The Trend Line · 2026-27 · awaiting opening night

Buffalo Sabres

State of the teamBuffalo's long nightmare ended: a 109-point season got the Sabres back to the playoffs for the first time since 2011, snapping the longest playoff drought in NHL history at 14 years. They went a round further, upsetting Boston before falling to Montreal in a seven-game second-round series. The turnaround followed a midseason shake-up — GM Kevyn Adams was fired in December and replaced by Jarmo Kekäläinen — and a Tage Thompson-led surge up the standings. The good feeling did not survive the summer: unable to keep Alex Tuch, Buffalo signed him to an eight-year, $84 million contract and immediately traded him to Washington for a 2027 third-round pick and the negotiating rights to David Kampf. Bowen Byram went to Chicago in the deal that brought back the No. 4 pick, used on Daxon Rudolph. The new season starts tracking here at puck drop.
75
2021-22
91
2022-23
84
2023-24
79
2024-25
109
2025-26
?
2026-27
01

Team Points Pace

Cumulative standings points through each game of the season, one colour per year. The red line is this season. Toggle to season-total bars for the year-over-year story.

one colour per season · hover for game detail
02

Goals For & Against

Offence and defence, by season or game by game. Lower is better on goals against.

03

Player Production

Each column is a core player; each dot is one season. Red is this season. Toggle the metric; hover any dot for the full line.

red = current season · one colour per past year
04

Ice Time Tracker

Who's getting more ice time? Average minutes per game, season by season — the clearest read on who's gaining, and losing, the coach's trust. Flip to power-play time to see who's on the top unit. Add any skater on the roster; click a name in the legend to hide his line.

Minutes per game, from official NHL ice-time data.
05

Goaltending

Every goalie season, dot size scaled by games played.

06

Team Engine

Under-the-hood numbers, season by season: faceoffs, possession (SAT% is what the analytics crowd calls Corsi; Fenwick is the same idea minus blocked shots — above 50% means this team controls play), special teams, and shot rates.

07

Zone Time

Offensive-zone time is the why behind shot-attempt share (SAT%) above — a team that lives in the offensive zone out-attempts opponents. The line tracks how that's moved season by season; the bar is this year's split. Based on NHL player-tracking data.

No player-tracking zone data published for this team.
08

Make Your Own Card

Build a share-ready graphic from this team's live data and post it. Every card cites the data source.