The Sabres are looking like a consistently competitive hockey team this season, which wasn't always the case during Buffalo's current 14-year playoff drought.
A lot of NHL observers, many of them from outside Western New York, were ready to write the Buffalo Sabres off following their 0-3-0 start to the 2025-26 season. Perhaps it was an understandable reaction given the franchise's past 14 years of misery.
Then something unexpected happened: The Sabres suddenly became one of hockey's hottest teams, going 4-1-1 over their past six games to push themselves into the thick of the early playoff race in the crowded Eastern Conference.