Inside look at Buffalo Sabres

NHL.com is providing in-depth roster, prospect and fantasy analysis for each of its 32 teams from Aug. 1-Sept. 1. Today, the Buffalo Sabres.

When the Buffalo Sabres reached their locker room, in the minutes after their 2025-26 season had come to a close, most of them could barely speak. They were stunned, tearful, devastated, clearly a team that had expected more.

It said something for that team, and for future iterations of the Sabres, a team that had missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for 14 consecutive seasons before breaking through last season and making it to overtime of Game 7 against the Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Second Round, one goal from the Eastern Conference Final.

That feeling, that expectation, is exactly what Buffalo's young core is expecting to take into next season.

And while the Sabres experienced some significant losses in free agency -- a sign-and-trade with the Washington Capitals shipping forward Alex Tuch out and a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks finding a new home for defenseman Bowen Byram -- it’s the rest of the roster, so many of whom are young and on their way up, that see a window now fully wide open.

“Last season was just the first step,” Buffalo assistant general manager Josh Flynn said. “It was awesome to get over that hump. It was a great experience for all of our young core players. Now they know what it takes, they know how to win. They’ve been there, they’ve seen it.

“Look, the ultimate goal is to win the Stanley Cup, not just make it to Game 7 of the (Eastern Conference) second round. So they’ve gotten through one huge hurdle and now there’s that belief and knowledge that they can win and will continue to grow from there.”​

That starts with a group of young forwards that made a splash in their two rounds in the playoffs, including Zach Benson, who the Sabres signed to a seven-year, $52.5 million contract ($7.5 million average annual value) on June 24, Josh Doan, Noah Ostlund, Konsta Helenius and Jack Quinn, plus Jiri Kulich, the 22-year-old center who missed most of last season with a blood clot issue.

“We expect internal growth from not only the guys like Kulich and Helenius, who didn’t play much for us last year, but Benson’s going to take another step. We hope, and certainly believe, that he can do that,” Flynn said. “We have so many other guys that are in that under-25 age group -- Jack Quinn, Doan, Ostlund -- we haven’t even gotten to. They all have so much room for growth.”

Which is why Buffalo felt it could move forward and move ahead, even without Tuch or Byram, the latter of whom the Sabres felt they adequately replaced with the acquisitions of defenseman Olen Zellweger, who came in a trade for a second-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft and prospect Anton Wahlberg, and defenseman Louis Crevier, who came in the Byram trade, along with the No. 4 (Daxon Rudolph) and No. 45 (traded to Anaheim Ducks) picks in the 2026 NHL Draft.

“It’s hard to balance giving those guys the opportunity and keeping your veterans in place,” Flynn said. “You have a 23-man roster, you can only (play) 12 forwards, there has to be room for these guys to get their opportunity.”

This season, there will be that opportunity.

Tage Thompson, who turns 29 on Oct. 30, figures to be one of the oldest players, if not the oldest, in the team’s top nine, with many in the group born in 2001 or later. That’s a lot of young talent in the forward group.

And its talent that has gotten a taste of how good it can be, a belief that will be right there for them as they gather for training camp.

“We all felt it, right?” Flynn said. “You’re there, you’re in Game 7 in overtime and you’re one bounce of the puck away from moving on and everybody feels it, from the players all the way to every staff member, and I think we all walked out of there saying, 'Look, we were good enough to go right up against Carolina and give Carolina a run for their money (in the Eastern Conference Final).'

“Full credit to Montreal because they played a great series too, but we were right there with them. … To me, all it does is fuel our belief that we have turned the corner and we have what it takes.”

It now is not a matter of wondering if the Sabres were rebuilding in the right direction, if they were constructing a roster made up of the right pieces. Now, they know. They know what they can be. They’ve seen it.

“We’re excited,” Flynn said. “We’re excited about not just this year, but about what the next five or six years are going to hold for this organization. This last season was just the start and we had a lot of success, but the best is yet to come.”