Fans from around the NHL voted and the results were clear: They believe the Buffalo Sabres have the worst front office in the league.
Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic provided the results Wednesday from a survey that showed the Sabres at No. 32 in the 2025 NHL front-office confidence rankings. He pointed out the frustration was directed at both team owner Terry Pegula and general manager Kevyn Adams.
"Things are very bleak in Buffalo right now," Luszczyszyn wrote. "It doesn't help that during this time when the team has felt close to taking the next step, the Sabres have left a lot of money unused to get there. It's not just management that's drawing the ire of the fans — it's also the team's owner failing to set the team up for success. This is a top-down shipwreck that touches every part of a losing franchise."
Pegula purchased the Sabres in 2011. He made two statements at his introductory press conference that are almost laughable in hindsight.
"Starting today, the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence will be to win a Stanley Cup," Pegula said.
Buffalo hasn't even qualified for the playoffs since the 2010-11 season, let alone seriously compete for a Cup. Its 14-year postseason absence is an NHL record.
"Starting today, there will be no financial mandates on the Buffalo Sabres hockey department," Pegula, a lifelong Sabres fan, added.
That stance changed somewhere along the line because Buffalo now leaves millions of the dollars in unused salary-cap space on the table every season. It can likely be pinpointed to a 2020 press conference where he unveiled a new organizational approach: "effective, efficient and economic."
The Sabres proceeded to cut staff, including a large portion of the scouting department, and it's felt like the franchise has been pinching pennies ever since those comments.
Meanwhile, Pegula is allowing Adams to enter his sixth season leading the front office despite minimal progress toward a return to contention and some mind-boggling moves along the way.
"The night is always darkest before the dawn, but 15 years is a long time to wait for the sun to rise," Luszczyszyn wrote. "At this point, it's hard to trust those in charge can ever make it happen."
Buffalo sports fans deserve better. Make no mistake, they want to support the Sabres. The KeyBank Center seats will fill back up in a heartbeat if the team shows legitimate progress, even though those same seats are ripping apart at the seams inside an arena that desperately needs some upgrades.
Yet, the front office's laissez-faire approach while trying to end the playoff drought has rubbed a lot of Sabres fans the wrong way, and rightfully so. It was yet another mostly quiet offseason for a team that missed the postseason by 12 points last campaign.
Until things change, the number of people in the stands will continue to dwindle. There's plenty of blame to go around for the organization's seemingly endless struggles, but at the moment it's Pegula and Adams who are failing the Sabres most.
In turn, being ranked dead last in the front-office fan confidence rankings is a well-deserved badge of dishonor.