The Buffalo Sabres may have found something more valuable than a hot streak or a few extra wins: a locker room players actually want to be part of.
That matters in the NHL, especially for a team that spent so long in a playoff drought that it became difficult to sell players on the destination at all. For years, Buffalo regularly showed up on no-trade lists, and that reality narrowed the Sabres’ options whenever a deal was on the table.
But after the season they put together - one that ended the drought and carried them to the second round of the NHL Playoffs - the conversation around the organization has shifted. Agent Todd Diamond said the real difference wasn’t just the results. It was the feel of the group.
"I think the key thing for the guys from watching it from afar and a little bit closely, that they really enjoyed winning. The camaraderie was real and the group was, you could tell they were really tight," Diamond said.
"At the end of the day, winning is the only thing that matters. When you're dealing with high-level athletes, there has to be that commitment to winning.
Most importantly, I think you have to enjoy it. I could point to a couple of teams maybe around the league where they're successful, but it's too medicinal.
It's not maybe natural winning."
That idea has come up before. In April, Luke Schenn described how quickly he noticed the difference after the Jets traded him to Buffalo. He pointed to how connected the players were, saying:
“I think guys really care for one another. That’s one of the things I experienced when I was in Tampa - how close the guys were off the ice," Schenn explained.
"Guys wanted to be around each other, you’re doing massive dinners instead of little groups and cliques. When you get back from dinner, guys are still wanting to hang out."
For the Sabres, that kind of bond wasn’t manufactured. It came from going through the grind together, season after season, with no safety net.
Players like Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch, and Mattias Samuelsson lived through multiple seasons of it and had no choice but to lean on each other. That shared experience helped the group grow together, and once the wins came, it gave the team a base strong enough to keep building on.
Now that same quality could become a real selling point.
There are already players who reportedly would be willing to waive a no-trade clause to go to Buffalo, including Connor Hellebuyck. That’s a big change from the way things used to look.
The next challenge for general manager Jarmo Kekalainen is keeping that atmosphere intact. Diamond’s point is the key one: some teams collect talent and expect winning to happen because of it, but that doesn’t create the same kind of environment Buffalo had last season.
The Sabres already cleared the hardest hurdle by ending the drought. Now they have to carry that forward into 2026-27. With most of the roster still in place, they’ll try to preserve the tight-knit feel that helped them get here - and that could give Kekalainen a better chance to make the right trades when the moment comes.
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