For the first quarter of the 2025-26 NHL season, it looked to be more of the same for the Buffalo Sabres.
Having missed the playoffs in a league-high 14 consecutive seasons, the Sabres fell 7-4 to the Flames in Calgary on Dec. 8 to drop their record to 11-14-4.
“Horrible game, that’s all I can say,” defenceman Rasmus Dahlin said via NHL.com of his team’s performance.
“The result, how the game ended, a lot of errors. [We have to] regroup. [We have a] game tomorrow [at the Edmonton Oilers].”
Buffalo did regroup the night after in Edmonton, picking up a 4-3 overtime victory on a winner from Alex Tuch. And that win turned out to the start of a major turnaround.
The Sabres went on to win 10 in a row to get back over the .500 mark. Since losing in Calgary on Dec. 8, Buffalo has gone an NHL-best 24-5-2, accumulating 50 points over that span to pull into a postseason spot.
“We’ve gone on a run,” head coach Lindy Ruff said via Bill Hoppe of Buffalo Hockey Beat in a story posted Monday. “But we’ve taken this approach that the game we’ve just played is over, and we’ve got to just continue to get better.”
Part of the Sabres’ resurgence has been due to getting their full group back together. Forward Zach Benson returned from injury in late November and forward Josh Norris and defenceman Rasmus Dahlin rejoined the group in early December.
They’ve also been more consistent as a group according to Ruff, something he said was driven by the play of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Alex Lyon in net.
“You’re not consistent unless you get great goaltending, which we were getting,” Ruff said.
Luukkonen and Lyon are each enjoying one of the best seasons of their careers. Luukkonen is in his sixth season with the Sabres and has a .908 save percentage with a 2.62 goals-against average. Lyon, playing for his fifth NHL team in nine seasons, has a .913 stop rate and a 2.69 GAA. As a team, the Sabres are tied for fourth in the league in save percentage (.908).
Fresh off winning a gold medal at Milano Cortina 2026, centre Tage Thompson is in the midst of yet another strong offensive season with a team-high 32 goals and 63 points. He said the Sabres are no longer thinking about just simply making the playoffs, but making a deep run come the spring.
“Obviously, from where we were at the start of the year to now, I think there’s, as we started to get hot, talks about maybe making playoffs,” he said via Buffalo Hockey Beat.
“And now, I think we’ve proven that not only can we make playoffs, but we can be a real team. … We have that self-belief that we can do something real special this year.”
The Sabres haven’t let up since the season resumed last week, winning each of their three games coming out of the Olympic break. They sit 35-19-6 on the season for 76 points, good for second place in the Atlantic Division, just four points back of the Tampa Bay Lightning for the Atlantic lead.
