1974-75: A record-setting season

Bill Hajt is speaking to a group of reporters inside the KeyBank Center media room. It's "1970s Night," and Hajt is one of several Sabres alumni in attendance to look back on the franchise's inaugural decade.
"You remember everything about your first year," Hajt says.
Hajt's first year was 1974-75. So, he remembers the Sabres struggling in exhibition play, and he remembers a mediocre start to the regular season. And he remembers the turning point, a 7-2 loss in Los Angeles on Oct. 24. He's only off by one when he recalls the shot count that night (55-31, in favor of the Sabres).

"That kind of hit everybody," Hajt said. "We've got a good hockey team here. We maybe didn't win, because [Kings goalie Rogie] Vachon stood on his head and [Sabres goalie Gary Bromley] didn't have a good game. But, we've got a good team here.
"We lost one of our next 22 hockey games. We just went on a tear. And from then on, we were in first place the rest of the year. It was just kind of the wake-up call."
Once again, Hajt's memory checks out. Following the loss to the Kings, the Sabres went 18-1-3 over their next 22 games, beginning with a 2-0 shutout in St. Louis. They later went on a 12-game unbeaten streak in February, which began with an 8-1 win over Kansas City in which they tallied 58 shots, a franchise record that remains intact today.
They won because they were balanced. It stared with the famed French Connection line of Rick Martin, Gilbert Perreault, and Rene Robert.

Perreault was, in the words of longtime play-by-play announcer Rick Jeanneret, "the straw that stirred the drink." He was unquestionably the team's best player, if not the best in Sabres history. When Perreault had the puck behind his own net, fans would stand in anticipation of an end-to-end rush while opposing players retreated to their own blue line.
Martin was a born goal scorer. It's what he loved to do. He crossed the blue line intent on getting the puck to the net, regardless of what it took to get it there. In 1974-75, Martin scored 52 goals for the second straight season.
Robert may have been the most defensively aware of the three, though he was an offensive talent in his own right. He could score goals and set up his linemates, and he had a knack for sneaking up on opponents by coming in behind the play. It was Robert who led the 1974-75 Sabres with 100 points.
But the team was more than just the French Connection. Off the ice, they were close like a family. On the ice, they were fiercely competitive, with each line trying to outdo the others. There were fights in practice. Players constantly pleaded with coach Floyd Smith for more ice time.
"Well, they were eager to play," Smith said. "Anybody who took a short shift and came over to the bench, it didn't make any difference who was going next. If you weren't ready to go, Martin was on the ice. They just wanted to play."
The "checking line" of Don Luce, Craig Ramsay, and Danny Gare - tasked with matching up with opponents' top lines - combined for 90 goals. The third line of Jim Lorentz, Rick Dudley, and Peter McNab scored 78.
In fact, the Sabres had six players score 30 or more goals - Martin (52), Robert (40), Perreault (39), Luce (33), Dudley (31), and Gare (31) - setting an NHL record that has since been matched only twice, by the 1977-78 New York Islanders and the 1984-85 Winnipeg Jets.
The team's 354 goals remain a franchise record.

On defense, the Sabres had a physically imposing pair in Jim Schoenfeld and Jerry Korab, a duo that Smith says "nobody in the league could challenge." They had Hajt, who teammates revere as one of the true underrated players in the franchise's history.
Schoenfeld mentions Lee Fogolin, the team's first-round pick that summer, who appeared in 50 games and added another physical presence. Hajt recalls the character that Larry Carriere, a second-round pick in 1972, brought to the back end. The Sabres also added Jocelyn Guevremont, an All-Star the year prior, in an October trade.
It all added up to a 49-16-15 record, good for 113 points and a first-place finish in the Adams Division. It's a franchise record that has only been matched by the Presidents' Trophy team of 2006-07.
Eight players - Robert, Martin, Luce, Dudley, Lorentz, Korab, Hajt, and forward Brian Spencer - posted the highest point totals of their careers.
"The better the team does collectively, the better you do as an individual," Lorentz said. "I think that's what we understood and that's what made us successful."