Stars Squelch Sabres Win Streak On New Year’s Eve

The first half of the Buffalo Sabres regular season was littered with a series of short winning and losing streaks before their 13-game winless skid stretched from late November to just before the Christmas break. The Sabres have been unable to put together a winning streak longer than three games, and in their final game of 2024, their latest three-game winning streak ended with a 4-2 loss to the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center.

The Sabres rebounded twice in quick fashion from Dallas goals, as Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson tallies were followed in short order by Jason Zucker and Beck Malenstyn, but they could not manage a response to Wyatt Johnston’s game-winner midway through the third period.

Buffalo only managed 23 shots on Dallas backup Casey DeSmith, while Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen faced 33 in his fourth straight start.

“(The Stars) push in the third was better than ours,” Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff said after the game. “They had three or four chances before they scored, and we made costly mistakes that cost us goals.”

The loss lowers Buffalo’s record to 14-20-4, and eight points in back of Ottawa for the final Eastern Conference wildcard spot, but the daunting fact for the Sabres is that both Tampa Bay (42 points) and Ottawa (40 points) have a significant number of games in hand and that there are seven teams in between Buffalo and the two wildcard spots.

Buffalo will continue their four-game road swing on Thursday in Denver against the Avalanche, before finishing in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

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The 13 game winless streak has taken them completely out of the playoff race. They, you know, I believe Money Puck has them at 3% chance of making the playoff. So I, you know, if they can have an eight game winning streak and they're still not going to be within five or six points, any realistic person looking at this team sees that there's talent there, but is there enough talent in the right places to make them a winner? Obviously they know they're going to be a team that will miss the playoffs for 14 straight years. I don't think there's a chance in hell. If they do, I will be the first person to say, Oh my God, what a great comeback. They could do what St. Louis did in 2019. That's happened once in my lifetime when a team was 30, 30, it was last place in the league and came back, made the playoffs and made them win the Stanley cup. I don't think this team has what it takes to do the same thing. So all I can say is what changes are going to be made between now and March the 7th when it comes to the Sabres. And I think the ownership where, you know, Corinne was making the point about Terry Pagoola, this is where the ownership needs to make up their mind. Is Kevin Adams the guy to make these changes?