00:00Five Nights at Freddy's, Undertale, Steven Universe, Rick and Morty, Norm of the North.
00:07All of these are things that didn't exist the last time the Buffalo Sabres made the playoffs.
00:13Honestly, I could probably make a whole 10-minute video with nothing but a bunch of stupid facts
00:17to show just how long it's been since their last series, but that would require making a video,
00:22so I'm not gonna do that.
00:23All you need to know is, it's been a while, and considering how poorly their last season went
00:27and how this season has already started off pretty poorly, I expect nothing to change.
00:32The Sabres will almost certainly miss the playoffs, and their drought will continue for yet another
00:37what the fu-
00:38Yep, this is real.
00:40This is not an out-of-season April Fool's joke.
00:42This is the reality.
00:43This is the world that we live in.
00:45The Buffalo Sabres, the team that has spent your entire life being mediocre or sometimes
00:50just straight-up ass, are currently sitting in first place in the Atlantic Division.
00:55And it's not like this division sucks or anything.
00:57No, no, it's not the Pacific.
00:59This division has some hard hitters like the Lightning and the Canadiens, and the Panthers
01:03are in seventh.
01:04What?
01:04And yet, with all these teams, it is the Bison team that is on top of the food chain of
01:10the standings.
01:11This is a massive subversion of expectations for two reasons.
01:14One, it's the fucking Sabres, and two, the first couple months didn't really go the best
01:19for them.
01:20Like, 11-14-4 is not exactly the kind of record you'd expect a good hockey team to have
01:25by December 9th, 2025.
01:27But that's the record the Sabres had on that very specific date, and they ended up getting
01:32their 40th win before their 20th regulation loss.
01:36Somehow, the Sabres finally figured out how to do the hockey, and past this day, they have
01:40a record of, hold on, let me do the math.
01:42Buh-buh-buh-buh, carry to two, buh-buh-buh-buh, subtract to seven, buh-buh-buh-buh, round to
01:45the
01:45nearest common denominator percentile, buh-buh-buh-buh, 32-6-2.
01:49That is a 40-game stretch, nearly half of the entire NHL season, and they've only lost
01:55eight times in that stretch.
01:57That's, wow.
01:58In this absolutely bonkers stretch, they've had both a 10-game win streak and an 8-game
02:04win streak, and they were the last team to lose post-Olympics.
02:07So, yeah, they just can't stop winning.
02:10I can't stop winning.
02:11I can't stop winning.
02:13I can't stop winning.
02:15In fact, it's so much winning that they've won at least 20 games both at home and on the
02:19road.
02:20First time that's happened since they've made the playoffs.
02:23So, it's been a while.
02:24Also, remember when they were the last team to win their first road game?
02:27Part of it has to do with the offense going from two goals scored when everyone else has
02:31at least five to top three goals scored in the NHL.
02:34You look at all their games, there's a lot of high-scoring ones.
02:37You got the one against the Lightning, you got another one against the Lightning, you
02:41got one against the Penguins, another against the Sharks.
02:44Their main goal scorer is, of course, their chosen one, Tage Thompson, but there are other
02:48players who have reached the 20-goal mark like Alex Tuck, Jason Zucker, and Josh Doan,
02:53who is young as baby shit.
02:54There's also Jack Quinn, who recently got a hat-trick, and Rosna Staline, who scores
02:58a lot of assists, and a bunch of other players who don't score as much, yada yada, yo gaba gaba.
03:03None of this is new information.
03:04They were good at scoring a few years ago as well, and they didn't make the playoffs
03:07then, so scoring was not the plobrum.
03:10So if not the scoring, then what did Fix-It Felix fix that Wreck-It Ralph wrecked in Buffalo?
03:16The big changey-changey was likely not something on the ice, rather more likely something off
03:21of the ice.
03:21Last season, and by that I mean the offseason before last season, the Buffalo Sabres made
03:26the decision to bring in their new old head coach, Lindy Ruff.
03:30The most successful head coach in the franchise's history, his grand return did not immediately
03:35break the drought.
03:36Fast forward to December 2025, and Sabres GM Kevin Adams is shot dead in the Bronx.
03:42The gun is then aimed at Lindy Ruff, finger on the trigger, and the coach, realizing he's
03:46in a bit of a pickle, goes to his defense and says,
03:49Hey, uh, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I'm gonna need you guys to, you know,
03:54LOCK THE FUCK IN!
03:55And locked in, they became.
03:57For a while, the Sabres have had the bones for a good defensive structure, with two first
04:01overall picks, Mattias Samuelsson and Bowen Byram.
04:05But only recently have those bones been getting the calcium they need.
04:09Look at the hits.
04:10Look at the blocked shots.
04:11You'll notice one of these players stands out in both of these stats.
04:15Mattias Samuelsson has always been a defender with a lot of potential.
04:18However, he has recently been falling short of that potential, mostly because he's made
04:22of glass.
04:23But on this very season, where he was booed on opening night, his third defending eye
04:28was opened, and he has ascended to his true form, which is a good defenseman.
04:32Look at this plus minus.
04:34That is a big fucking number, man.
04:36Yeah, that's like top ten in plus minuses.
04:38He's still made of glass, though.
04:39So I guess it's a good thing that they got Logan Stanley.
04:42Oh, and of course, Rosmus Darlene.
04:44He still has a lot of assists that hasn't randomly changed.
04:47And these improvements on defense have helped the goaltending improve as well.
04:51Alex Lyon is making a case for being the team's new starting goaltender, with him having
04:55a top five save percentage and a top ten goal saved above expected.
05:00He's even got a higher save percentage than Ilya Sorokin and Igor Shesterkin, the two New
05:05York goaltenders who are notably good at their jobs.
05:08Alongside him is fellow goaltender Uko Pe-
05:10Why the fuck is there a hyphen in your name?
05:12Barely out of the top ten in save percentage, he's also been doing pretty well.
05:16But at the same time, this 8-7 game against the Lightning, that was his game.
05:21So they're probably going to stick with the Lion.
05:23And Colton Ellis is there too, I guess.
05:25So not only is the scoring high, but the defending is high, and the goaltending is high as well.
05:31Basically, everything is going Caleb Dressel levels of swimmingly.
05:35So much so that the hockey guy recently put them at number one in the power rankings.
05:39Which again, such a concept, the Buffalo Sabres, number one in the power rankings, that is
05:45inconceivable.
05:46And yet, once upon a time, such a thing was not inconceivable.
05:50Once upon a time, the Sabres were good enough to make the playoffs, make the finals, and
05:55one time even won the President's Trophy.
05:57But those days have long since passed, and talking about them nowadays is like talking
06:01about the Swedish Empire.
06:03Like, yeah, that was a thing that happened at one point.
06:06But now, for the first time since Roman Reigns debuted with The Shield, and then The Shield
06:10broke up, and then Roman became the most hated wrestler in the world, and then turned
06:14heel and became the Tribal Chief, and had a four-year-long title reign that ended at
06:18WrestleMania 40, and now Roman Reigns has won the Royal Rumble and will face CM Punk at
06:22WrestleMania, the Sabres might be good again.
06:25I don't even know why I said might, as if there's still some debate here.
06:29Like, they already have a winning record, are on top of the division, with a good cushion,
06:33and they look like a fucking wagon.
06:35Like, tell me, that right there does not look like the Buffalo Sabres.
06:39Oh, and they had one of the best regular season games of all time.
06:42I keep mentioning that Sabres-Lightning game, but come on, dude, it is so good.
06:46Like, if you haven't watched it yet, go watch it.
06:48The highlights are on YouTube.
06:50Honestly, I think at this point, the only way the Sabres don't make the playoffs is
06:54if they just have the most historically horrific skid in hockey history.
06:58Which, I mean, it is Buffalo we're talking about.
07:00It could happen.
07:02But if you ask me, poisonily, I like this.
07:04I like seeing the Buffalo Sabres not suck ass for once.
07:08You see, the world of sports doesn't follow any of that communist even distribution nonsense,
07:13which, even though that's based, means that some cities and teams just have it better off
07:17than others.
07:18Some places, like Los Angeles and Boston, seem to be allowed a championship whenever they
07:23want, while others, like Minnesota and Arizona, have had a much harder time getting their
07:27own.
07:27And even in Los Angeles, which has two teams in most sports leagues, it's clear that
07:32the gods prefer one team over the other.
07:34Simply put, some cities and teams just feel cursed.
07:38And Buffalo is the perfect example of this.
07:41Like the Bills, for example.
07:42They have been consistently good the entire decade, but apparently the best they get is
07:47second fiddle to Mahomes and the Chiefs.
07:49And the best decade in the city's history, the 90s, was especially painful.
07:53Two words, no goal, two words again, wide right.
07:57For reasons we cannot comprehend, Buffalo is not allowed any shred of happiness.
08:03Unless it's the bandits, but who the fuck watches lacrosse?
08:06Let's be real.
08:06But maybe this Sabres team will be different.
08:09Maybe the hockey gods will look at them and go, you know what?
08:11You're chill.
08:12Have a Stanley Cup.
08:13You would think surely this isn't possible, but dude, the Atlanta Braves won a World Series
08:18this decade.
08:19Atlanta.
08:20That's like the only city in North America with pain comparable to that of Buffalo's.
08:25Well, I guess losing all of your teams is bad too, but my point is, if Atlanta can have
08:29a championship, why can't Buffalo?
08:32But I'm no time-traveling future man yet, so I can't tell you what happens.
08:36Maybe the Sabres will just be the same old, same old as always and bring Buffalo more playoff
08:40misery.
08:41And hey, maybe they'll have their own Kansas City Chiefs that beat them every postseason,
08:45which if that happens, uh, Canadians, that's my prediction.
08:48But at the very least, all of that is irrelevant, because at the end of the day, the Buffalo
08:52Sabres have something they haven't had in a long time, which is a good team that could
08:57make the playoffs.
08:58And I think Sabres fans are happy with that for now.
09:01Just don't end up like the Canucks.
09:03That wouldn't be very good.
09:05Goodbye.
09:19He's very racist.
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