The Buffalo Sabres are off to a slow start this season, with their 3-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday marking their third straight defeat to open the new campaign.
It is becoming a recurring theme with the Sabres, who have exceeded 80 points in a season just twice in their past nine seasons, and have not qualified for the playoffs in 14 straight seasons.
Over their last three seasons, the Sabres have a combined record of 1-8-0 in their first three games of the year.
The goal this season is to avoid having the slow start spiral into something worse for a franchise that has been mired in mediocrity for more than a decade. The team’s next chance to bounce back comes Wednesday against the Ottawa Senators.
“I’m a big believer that negativity breeds negativity, and that’s kind of how we’ve snowballed things in the past,” Sabres forward Tage Thompson said after the loss to the Avalanche on Monday.
“So, we can’t let three games be the end of the world, like I said. Obviously this [stinks]. No one wants to lose their first three games, but we’ve got an opportunity Wednesday to turn it around, and I think that’s all we’ve got to start doing: just look at the next game.”
The Sabres have scored two goals in three games to this point, which mirrored the struggle a year ago – in three losses to open the 2024-25 campaign, Buffalo managed only three goals.
Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin echoed the sentiment shared by Thompson. “[This start] is not acceptable,” Dahlin said. “It’s not good enough, a lot of the areas. Better start today, worse ending. Not good on the power play, good [penalty kill], goaltending. I mean, we can’t catch a break there. We’ve got to get out of this [nonsense].”
The Sabres have already been slowed by injuries, with forward Josh Norris expected to miss a ‘significant’ amount of time with an upper-body injury sustained late in the season-opening 4-0 loss to the New York Rangers.
Norris was acquired in a trade with the Ottawa Senators at last season’s trade deadline but has suited up in just three games for the Sabres as he continues to deal with injury problems.
Another off-season acquisition in defenceman Michael Kesselring is also out of the lineup with an injury suffered in the preseason.
Head coach Lindy Ruff is trying to avoid using that as an excuse at this point in the year.
“Everybody deals with injuries,” Ruff said. “We’ve got players that need to produce for us, can’t make excuses for [it]. We’ve got to do the right thing, and you’ve got to be able to win games, even with injuries.”
Thompson, who has led the Sabres in goals scored each of the last four seasons and has spent eight of his nine NHL seasons in Buffalo, knows the recent history of failure of the team looms like a dark cloud.
But in order to break the current streak of seasons without a playoff berth, which is already an NHL record, the past has to be left behind.
“Can’t keep looking back — last three games, last four seasons, last 14 seasons, whatever you want to do. We’ve just got to keep our sights set on what’s next,” Thompson said.