While it may seem a little much to pronounce an NHL team’s fourth game of the season a must-win game, considering the start the Buffalo Sabres have gotten out to this season — losing all three games and generating only two goals in that span — it’s safe to say the Sabres desperately need a win when they take on the Ottawa Senators Wednesday in Buffalo.
That said, the Senators also need a win in a bad way. Ottawa has dropped its past two games, losing to the Florida Panthers and Nashville Predators. So if the Sabres think the Sens will be a soft touch for them, they should think again. The injury-rattled Senators still could put a-hurtin’ on the Sabres, and if that’s what happens, Buffalo will be pointless in the first five percent of the season. And at that point, the vultures will start to stretch their muscles and prepare to encircle the Sabres.
There has to be a legitimate change for the Sabres — an urgency — or it won’t matter who’s next up in their schedule. The results are going to remain the same, and the anger of Buffalo fans is going to surge. You can only listen to the same skipping record before madness sets in, and that’s where Sabres fans are at right now.
It’s fine and dandy if you’re part of a moderately-successful NHL team and you’re asking fans for their patience as the team navigates through a tough stretch. But when it’s been nothing but tough stretches for the past 14 years when there’s been not a single Stanley Cup playoff game that included the Sabres, you’ll have to forgive Buffalo fans if they’re testy with the organization.
The Sabres are in show-don’t-tell territory, and they’ll be in that territory until they string together not just a solid week, and not just a solid month or two, bu rather a solid season. Until then, fans and pundits will be in the right to question their direction.
You can’t spell goodwill without “will”, and Buffalo has run out of goodwill as they’ve shown they don’t have the will to deliver a playoff season to Western New York. Well, maybe talent also has something to do with that result. But no amount of excuses will change the mood around the Sabres if they can’t pull out of this early tailspin. They have to come through with some wins, or deal with the consequences.
Only sustained success from now through mid-April will keep the buzzards at bay in Buffalo. If not, it’s going to make the ’25-26 season agonizingly-long for the Sabres.
Hockey News