven NHL games in a season since. He got into just one NHL game last season with San Jose.
“I think at my age now, it’s kind of keeping your speed, right?” Sabourin said. “I’m kind of on the back nine. So, it’s important to stay focused on your regimen, your health, your food, your nutrition, your fitness, all that stuff, right? It’s all part of it. And if I square that all the way and I have good gym time, then I should be able to keep my boots for a handful more years here.”
When Sabourin signed a two-way contract with the Lightning during the summer, they made it known to him that the organization was looking for more physicality. He knew the Lightning’s reputation as a “world-class organization.” And in his time in Syracuse, Sabourin has loved playing under coach Joel Bouchard.
“Bouch pushes us to be better every night, and he pushes us to compete,” Sabourin said. “So that’s helpful. And then it pays dividends when you come up here and you feel like you know you’re in unreal shape, that’s awesome. You want to feel that way when you get on the ice in the NHL, right?”
Now, Sabourin has another chance to show he’s the type of player who can help teams win. And while his physicality is a part of that, he wants to show he can do the other things to make the Lightning a better team.
And in that way, it was no different going into that preseason game six weeks ago.
“I just wanted to get in hard on the forecheck, to be honest,” Sabourin said. “And then, you know, one thing led to another. But day in and day out, you know, I want to compete. I want to be hard to play against, and I want other teams to know that I’m on the ice, right?
“So, again, that might not have been the best way to go about it, but at the end of the day, the other team will know I’m out there.”
Cowboys ‘Have to Bend’ on Potential $32 Million All-Pro Decision
For the Cowboys, as long as Jerry Jones has been running the show, getting top-level contracts to players who are at the top of their positions across the league has not been a particularly easy process. And it might sound worthy of a chuckle at first blush, but it shouldn’t: Jones and the Cowboys could well find themselves in that same kind of contract standoff with the team’s kicker, Brandon Aubrey.
It won’t rise to the level of the Cowboys’ negotiations on new deals with CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott last year, but Aubrey is, indeed, heading into free agency. He can be a restricted free-agent under NFL rules–allowing the Cowboys to match offers for him–but this is a case in which the team ought to simply be aggressive in getting its two-time All-Pro locked up on a fair market deal.
And that deal is likely to be a record-setter.
Cowboys Scoring ‘Maximized’ Thanks to Brandon Aubrey
That’s the view from the NFL contract expert website Spotrac, where manager editor Mike Ginnitti points out that kickers are more important than ever. Aubrey, being the best in the business, should expect to be paid accordingly.
Said Ginnitti on “The Spotrac Podcast” this week: “One of the bigger takeaways halfway through 2025 is not just how successful kickers are, but the length, the distance. Now they’re using kicker balls, a lot of things happening, the league is promoting this kind of thing especially with the kickoff changes. But there’s no question, especially with a player like Brandon Aubrey, that his importance to the Dallas Cowboys’ scoring—and scoring is all Dallas does—is maximized. …
“Jerry Jones is gonna have to just bend on this one and just give this player the extension that he is worthy of because he is basically an offensive weapon for this team. And he has paid CeeDee Lamb, he has paid Jake Ferguson and he has paid Dak Prescott, of course, a couple of times. This is just the next guy in line.”
Cowboys Have Had Special Luck at Kicker
As we have seen, Jones and the Cowboys are increasingly unwilling to “bend” on contracts, and wound up simply trading away Micah Parsons once that situation fell apart. But Aubrey’s value is clear. He is 17-for-18 on field-goal attempts this season, and has a 64-yarder to his credit. In his career, he has made 90.3% of his field goals, and 96.4% on extra points.
Kicker who produce that way can’t be treated as afterthoughts.
“(Kickers) need to be treated as more than just special teamers because the amount of points, the amount of consistency, the amount of reliance they’re being asked to be taking on from their respective teams is as great as it has ever been in the game,” Ginnitti said.
Brandon Aubrey, $32 Million Man?
Entering the season, the highest paid kicker in the league was Harrison Butker of the Chiefs, who got a four-year, $25 million contract that started last year. But that $6.4 million per year is not likely to stand, not with the way that kicking has been emphasized across the league this year.
Combine that with an expected spike in the salary cap, and Aubrey is in prime position to clean up.
“The cap jumps to $300, maybe $305 (million) next year, you aren’t crazy to start hearing four for $32 million for Brandon Aubrey,” Ginnitti said.
“I think we’re heading toward $8 million a year for kickers, not just because of the cap increase, the cash increase and the flux that brings, but it feels like this position is more important than it has been in years if not decades to these NFL teams and their respective offenses. We’ve got guys doing it at a very high level who are going to need a contract this offseason.”
