The NHL released its regular-season schedule for the 2026-27 campaign on Thursday. It features two additional in-division matchups for each team as the league moves to 84 games (up from 82).
That's not exactly thrilling news for the Buffalo Sabres, the reigning Atlantic Division champions who are set to face an intense battle to protect their title.
Ryan Dixon of Sportsnet recently ranked the toughest divisions in North America's four major sports leagues (NHL, NFL, NBA and MLB), and the Atlantic came in second behind only the NFL's NFC West.
"If there's one thing that dampens the optimism of hopeful Atlantic clubs, it's looking around the group and realizing what a death match it's going to be just to get into the playoffs," Dixon wrote.
Buffalo's division sent five teams to the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, as the Blue and Gold were joined by the Tampa Bay Lightning, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators. The Metropolitan Division, the other group in the Eastern Conference, only had three representatives, though one was the Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes.
All five of those Atlantic postseason clubs are aiming to make a return to the playoff field in 2027, while the Florida Panthers (champions in 2024 and 2025) bolstered their roster after an injury-plagued year and the Toronto Maple Leafs are aiming for a quick turnaround after winning the No. 1 overall pick, allowing them to land budding superstar Gavin McKenna in the 2026 NHL Draft.
That only leaves the Detroit Red Wings as an uncertainty and, if the Wings don't trade Dylan Larkin this summer, they'll likely be trying to contend for a playoff spot, too. It's possible there isn't a single rebuilding team in the division next season.
It creates an incredibly small margin for error in the Atlantic. A run of poor form or some ill-timed injuries could create real problems, even for the division's most talented teams.
That's a concerning reality for the Sabres, who just ended a 14-year postseason drought and want to begin stringing together at least a handful of playoff appearances in a row.
Strength of Atlantic Division helps support Jarmo Kekalainen's conservative offseason approach
Buffalo sports fans finally got to experience the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2011, and there's an appetite for more. An eagerness to see a couple all-in moves from the team's front office to show the organization is fully committed to chasing a championship.
The realities general manager Jarmo Kekalainen were facing didn't make it an optimal time to become overaggressive, though.
Kekalainen had three major situations to handle early in the offseason: Zach Benson, Alex Tuch and Bowen Byram.
He re-signed Benson, a 21-year-old emerging cornerstone, to a long-term contract extension while trading away Tuch because the Sabres weren't prepared to meet his $84 million contract demands and Byram since he was looking for a role (and money) the Blue and Gold couldn't provide.
Additionally, the NHL free-agent market was incredibly weak this summer and the trade market has moved pretty slowly, and it's essentially stalled out at the moment.
So, while Kekalainen would have surely loved to land a No. 1 center like Larkin, St. Louis Blues' Robert Thomas or Vancouver Canucks' Elias Pettersson, those type of blockbuster trades haven't materialized for anybody, not just the Sabres.
In turn, Buffalo's GM has focused on locking up internal role players like Peyton Krebs and Beck Malenstyn, to help provide a pretty clear salary-cap picture moving forward.
The Sabres, whose dead-cap hit for the Jeff Skinner buyout drops by $4 million next year, should be in a position to take a big swing at a top-line center during the 2027 offseason, if a realistic opportunity to acquire one doesn't materialize before that point.
Yes, a more muted summer — there are still rumors about Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck and Buffalo native Patrick Kane, a future Hockey Hall of Famer — would raise questions about the team's ability to survive the Atlantic Division brawl.
The Blue and Gold have plenty of reason for optimism when it comes to internal improvement thanks to young players like Benson, Owen Power, Josh Doan, Noah Ostlund, Jiri Kulich, Konsta Helenius and Olen Zellweger. They also have pillars like Rasmus Dahlin and Tage Thompson to lead the way, too.
So, while it's a bit jarring to see a pair of key cogs like Tuch and Byram depart without bringing in direct replacements, it doesn't automatically mean the Sabres will be worse in 2026-27.
And, in the grand scheme of things, it's impossible to blame Kekalainen for not wanting to vastly overpay for non-elite players who wouldn't actually move the needle for Buffalo.
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