The Buffalo Sabres are back in the playoffs on Sunday night, facing the Bruins in a first-round series that ends a 15-year wait and a run of 975 regular-season games without a postseason berth. It is the Sabres’ first playoff series since 2011, and the weight of that drought sits on every shift now.
The numbers behind the stretch explain why this matters so much. Buffalo went through 20 Round 1 draft picks during the drought, including 11 in the top nine, and came away with Rasmus Dahlin at No. 1 overall in 2018 and Owen Power at No. 1 overall in 2021. The Sabres also added Sam Reinhart at No. 2 overall in 2014 and Jack Eichel at No. 2 overall in 2015, yet none of it was enough to end the wait until now.
Terry Pegula owned the team through the years without playoff revenue, and the franchise kept cycling through hope and frustration as the losses piled up. Kevyn Adams was fired in December, after the Sabres had won three straight games on their way to what became a 10-game winning streak, and Jarmo Kekalainen, a former Blue Jackets general manager, was named as his successor. The change came after a long stretch in which Buffalo kept adding high-end talent but still had nothing to show for it in April.
Boston comes in with a very different recent history. During Buffalo’s drought, the Bruins played in 22 playoff series, reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2013 and 2019, and logged 131 postseason games, winning 69 and losing 62. While Buffalo spent 15 years trying to get back to this stage, Boston kept returning to it, which is why Sunday night is less a reunion than a test of whether the Sabres can finally match the standard they have been chasing for so long.
That is the real answer now: the drought is over, but the burden attached to it is not. Buffalo has the draft pedigree, the top picks and the fresh start behind the bench; what it still has to prove is that all of it can survive the pressure of a playoff series against a team that has lived here for most of the last decade and a half.