This is exactly what the Buffalo Sabres could not afford. Yes, it’s early. However, the Sabres need to get off to a decent start. So far, they are winless through three games. To state the obvious, this is not how Lindy Ruff’s team wanted to begin its 2025-26 regular season.
This is an extremely important campaign for the Sabres on so many fronts. Let us count the ways.
- Fan favorite top wing Alex Tuch is on an expiring contract. To date, talks of an extension have not resulted in a new agreement.
- General manager Kevyn Adams and Head Coach Lindy Ruff are both in the final year of their current deals and the goal throughout the organization is a return to the post season for Buffalo.
- The team entered the season with concerns about their offensive depth. The Sabres managed just two goals scored in those first contests. The visiting Colorado Avalanche downed the Sabres, 3-1, on Monday.
“We’ve got to find a way”
“Obviously going 0-3 to start the season is not where you want to be at all,: forward Tage Thompson said. “We’ve just got to find a way to get a win here. It’s pretty much all it comes down to.”
The depth of the Buffalo lineup is being severely tested. Injuries to goaltender Ukko-Pekka-Luukkonen, defenseman Michael Kesselring, first line winger Zach Benson and a long term upper body injury to top center Josh Norris have forced a juggling of forward lines and defensive pairings.
In spite of the adversity, Thompson knows there is time for the team to get things moving in the right direction.
“Losing Norris definitely hurts,” Thompson said.
“But we’re three games into the season, so it’s not over by any means. We had a bad first three games, that doesn’t mean anything, we have a long season to go. We just gotta find a way to claw ourselves out. We’re in a hole we don’t want to be in and we’ve gotta find a way out of it. We can’t let three games be the end of the world. Obviously it sucks, no one wants to lose their first three games. That’s all we’ve got to start doing is look to the next game.”
Last season, the Sabres were in a playoff position nearly two months into the season, but a thirteen game winless streak that began on November 23rd, took Buffalo out of postseason contention.
Sabres don’t want to look backward
Buffalo aims to end a streak of 14 consecutive playoff absences. Now is the time to gain points in the win column before the season becomes another uphill climb.
No one on the club wants to talk about the most unwanted of “streaks”. However, the longer the Sabres struggle out of the gates, the more inevitably the conversation turns to the dreaded topic.
“We can’t keep looking back,” Thompson said. “Last few games, last four seasons, last fourteen seasons whatever you want to do. We’ve just got to keep our sights set on what’s next. What’s done is done, I’m tired of talking about the past.”
But what if the present isn’t better? That’s precisely what the Sabres want — and need — to avoid.
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