April 26, 2011. Do you remember where you were that day? I don’t. I was ten years old.
The Buffalo Sabres were in Philadelphia to play a hockey game. Not just any hockey game, but a game seven in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Flyers forced game seven just two days prior in Buffalo. Facing elimination, Scott Hartnell tied game six at four goals a piece with just under ten minutes left in regulation. Less than five minutes into overtime, Ville Leino scored his second of the series to win the game. Mike Richards had the primary assist on both goals. Buffalo had squandered their 3-2 series lead on home ice, and had to go through the city of brotherly love to make it back to the second round for the first time since 2007.
In game seven, Braydon Coburn would put the Flyers ahead in the dying seconds of period one. Daniel Briere and James Van Riemsdyk would both convert on power play opportunities to widen the gap to three goals in the second frame. Less than two minutes into the third, Ville Leino struck again to make it an insurmountable four goal lead for Philly. The sabres would try to rally late, but ultimately fall short to a final score of 5-2, with a late goal coming on the power play in the third courtesy of Brad Boyes, from Derek Roy and Tyler Myers.
That was the last time the Buffalo Sabres played a playoff game.
Today is March 7, 2025. April 26, 2011 was well over a decade ago now. Only two players mentioned in the summary above still play professional hockey, the rest have retired. If that doesn’t put how much time has elapsed into perspective, try this on for size. Both Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston were alive on April 26, 2011. Three days later, Fast Five hit theaters, the fifth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, and Paul Walker was in it.
What I’m trying to say is-
It has been SO FUCKING LONG since the Buffalo Sabres have played a playoff game.
Since the beginning of the 2011-2012 season, they have won more than forty games in just one campaign, rattling off 42 in 2022-2023, which was not enough to qualify for the dance.
They have had some of the most impressive losing streaks in league history since 2011, including an eight game losing streak amidst their 42 win season in 22-23, a nine game losing streak in the covid shortened 20-21 season, and a monumental fourteen game losing streak in 14-15. It is almost impossible to not accidentally stumble into a win with a roster of NHL players for fourteen games. I feel like you actually have to try to lose that many times.
As hockey fans, we all feel a great deal of sympathy for Sabres fans. While the Bills continue to suffer crushing defeat after crushing defeat in the NFL playoffs, the Sabres can’t even stop spinning their tires for weeks at a time in the regular season.
We’ve seen what that fan base can be. It’s a city built for football and hockey, but arguably more-so the latter. Extreme cold, blue collar attitude, and hard work characterize both the city of Buffalo and the game of hockey. The Sabres had the city rocking when they went to back to back conference finals in 2006 and 2007. The city would have exploded in 1999 if they were able to top the Dallas Stars in the cup final.
What’s worse about the current playoff drought is just how many players have left the Sabres throughout it and went on to find major success elsewhere. Here is a list of Sabres from the 2018-2019 roster and their achievements since leaving the franchise:
Jack Eichel – Stanley Cup in a number one center role with Vegas
Sam Reinhart – Stanley Cup, Two conference final wins, and a President’s trophy with Florida. Had 57 goals in 2023-2024.
Kyle Okposo – Stanley Cup with Florida
Evan Rodrigues – Stanley Cup with Florida as a key depth producer.
Zach Bogosian – Stanley Cup with Tampa
Brandon Montour – Stanley Cup, Two conference final wins, and a President’s Trophy with Florida. A 73 point season in 2022-2023
Linus Ullmark – Vezina Trophy, President’s Trophy, 40 win season with Boston.
As you can see, time after time Buffalo moves on from a player, whether by trading them or not renewing their contract, and they go on to be much more successful elsewhere.
Today, the 2025 NHL trade deadline, the Sabres dealt the seventh overall pick from the 2019 draft, center Dylan Cozens, to the Ottawa Senators. While Ottawa has struggled to find success in recent years as well, I’m very certain Dylan Cozens will be the next player Sabres fans look at 5 years from now and ask themselves, “Why couldn’t he do that for us?”
My question is simple. How many times can this happen before you simply gut the front office? What will it take to get Kevyn Adams fired as GM? At this rate, he could have traded Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin today and still had his job by October.
Dylan Cozens was traded alongside defenseman Dennis Gilbert and a second round pick in next years draft for center Josh Norris and defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker.
Josh Norris is a power play specialist, and a good one at that, but Ottawa fans were often left wanting more from Norris at even strength. He has a thirty goal season to his credit, and is without a doubt a piece the Sabres are hoping can galvanize more consistent offense, and I really do hope it works out for him in Buffalo.
Bernard-Docker is a former first round pick who has yet to live up to his potential, and a change of scenery seems like a logical step in his career, but he never earned the trust of the coaching staff in ottawa to play more than about 16 minutes per game.
Two roster players in and one out for Buffalo could potentially be a net positive. That is if Dylan Cozens doesn’t become rejuvenated by his own change of scenery and improve on his career best 31 goal, 68 point season back in 21-22, or show more flashes of the player that dominated the 2021 world juniors in historic fashion, collecting 16 points in just 8 games. Cozens is 6’3” and 205 pounds and highly skilled. It’s very possible that we’re looking at another number one center Buffalo missed out on in the near future.
The million dollar question is, why do these players only seem to take the next step once they leave Buffalo? They’ve had different coaches come and go, supporting players come and go, but try and try as they may, nothing seems to unlock the next step the organization is trying to take in their seemingly endless rebuild.
Certainly there is a problem with the team culture that has failed to be corrected over and over again. Maybe what Josh Norris can bring to the room is a little bit of Brady Tkachuk. The two were inseparable friends during Norris’ time in Ottawa, and perhaps the Sabres think they can tap into a level of competitive edge in Norris that rubbed off on him from Tkachuk, something that every team in the league will be looking for more of this summer.
Norris has his work cut out for him if he wants to be a leader of this Sabres team. He’ll join Thompson and Dahlin as part of the young core group, and they’ll be leaning on veterans like Alex Tuch and newly extended Jason Zucker to be the stabilizing voices in the room. Jordan Greenway was also extended today, and they hope he can lead by example in the physicality and competitiveness departments. Owen Power has been relatively underwhelming as a former first overall pick, and needs to become noticeable every time he takes a shift, using his 6’6” 226 pound frame to disrupt the opposing team’s offensive stars. Bowen Byram needs to dig into his arsenal and find some tools he borrowed from Cale Makar and Nathan Mackinnon to be the best pro he can be, and bring the championship pedigree the Sabres were hoping he would bring when they acquired him for Casey Mittelstadt. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is only 25 and is more than capable of bouncing back next season and being a top 10 goaltender if the team in front of him can screw it the fuck on straight.
This team, on paper, should be able to hang with any NHL team on any given night right now. Not only that, the sky should be the limit in terms of potential with the amount of highly talented youth they’ve stockpiled. The Rangers haven’t been the model of consistency at all this season, but this Sabres team absolutely dismantled them twice. Yet here they sit, dead last in the conference, in the midst of a five game losing streak, coming to grips with another season utterly wasted.
To the people of Buffalo, please hang in there. Don’t do anything drastic. Maybe someday things will turn around.
To Lindy Ruff, the game has left you behind. Please do not seek another head coaching job in the NHL once you are inevitably fired from this one.
To Kevyn Adams, what you’ve done to this point, or the lack there of, simply shows that you don’t have what it takes to be a successful GM in the NHL, and if you never showed your face in the city of Buffalo again you’d be doing yourself a favor.
To Terry Pegula, sell this team to someone who cares about the city and loves the game of hockey. You owe it to the city. You should be tried for war crimes in city hall.
Here’s to hoping, for the city’s sake, that at least one god damned thing can go right for the Sabres this summer, and maybe at some point in the next 50-100 years, they’ll finally break the longest playoff drought in hockey.
The Morning Skate 