The Buffalo Sabres were one of the NHL's most consistently competitive teams across the franchise's first 40 years of existence, even without winning a Stanley Cup championship. Over the past decade, however, they've transformed into a league-wide laughingstock.
Sara Civian of Bleacher Report delivered the latest harsh criticism of the organization on Friday while predicting the Sabres are going to miss the playoffs for the 15th straight season.
"What have they done drastically differently to produce a different outcome? The front office has trusted a core that has given them no reason for that trust," Civian wrote. "Meanwhile, players like JJ Peterka and Jeff Skinner, who have provided at least some scoring, are left in the dust for returns that don't improve the team. It's not enough for Tage Thompson or the other key players on the team to have a career year; the team as a whole is struggling, and the front office hasn't been proactive enough in addressing the issues."
It's hard to argue against the tenants of the argument. For years, Buffalo's front office, led by general manager Kevyn Adams, has operated like it's one or two small moves away from contention despite needing something closer to a full roster overhaul to seriously compete.
As a result, the Sabres once again need a wide variety of different things to fall perfectly in the place just to find themselves in postseason contention at the end of the 2025-26 campaign.
Buffalo Sabres critics will grow louder until the team finally returns to the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs
The Sabres' days of getting the benefit of a doubt are over, and rightfully so. Talk is cheap when you've missed the playoffs 14 straight years, which is an NHL record, and the inability to bring high-impact players to Buffalo via trade or free agency is a massive problem.
To Adams' credit, it appears he finally realized preaching hope only to deliver underwhelming results is no longer an effective strategy.
"I can't stand up here and talk to our fanbase and say anything other than I am genuinely excited about this team. I am," Adams told reporters Wednesday. "But we have to prove it on the ice. We have to win games."
He concluded: "Anything I say up here ultimately doesn't matter. We have to prove it."
It's fair to point out multiple analytics projection models predict the Sabres should compete for a playoff spot this season. That's happened before, though. The only thing that's actually going to start changing the narrative is consistent on-ice success.
Perhaps the most telling moment of the campaign will come in March.
If Buffalo is still in the postseason hunt at the 2026 NHL trade deadline, will Adams be a serious player in the market trying to land a game-changing player to push the team across the finish line? And will team owner Terry Pegula give him the green light to use the financial resources necessary to acquire that type of talent?
The fact those questions even have to get asked is a red flag itself. That said, if the Sabres aren't willing to go that extra mile to maximize their playoff odds, every critique levied against the franchise over the past handful of years will be amplified.
Pegula has remained extraordinarily patient with Adams, a first-time GM entering his sixth year in charge. He'll have little choice but to begin another full-scale organizational shift, led by the likely departures of Adams and head coach Lindy Ruff, if the team misses the playoffs again, though.
The Sabres' oft-discussed drought will have reached 15 years if that's the case, and another full-scale regime change could cause that number to push toward 20. That's blatantly unacceptable in a league where half the teams make the postseason every year.
So, until Buffalo finally proves the chorus of doubters wrong, the critics will always get the final word.