As the Sabres look ahead to the 2026-27 season, Pat LaFontaine still stands out as one of the franchise’s biggest what-ifs. Buffalo has plenty of them, but this one hits especially hard: what if injuries never stole so much of LaFontaine’s prime?
The answer starts with the moment he arrived in Buffalo. Ahead of the 1991-92 season, the Sabres landed LaFontaine from the New York Islanders in a blockbuster deal that sent former No. 1 overall pick Pierre Turgeon the other way. LaFontaine was already a proven star, coming off a pair of seasons earlier when he put up 54 goals and 105 points.
He wasted no time making the Sabres his team. In his first season in Buffalo, LaFontaine scored 46 goals and totaled 93 points in only 57 games.
The next year, he and Alexander Mogilny became one of the most dangerous combinations in the league. Mogilny scored 76 goals, and LaFontaine finished second in NHL scoring with 148 points.
Even with injuries following him through much of his Buffalo run, LaFontaine still showed what made him special. In 1995-96, he played 76 games, scored 40 goals and finished with 91 points, a reminder that he was still a top-tier center when he could stay on the ice.
But the injury list is impossible to ignore. A broken jaw cost him time in his first season.
A knee injury wiped out all but 16 games of the 1993-94 campaign. Then came the concussions, the issue that ultimately ended his career far too soon.
At the start of the 1996-97 season, LaFontaine - who had already sustained undocumented concussions - absorbed a heavy hit from Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Francois Leroux, and his head struck the ice. The result was severe post-concussion syndrome.
He played in only 13 games that season, and the Sabres urged him to retire at 31. Instead, he kept going, and Buffalo traded him to the New York Rangers.
After a solid 1997-98 season, he finally listened to those recommendations and called it a career.
That’s where the Sabres’ own history gets even more interesting. In the late 1990s, Buffalo became known as a defensive team built around the best goaltender in the world. Ownership was dealing with financial problems, which led to Mogilny being sent to the Vancouver Canucks in a deal that brought back Michael Peca.
If LaFontaine stays healthy and remains in the fold, the picture changes. He gives Buffalo a true No. 1 center, something the team wouldn’t really solve until Daniel Briere filled that role.
He would have been entering his 30s with what might have been five to seven strong years left. Maybe that extra offense is enough to push the Sabres through the playoffs.
Maybe the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals look very different with a 34-year-old LaFontaine still scoring.
Instead, his career became another painful entry in Buffalo’s long list of near-misses and setbacks. LaFontaine retired early, later becoming both a cautionary tale and an advocate for stronger concussion research. And for Sabres fans, he remains part of a golden offensive pairing that kept the city buzzing during a time when the Bills ruled Buffalo.
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The next stretch now carries real weight for him. Buffalo is expected to watch closely through offseason work, training camp and preseason as it tries to determine whether Carrick can be part of the long-term answer before he reaches unrestricted free agency in 2027. For a team looking for dependable depth and more physical presence down the middle, his availability and how he looks in those settings may end up shaping whether this becomes a short stay or something more lasting. [Read more 🡒]