The Buffalo Sabres spent Tuesday morning taking aim at the rest of the NHL, and the Detroit Red Wings ended up in the crosshairs.
Fresh off ending a 14-year postseason drought, Buffalo’s social media team leaned into the moment with a string of “Round 1” through “Round 6” posts that used Ticketmaster links as part of the joke. The team framed the whole thing as a meme rollout tied to the impending schedule release, and the result was a broadside at rival clubs that fans quickly noticed.
The opening post set the tone.
“Hello, it’s me. Sabres admin,” began the introductory post on X, the social media site once known as Twitter.
“The offseason is draggin, and I have a lot of pent-up meme-ergy. I figured the impending schedule release would be the perfect time to flex my muscles a bit.
“And so, I present to you, our opponents in memes.”
Among the targets was Detroit, which Buffalo compared not to the Winnipeg Jets, but to the New York Jets. In the meme, a young man looks at a blurry New York Jets logo, puts on his glasses, and realizes it’s actually the Red Wings logo.
That jab lands because the football Jets have gone 15 straight years without making the playoffs, and last season they finished 3-14 under head coach Aaron Glenn, the former defensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions. They won only two home games.
The comparison also ties into a broader punch line around the Jets’ recent struggles, including their 10th straight losing season and a year in which they forced just four turnovers, the fewest since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. They also did not record an interception, something that had never happened since the NFL began tracking interceptions in 1933.
The Sabres’ post drew plenty of reaction, with fans pointing out specific shots at Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche.
Detroit’s situation is still ugly by NHL standards - the Red Wings have missed the playoffs for 10 years - but Buffalo’s joke was built around the idea that the New York Jets are on another level of misery entirely.
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