The Sabres at their worst

The Sabres at their worst

When the Buffalo Sabres finished the 2012-13 season with only 21 wins, it wasn’t so bad. After all, it was a lockout-shortened season; their record of 21-21-6 put them exactly at .500, respectable if not enough to make the playoffs. It was a different story when they finished the full 2013-14 season with the same number of wins (and a much less respectable winning percentage of .317), and after the Sabres 2014-15 season ended in a record of 23-51-8, some fan despair felt justified. Certainly any fan whose team is going through a slump feels the pain of the losses, but when it comes to the Buffalo Sabres from 2011-2015, even the most impartial observer has to admit things look pretty bad. The team from 2011-2015 may just be the worst in team history.

The Sabres have had bad stretches before. Like many new teams they had a rocky start, with only 24 wins in their 1970-71 season and a dismal 16 in 1971-72. In four seasons they made the playoffs only once (a series against the Montreal Canadiens they lost 2-4) and had a regular season winning percentage of .445 overall. Their worst year during that span was 1971-72, the year they managed to get only 16 wins and ended their season with a .327, having scored only 203 goals on the entire season. The bad run ended when the Sabres put together their ‘French Connection’ line of Gilbert Perreault, Rick Martin, and Rene Robert; reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1975 and though they lost to the Philadelphia Flyers it would be the start of a good stretch in Sabres history—from 1974-75 to 1980-81 they were perennial post-season players, leading their division 3 times.

Compared to their initial struggles, the other bad seasons in Sabres history seem like minor speed-bumps. In 45 seasons, the Sabres ended up with fewer than 30 wins only 8 times—and two of those don’t really count (the lockout-shortened seasons of 1994-95 and 2012-13). The Sabres did have rough patches in the late ‘80s, and again in the early 2000s. In the mid-‘80s, they missed the playoffs for two consecutive seasons and ended 1986-87 with only 28 wins. From 2001-2004 they missed three consecutive playoffs. These, however, were isolated periods in an otherwise strong history. Before 2014-15, the Sabres had never missed the playoffs more than 3 seasons in a row—even when they were a brand new team.

Which brings around the question: Were the Sabres of the early ‘10s the worst team iteration? There’s no denying 2013-14 was their worst single season in history. Though they got fewer wins in 1971-72, they also played fewer games and had more ties. The 2013-14 Sabres ended their season with a winning percentage of only .317 (compared to .327 in 1971-72) and scored only 157 goals on the season, the fewest goals by the team in any full season. That’s an average of only 1.9 goals per game (for comparison, in 1971-72 the per-game average was 2.6). Taken as a whole, the Sabres from 2011-2015 had a record of 104-155-35, for a 4-year winning percentage of .413, narrowly edging out the Sabres from 1970-74 for last place—the team for those 4 seasons went 109-143-60, for .445. Of course, it’s a larger league and different game from the NHL of the ‘70s, but they stack up no better compared to the rest of the league They had the fewest wins (and most losses) of the entire NHL from 2011-2015, were last in goals scored, and were 28^th in goals against. They were, unequivocally, the worst team in the NHL in the early ‘10s.

It seems fair to say the Buffalo Sabres were at their worst from 2011-2015. It may provide Sabres fans some hope to think of the Chicago Blackhawks. From 2002-2007 they had one of the worst stretches in team history. They were last in their division twice, saw no post-season play, and had a 4-season winning percentage of .381. Chicago used their lean years to good advantage, picking up a new generation of stars with their high draft picks. By building a team around this young talent, they got back in playoff contention, and by 2010 had won the Stanley Cup. If nothing else, Sabres fans looking back at the early ‘10s can tell themselves there’s no way things could ever get much worse.