Close your eyes and imagine it’s 2011.
Instagram is brand new.
“Rolling in the Deep” by Adele isn’t retail store background noise yet.
The Buffalo Sabres made the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
No one thought at the time that it would take another 15 years for them to return, but a historic string of mismanagement, coaching carousel, and injuries paved the way for them to share the longest playoff drought in major sports with the New York Jets.
The Sabres make their return priced at 18/1 odds to win the Cup at FanDuel as they prepare to face Boston on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET. After winning their division for the first time since 2009-10, they’re heavily favored to eliminate the Bruins, who finished as the WC1.
Buffalo carries a -178 tag to advance to the second round, which is an implied probability of 64 percent.
The Sabres roster includes a total of six players who have played in a playoff game. The Bruins, who outperformed their expectations this year, have made the playoffs in all but three seasons since 2011, when they last hoisted Lord Stanley.
So we’re left wondering: is this a proper valuation by the sportsbooks, or is recency bias overly influencing the Sabres’ pricing?
There’s a lot of narrative involved here. Let’s start with the fact that the Sabres were dead-last in the Eastern Conference on Dec. 17. It looked like more of the same in Buffalo for the opening half, with injuries plaguing progress and ugly losses negating big wins.
That was when they fired Kevyn Adams as their GM, promoted Jarmo Kekalainen, and rode a 10-game win streak into the New Year.
Tage Thompson rose to bona fide stardom in the process, posting 59 points since the start of that win streak on Dec. 9.
The Sabres became just the fifth team in NHL history to clinch a division title after erasing an eight-point-or-greater deficit in the standings.
With both the Rangers and Islanders’ omission from the playoffs, the Sabres get the New York State spotlight to themselves.
Sure, they shoot the puck and score goals at a top-tier rate. It’s 5-on-5 play that carries the most weight, and in that department, they finished the year at 15th and 17th overall in expected goals and shot attempt differential, per MoneyPuck.
Beyond that, the Sabres’ power play was 21st overall. It was often stagnant, had a predictable setup, poor zone entries, and failed to execute high shot quality from the slot.
Goaltending is paramount in the playoffs, and there are four combined games of experience between their three goaltenders — all of which belong to Alex Lyon, who posted a .888 save percentage and 3.63 GAA with the Panthers in 2023.
Betting on the NHL?
Goalie tandems — a Lindy Ruff fixture — can work in the regular season, but history doesn’t support them in the playoffs. The Penguins pulled it off with Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray in 2016-17 as reigning champions, but before that, it hadn’t happened since the 1971-72 Bruins with Gerry Cheevers and Eddie Johnston.
The Sabres have surely earned their keep by cultivating what they never had in those lost seasons: culture and identity. They’ve played responsible hockey with a young roster whose depth has matured through marinating in the basement of the NHL.
But the Sabres’ swords aren’t sharp enough to justify their $3 million share of Polymarket’s $66.7 million total Stanley Cup trading volume — the fourth-largest among all teams.
Why Trust New York Post Betting
Sean Treppedi handicaps the NFL, NHL, MLB and college football for the New York Post. He primarily focuses on picks that reflect market value while tracking trends to mitigate risk.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
