How Sabres became a Stanley Cup contender ➡️

02.04.2026, 03:00 espn.com

The Buffalo Sabres are exemplifying why being a "wagon" became a part of sports lexicon. Finally, everyone's on board. And we aren't just talking about the fan base.

It took a seismic shift from within the Sabres' own dressing room to turn the tide on a 2025-26 season that headed early on toward disaster. Buffalo's vaunted, deeply talented young core was supposed to lead the team back to the playoffs and end its historic postseason drought at 14 seasons.

But things weren't trending in that direction for the Sabres in the early months -- until suddenly they were as Buffalo became one of the hottest teams in the NHL.

What had to happen for Buffalo to go from near the NHL's basement to its penthouse? We examined the analytics, studied trends and gathered insights -- from inside and outside the organization -- to answer that question.

Basically: Are the Buffalo Sabres for real? And can they parlay this run of success into a Stanley Cup?

The 2025-26 season began with Buffalo aiming to end its 14-year playoff drought. But nothing was going to plan. On Dec. 8 -- only two months into the season -- the Sabres were 30th in the league in points percentage (.448) with an 11-14-4 record. Those postseason hopes were already in danger.

One week later, general manager Kevyn Adams was fired and replaced by Jarmo Kekalainen. Head coach Lindy Ruff would remain in place, attempting to steer Buffalo out of its skid.

And he did. Or rather, the team did.

Since Adams was let go on Dec. 15, Buffalo holds the best record in the NHL (31-7-4), is giving up the fewest goals against per game (2.60) and is second only to the Tampa Bay Lightning in scoring (3.76 goals per game). It has been a remarkable 180 that left a stunned hockey world at large asking: how?

"We had to have a few meetings," captain Rasmus Dahlin said. "Eventually it just clicked. We realized that it's us in here that's been the problem. We can blame other guys, but it's us in here that really had to do it. And we came together and started playing better, and went through that adversity together."

Dahlin -- who went viral this month by declaring the key to Buffalo's burgeoning team chemistry was to "drink beers" -- has been weighed down by the Sabres' struggles since arriving as the team's No. 1 pick in 2018. Buffalo has come close to breaking its playoff drought in recent seasons, but there was always something missing. Addressing that void took longer than it should have given the Sabres' skill level.

"We're working really hard out there," Dahlin said. "We're playing solid defense. I think that's where our game is coming from, with backchecking, blocking shots, all that. That's how you win games. We've been through a lot the last few years. Now we know what is making us successful, and it's coming to work and working really, really hard. Winning is hard. We know that, so it's the hard work that we need to keep doing."

Jason Zucker is well-traveled through a 15-year career and he can attest that often the answer to what ails a team isn't all that complicated. There's a reason coaches preach the importance of those "little things." At some point the players recognize them too -- and that's what can turn a season on its head.

"It's honestly just finding a consistent game," Zucker said. "I don't think there's a single thing we can put our finger on and say, 'That was it, that was what did it.' I think it's a combination of guys stepping up at different times, and goaltenders playing well, and learning how to close out close games, and doing the right things. When you can commit to those things game in, game out, that's when it clicks."

There's due credit to Ruff for facilitating that from behind the bench. The makeup of this Sabres team is unlike ones Ruff has coached previously in Buffalo or elsewhere. Those variations have created a dynamic for him to maximize.

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"I think I've had [good] depth in the past, but the depth has usually been young guys," Ruff said. "This is a little bit different right now. Some of the depth that we have, and we have a lot of it, is more veteran guys. That's probably the biggest difference for me."

Zucker said there wasn't necessarily an identifiable change in Ruff right after Adams was let go. It was more that his messaging came across in new ways, landing with, perhaps, a more attentive audience.

"Honestly, I think it was an emphasis prior [to Adams' firing] that we had to do the right things more often," Zucker said. "But for whatever reason, it wasn't clicking all the way with us. And now it's becoming more of an emphasis within the room again, and we are executing that at the right times and closing out games. We had heard it before and now it's happening."

Also, the Sabres aren't so hard on themselves when things don't go right. Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen points to a growth in mindset "as individuals and a group" to stay the course and trust their systems regardless of the outcome.

"When you're just playing solid hockey, it helps the confidence," Luukkonen said. "It helps to know that we have a rhythm in our game that works. I feel like even the games we lose, there's usually some positives to take out. Even when it's not our best game, we are able to kind of crawl our way back and be in a position to win. We have a style of hockey that has been working for us. And I feel like in every game, we kind of find something we have to improve on, but then we also have the system that works for us."

Will that continue to serve the Sabres when the playoffs arrive?

The Sabres maximize their opportunities better than almost any team in the NHL.

From the span beginning Dec. 9, Buffalo was second in the NHL in goals per game (3.73) in their next 45 games, topped only by Nikita Kucherov and the Lightning (4.00). Yet the Sabres were only 17th in shots on goal per game (27.6) during that span. They don't deal in volume. They rely on their goal scorers to finish the chances they create, which they do quite well.

Buffalo has 13 players with double-digit goals. In that same span since Dec. 9, the Sabres had a team shooting percentage of 13.6%, which was second behind Tampa Bay; and an 11.2% shooting percentage at 5-on-5, which was fifth in that span.

"The main reason that the Sabres are winning games this season is that they're converting their chances into goals well," Micah Blake McCurdy of HockeyViz.com said.

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The team's goals vs. expected goals is around 13%, which is easily top-five in the league this season.

Vin Masi of ESPN Research sees the Sabres' numbers from high-danger scoring areas as a microcosm of their offensive game. Stathletes has a metric called total slot involvement, which is the sum of their slot shot attempts and successful passes to the slot and puck carries to the slot. Most of their numbers here are middling, adding up to 22nd in total slot involvement per game.

"However, once they get there, they are making the most," Masi said. "Their shooting percentage is first overall on shots from the slot and second overall on shots between the dots and from the inner slot."

Combined with their stellar goaltending, this goal-scoring rate has led to some impressive results.

"This is a team that has generally outperformed their underlying [numbers] in the past few seasons due to the scoring talent on the roster," said Jack Fraser, co-founder of HockeyStats.com. "Their PDO isn't crazy, but they're on pace for a goal differential almost 50 goals better than what the baseline expectation is based on their shot quality for and against."

Can this shooting success continue in the playoffs?

"The Sabres' finishing talent is legitimate, but all finishing talent is inherently streaky, at every level of quality," McCurdy said. "Building a team around it makes you a little more vulnerable to cold spells that are extremely unlikely to stop a team from making the playoffs, but can easily lose them a playoff series."

Mike Kelly of NHL Network is also wary of a cool down.

"From a process standpoint, there is cause for concern during the heater the Sabres have been on since early December," he said. "Expected goals for and against are similar to what they were earlier in the season when things were not going well."

It's undeniable that the Sabres are one of the NHL's most entertaining teams this season, thanks to their goal-scoring prowess and the jubilant emotions of a franchise finally ending an epic postseason drought.

But there's a long-standing tradition for "fun" teams in the NHL, in which doubters question whether their technique can succeed when the action tightens up in the playoffs. Whether it was the "Young Guns" Washington Capitals or Jon Cooper's Lightning, those debates led to crises of conscience ... until they were silenced by Stanley Cup wins.

The Sabres entered that tradition via Elliotte Friedman's Sportsnet column on March 19, when he wrote: "I think there are a lot of people around the league who are happy to see Buffalo rising. It's been too long and their fans deserve it. If there's any question, it is: Can their style work during grind-time? 'It's river hockey,' one opposing player said, 'although they are very good at it.'"

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Luukkonen would agree what the Sabres have going is a great thing -- and, to his mind, utterly sustainable.

"We have a young, skillful, good skating team, so we have to trust that," he said. "It's the other stuff we've tried that doesn't really work in our favor. And as long as we play skilled and speed hockey, I feel like that's something we're good at and something that's been working out for us and will kee