Why Buffalo Sabres fans should finally get excited about the 2025-26 NHL season

You can't blame Buffalo Sabres fans for rolling their eyes about any single suggestion the team is finally ready to turn a corner. They've been hearing it for over a decade only to watch the franchise falter every time en route to an unimaginable 14-year NHL playoff drought.

So it's no surprise Sabres fandom is at perhaps its lowest point in history ahead of the 2025-26 season. People in Buffalo are instead fully invested in the Josh Allen-led Bills, who are perennial NFL contenders and own a legitimate shot at a Super Bowl championship this season.

Yet, amid the near-silence about the team in the 716 ahead of training camp, something is happening outside of Buffalo. Analytics experts are showing increasingly consistent optimism about the Sabres' ability to make a serious postseason push in the coming months.

Make no mistake, Sabres supporters are beaten and bruised after being coerced into watching terrible hockey since the NHL-record drought began while Jason Pominville and Thomas Vanek were still on the roster, but they will come rushing back at the first sign of true progress.

Love of hockey may be semi-dormant in Buffalo, which is one of the best markets for the sport in the United States, but it's not dead. The fans just want to Party in the Plaza like the good ol' days.

Analytics projections are bullish on the 2025-26 Buffalo Sabres

Puckmarks became the latest NHL analytics outlet to release season projections showing the Sabres on the playoff cut line on Sunday night:

Based on this prediction, Buffalo is tied with the Atlantic Division rival Ottawa Senators for the last spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs at 90 points. That would represent an 11-point improvement from last season.

It's not the first analytics suggestion the Sabres are trending in the right direction ahead of camp.

In late August, Jack Fraser (aka JFresh Hockey) provided his model's first output of the year, which showed Buffalo making the postseason with 93 points:

Meanwhile, Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic declared: “There's no team I like more in this market than Buffalo” in reference to the NHL futures betting market. He stated his model has the Sabres at around 45 percent to make the playoffs.

"Just when everyone has given up on Buffalo, it feels like the team has what it takes to really surprise this year. It's the classic post-hype breakthrough," Luszczyszyn wrote last week.

In past years, the situation was typically the opposite. Sabres fans were hopeful a modest set of offseason moves would turn the tide, while the analytics community was mostly bearish.

The fact the narrative has now flipped is a promising sign as camp approaches.

Why the Sabres should be better this season

So, why are the early projections for the 2025-26 campaign showing a Buffalo team that was a non-threat last year making a sizable jump after an offseason that featured only a few moves?

It starts with the fact the JJ Peterka trade wasn't as problematic as it appeared on the surface.

Yes, trading away a 23-year winger who's already scored 67 NHL goals comes with risk, but there were some underlying concerns. Peterka scored 27 times last season but shot a career-high 15.6% and only generated 19.4 individual expected goals (ixG), according to Natural Stat Trick.

So while he probably wasn't as good as the numbers suggested, the Sabres got two potentially key pieces in return: defenseman Michael Kesselring and forward Josh Doan.

Kesselring will immediately become the best partner Owen Power will get to play with on a regular basis in the NHL. It's possible they unlock each other's true potential and become one of the best second-pair defensive tandems in the NHL.

Meanwhile, Doan is the opposite of Peterka. He's far more defensively sound and his underlying metrics suggested he got a bit unlikely last year, scoring just seven goals on 12.6 ixG, per NST.

Beyond that trade, the Sabres also feature a large contingent of young players who could take a significant step forward this season: Power, Zach Benson, Jiri Kulich and Jack Quinn. They also have a group of NHL-ready prospects ready to make an impact if called upon.

So, while it's totally understandable many Buffalo sports fans will remain in "wait and see" mode on the Sabres, the reasons to have at least some belief in the team's upside are obvious.

Will Buffalo become "Cup Crazy" once again?

Despite the growing positive sentiment, the Sabres are still going to need several things to fall right in order to actually make the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.

Rasmus Dahlin and Tage Thompson must remain elite point producers, the bottom of the lineup must at minimum produce break-even results and the special teams need to considerably improve, especially a power play that's been a massive hinderance the past two years.

That said, the main concern is goaltending.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is coming off a rough 2024-25 campaign that saw his save percentage drop to a noncompetitive .887 after sitting at .910 the previous year. Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic also noted he's dealing with a "tweak" ahead of camp with an uncertain recovery timetable.

As a result, it's unclear what the Sabres can expect from their incumbent starter in net, and the depth chart behind him isn't overly promising. Here are the save percentages from last season by the team's other goalie options:

Alex Lyon: .896 in 30 games
Alexandar Georgiev: .875 in 49 games
Devon Levi: .872 in nine games

Not having a goalie who posted a save percentage over .900 last season represents a monstrous risk. It's a singular issue that could completely derail an otherwise promising campaign.

Nevertheless, what the Sabres lack in recent quality they hope to make up for in quantity. They need one of those four netminders to have a strong season and they'll be in good shape.

In the end, the outside projections are showing Buffalo as a team that should, at minimum, find itself in the playoff mix heading into the stretch run of the season.

That alone would give Sabres fans far more entertainment than they've enjoyed for most of the miserable playoff drought.

So yes, it's time for Buffalo to get excited about the new season. Embrace hope once again because it's possible "Better Days" have finally arrived.