The NFL's New York Jets just retook sole possession of the longest active playoff drought in major North American sports at 15 years. The Buffalo Sabres are likely to reclaim a share of the shameful throne in the coming months.
There are 16 teams in the NHL's Eastern Conference, and 15 of them received votes to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in a recent poll from The Athletic. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the only franchise that didn't appear on a single ballot from 25 voters: the Sabres.
"I just want to give everyone in Buffalo a big hug. (And eat a beef-on-weck while I'm there,)" The Athletic's Mark Lazerus wrote.
Colleague Jesse Granger added: "It feels odd for only one team not to receive a vote, but not when you look at the standings."
The Sabres sit in the East basement with 26 points, while every other team in the conference has compiled at least 30 points. They're seven points behind the Montreal Canadiens for third place in the Atlantic Division and eight points below the New York Rangers for the final wild-card spot.
Is the Buffalo Sabres' 2025-26 season already over or are the playoffs still within reach?
The Sabres have put together some promising stretches across their first 28 games, but maintaining any improved level of performance has been elusive. The team's compete level dips far too often, which isn't acceptable for a group with such a razor thin margin for error.
As a result, Buffalo's playoff odds have dropped all the way down to 8%, which is by far the lowest mark in the Eastern Conference, according to MoneyPuck.
Digging out of that steep of a hole requires playing an extended stretch of high-end hockey, and the Sabres simply haven't showcased any reasons to believe it's possible.
The Blue and Gold did surge for a short time as they started to get key players back from injury but their past two games, lopsided losses to the Philadelphia Flyers and Winnipeg Jets to begin a six-game road trip, dashed any thought of an imminent rise up the standings.
Buffalo alternate captain Mattias Samuelsson didn't mince words after Sunday's practice.
"You don't want to get too low, but there's also situations where you need a sense of urgency," Samuelsson told Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic. "Yeah, we're not going to get too low, but we need to f---ing turn it around. There's a balance to that. It's a long year. We're only a third in. You can go on a heater and change everything. But you have to go do it."
Samuelsson, whose unexpected two-way resurgence has been a bright spot for the Sabres, is one of the club's only players to display playoff-level hockey on a consistent basis.
Talent wise, Buffalo has enough skill to go on the type of 8-1-1 run it needs to get back in the conversation, but putting forth the effort required to do that is a different question. It's been the same story for pretty much the entirety of the 14-year playoff drought.
The Sabres will frequently win a couple games in a row and suddenly believe they've figured everything out, thinking the victories will suddenly come easier. That's not how it works, and that flawed mindset is what leads to losses like the ones against Philadelphia and Winnipeg.
So, can Buffalo turn its season around and make a serious push to avoid joining the NFL's Jets atop the drought list? Sure, but most people will have to see it to believe it given the team's history.
The days of the Sabres receiving the benefit of a doubt are long gone.