What’s behind Buffalo Sabres’ sudden surge? 6 key reasons for their turnaround
The Sabres are on a 20-3-1 stretch and have climbed from last place in the Eastern Conference to a playoff spot.
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The Sabres are on a 20-3-1 stretch and have climbed from last place in the Eastern Conference to a playoff spot.
Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images
On the day the Buffalo Sabres’ season turned around, they blew a three-goal lead in the third period.
It looked like so many other Sabres games from the last few seasons. They built a 3-0 lead in Edmonton only to have Connor McDavid and the Oilers storm back to score three goals in the third period and force overtime. The Sabres had already lost three straight games to start that road trip and looked destined to drop a fourth straight in overtime that night.
However, Alex Tuch scored 33 seconds into OT to help the Sabres escape with a win. A week later, Terry Pegula had fired Kevyn Adams as general manager and replaced him with Jarmo Kekäläinen. It wasn’t immediately apparent at the time, but that game in Edmonton was the start of a 10-game winning streak that matched a franchise record. It also started a 24-game stretch in which the Sabres have gone 20-3-1 and climbed into third place in the Atlantic Division.
So what happened? How did a team that was 11-14-4 and in last place in the Eastern Conference suddenly become a juggernaut that is talking not just about the playoffs but the Stanley Cup?
GM change
It’s impossible to ignore the change in leadership when discussing Buffalo’s recent run of success. Yes, the first three games of that initial winning streak occurred while Adams was still the general manager, but the rumblings about a move began while the team was out west. And the team hit another level when Kekäläinen took over.Obviously, Kekäläinen hasn’t done much to the roster. He made one minor-league trade and has made some routine call-ups. Otherwise, this is the team Adams built, albeit with Kekäläinen’s influence added to the mix as an adviser this offseason. To an extent, the way the team is playing shows that Adams wasn’t clueless about identifying talent or making moves to build a roster.
However, the team’s play has underscored how badly new leadership was needed.
In his sixth season on the job, Adams wasn’t inspiring confidence in the locker room. His inactivity at key moments throughout this rebuild, his poor public messaging and his lack of personal accountability were a bad mix. He was underqualified and inexperienced when he got the job, and that caught up with him at the end.
In contrast, Kekäläinen’s presence has infused the organization with some badly needed credibility. Players can feel when he’s in the room. He’s blunt and direct. He can be a bit intimidating, some players have said. But his message has resonated in the locker room. Anyone can relate to how much a new boss can change the dynamic of workplace culture.
“He comes in with a lot of experience, and when big changes like that happen, it can be a wake-up call for the group for sure,” Tuch said. “But the thing that he pushed was work ethic and character. Those are a couple of things he harped on, especially that first meeting we had. That’s something I took away from it, and something I think the whole group is really trying to push.
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“It’s doing the little things. It’s sacrificing. It’s the way we’ve been winning hockey games. That’s something he’s really pushed on this group, and our group has responded. It’s been really good to see. It’s a maturity and development that I’ve seen out of this group.”
Better team defense
When Lindy Ruff took over as head coach before the 2024-25 season, he wanted to clean up the team’s bad habits and make them more structured defensively. That didn’t happen, and Ruff said it was more difficult than he expected to get the players to buy into playing a strong defensive game.However, that has been a primary reason the Sabres are on this run and one of the main reasons it appears sustainable.
“We are a hard team to play against,” Tuch said. “We are miserable. We might not go out there and have 40 shots on net every night, but we’re opportunistic. We know that we’re capable of scoring, and we also know now we’re capable of defending with the best of them. If the scoring’s not happening, we can fall back on our defensive abilities, too, and make it really hard on the other team to play against.”
One of the key ingredients of the defensive turnaround is something Ruff harps on constantly: puck management. Even after a sometimes sloppy start to the season, the Sabres have the 10th fewest giveaways in the NHL at five-on-five, according to Money Puck. Money Puck also has the Sabres with the 10th fewest high-danger shots against at five-on-five.
Goaltending
That team defense has led to much more consistent play from the Sabres’ goalies.Since that game in Edmonton, the Sabres have the best team save percentage in the NHL. Alex Lyon has won a franchise record 10 straight games and has a goals-against average of 1.94 and a save percentage of .933. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has also been steady, and Colten Ellis has provided a few solid relief appearances.
What was a question at the start of the season has become a strength of the team. Luukkonen is currently nursing an injury, and Lyon and Ellis have both spent time injured during this stretch, too, so the Sabres have ended up needing all three goalies. Regression is always possible with hot goaltending, but if the Sabres keep playing defense the way they are, the goalies will have an easier time sustaining these results.
Balanced, hardworking offense
When Tuch talks about the team being hard to play against and emphasizes work ethic, it shows in how Buffalo creates offense. The Sabres have long been dangerous on the rush, and that remains true.However, now they can wear teams down with their forecheck. Their defensemen can be actively involved in play. The team has a clear understanding of and ownership of its systems, and that’s led individuals to make better decisions on when to pinch and to spend more sustained time in the offensive zone.
Of course, Tage Thompson has 32 points and 15 goals during this 24-game stretch, so they’re still getting significant contributions from their stars. But five different players have 20 points, and 12 players have at least 10 points during this 24-game stretch.
Ryan McLeod has 21 points during this run, and Jack Quinn has 19. It’s not just about the Sabres getting healthier, either. Josh Norris provided a spark, but he has only played 14 of the last 24 games. Jason Zucker missed a chunk of games. Michael Kesselring and Conor Timmins have been out on the back end.
But the Sabres have received key contributions from call-ups like Noah Ostlund and Konsta Helenius, recent first-round picks who have stepped into top-nine roles without issue.
Playing with the lead
Tuch mentioned after the win over the Kings that the Sabres are no longer shaking in their boots when they get a lead. They have learned how to protect leads by making the simple plays and limiting the chances they give up.It also helps that Buffalo is playing with the lead a lot more often.
In this 24-game sample, the Sabres have led 54.9 percent of the time. That’s the best in the league in that timeframe. Their goals against per 60 while leading is fifth-best in the NHL during that time.
“It’s honestly just being in the situation more and more and being in the playoff race and feeling the pressure of the game and getting used to that pressure is the big thing,” Kesselring said. “We’ve been at it now for the last two months, so we’re protecting a lot of leads really well, even after rocky second periods when the other team pushes, we bring it together really well, manage the puck a little bit better and hunker down.”
Buffalo is now 22-3-1 when scoring first this season and 24-1 when leading after two periods.
Top four defensemen
For years, the Sabres’ blue line has been stocked with young, promising talent. But now the sum equals the potential of the parts. Mattias Samuelsson, Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power and Bowen Byram have all been logging massive minutes and are rounding into form for the Sabres.In these 24 games, Samuelsson has 20 points, 45 hits and a team-leading 47 blocked shots. Dahlin is averaging a point per game. And Byram and Power have both shored up their defensive play to the point where they are breaking the puck out so efficiently. These four are the strength of the Sabres. Buffalo is a five-man unit in the offensive zone because of the instincts and skill all four of these defensemen have at that end of the ice.