Well that didn’t go exactly as planned… The Buffalo Sabres opened the year with a loss on the road in Columbus. It wasn’t all bad but there wasn’t a great deal to write home about either. Here are my five takeaways from Game 1 of 84.

Alex Tuch and Bowen Byram departed the Sabres, taking 44 goals between them away from the fifth highest scoring team in the NHL last season. So how are the Sabres going to replace that scoring?

Ric Tapia/Getty Images Welcome to the first edition of the Friday 5. A five pack of Sabres content from past, present and in this case future. We are opening this new feature with a Fan Pre-Season Wishlist. These are my five biggest wishes headed into this new season. Just like every team’s goal at the start of the season should be the Stanley Cup, it should be on every fans wish list, so I tried to leave some of the more obvious things out of this week’s picks. Let’s kick i

The Buffalo Sabres have signed Lindy Ruff to a two-year contract extension after a historic 2025-26 season that saw the franchise end its 14-year playoff drought and capture its first Atlantic Division title since 2010.

It was a season that gave Buffalo everything it had been waiting years for, and then broke its heart in the most gut-wrenching way possible. The Sabres entered the 2026 playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed, and they had earned it. Their 50-23-9 record was good enough to top the Atlantic Division, marking a massive leap from the 36-39-7 finish they posted just one year earlier.