Have the Buffalo Sabres become the NHL’s version of the Pittsburgh Pirates?

The Buffalo Sabres’ history is starting to mirror that of another professional sports team. In recent seasons, the Blue and Gold have sent Jack Eichel to Vegas and Sam Reinhart to Florida, and one or the other has won the Stanley Cup in 2023 and 2024, respectively. And that’s not counting other former Sabres who have also won, like Kyle Okposo and Brandon Montour, to name a few.

This summer, they bought out Jeff Skinner and traded Matt Savoie, both of whom ended up with the Edmonton Oilers. We know that Skinner, despite the buyout, can still score 20-30 goals per season, and we saw him score 35 goals as recently as 2022-23. Savoie could also be playing his first NHL season.

While I was fine with trading him for Ryan McLeod, it still didn’t alleviate the nagging feeling in my mind that those two trades could have set the stage for Edmonton to hoist the Stanley Cup in June 2025. Add in the fact that the Sabres haven’t made the playoffs in 13 seasons and are once again playing in what might be the toughest division in the NHL, and you can’t help but wonder if the Blue and Gold are becoming the pro hockey version of a certain MLB team that wears black and gold.

I’m sure many Sabres fans support or at least follow the Pittsburgh Pirates to some extent, given the relative proximity between the City of Good Neighbors and the City of Steel. Regardless, you may know that the Pirates have already gone two decades without making the playoffs, and their current drought has lasted nine seasons after three consecutive playoff appearances between 2013 and 2015, which saw them play a total of eight postseason games.

And the list of players the Pirates had with them who won World Series or at least played for some sensational baseball teams between 1993 and 2012 is endless. One could write a book about the players Pittsburgh had at one point that their fans had to watch play for some of the best teams in MLB at the time, but hey, at least the Steelers and Penguins won a few championships, right?

This is one of those articles you really don’t want to write, but you can’t help but notice some weird parallels between the Sabres and Pirates lately. Sure, the lack of a salary cap in MLB is to blame for the latter, and we can’t say the same for the Sabres, but there are plenty of low-budget teams in baseball that have been to or even won the World Series.

But who knows? Maybe Skinner will falter in Edmonton, and maybe Savoie will underperform, and in hindsight, Kevyn Adams will look like he made two exceptional trades. I’m not mad at them – especially Skinner, who deserves to finally enjoy a playoff berth – but my point is, maybe the buyout and subsequent McLeod trade will immediately work in the Sabres’ favour?

We won’t really know until the 2030s who really won the Eichel, Reinhart and Savoie trades or if the Skinner buyout was ultimately a good idea. But for now, I see two championships for Vegas and Florida, and heading into the 2024-25 season, Edmonton will be a serious contender.

(Data provided by Hockey and Baseball-Reference)