Buffalo Sabres

Team information

• Inaugural season: 1970
• Home arena: KeyBank Center, Buffalo, New York
• Owner: Terrence Pegula
• Team colors: Navy blue, gold, and silver

Overview

The Buffalo Sabres is an American team playing in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL), which it has been a part of since 1970. The team’s name was chosen from a contest during which four entrants suggested “Sabres.” The original team owners wanted a name other than the obvious “buffalo” or “bisons” nicknames used by other sports teams based in the city, including Buffalo’s American Hockey League (AHL) franchise, the Bisons. Knox saw the term “sabre” as representing the weapon carried by a leader, a weapon that was used for both offense and defense. Although the team outlived the Buffalo Braves, the National Basketball Association (NBA) team that started the same year, success on the ice was limited during the team’s first fifty years in existence. Eleven former Sabres have been inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame, but the team played more than five decades without winning the Stanley Cup, the league’s championship. Since 1996, it has played in the KeyBank Center. Due to the arena’s proximity to the US/Canadian border and the team’s international fan base, all Sabres home games are preceded by the playing of the national anthems of both countries.

History

In 1970, the NHL was ready for its second wave of expansion since 1967. Two teams were added for the 1970–1971 season: the Sabres and the Vancouver Canucks. The original owners were Seymour Knox, Northup Knox, and Robert O. Swados.

The Sabres were not the first professional hockey team to play in Buffalo. They were preceded by two teams that were both known as the Buffalo Bisons. The first Bisons played in the Canadian Professional Hockey League from 1926 until 1936. This was followed by an AHL franchise known as the Buffalo Bisons that played from 1940 until 1970. The Bisons, who played in the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium—the “Aud” to Buffalo fans—won the AHL Calder Cup championship in 1970 before being disbanded to make room for the Sabres. In establishing the Sabres, the Knoxes and Swados chose to exercise the NHL option that allows new franchises to establish a minor league “farm” team in the AHL, the Cincinnati Swords. The team would eventually have two minor league affiliates: the Rochester Americans in the AHL and the Cincinnati Cyclones in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL).

The team’s debut on home ice came on October 10, 1970, when the Sabres took to the ice to the “Sabre Dance,” an excerpt from the 1942 ballet “Gayane” by Soviet Amanian composer Aram Khachaturian. The song has remained a staple at Sabres games ever since and is played frequently at the beginning of games and following home team goals.

The first goal ever scored by a Sabre was put in the net by Gilbert Perreault, a former junior standout center who would go on to play his entire seventeen-year career in Buffalo. The Sabres signed Perreault as a result of a special 1970 Amateur Draft pick awarded to them and the Canucks as expansion teams. To determine which team would go first, a roulette wheel was spun and landed on number 11, which had been assigned to the Sabres. Perreault, who had worn 11 on his jersey during his junior career, continued to wear that number for the Sabres.

The Sabres struggled in their first year, but they saw their prospects improve in the second year with the drafting of rookie Rick Martin and the addition of Rene Robert through a trade. Along with Perreault, these two players of French-Canadian heritage became known as the “French Connection.” Their play led to the Sabres’ first playoff appearance in 1972–1973, but they failed to advance past the eventual Stanley Cup champion, the Montreal Canadians.

In 1975, the Sabres made it to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in a series that included a legendary game known as the Fog Game. Game three of the finals was played on May 20, 1975. It was 82 degrees F (27.8 C) with above-average humidity, and the Aud was not air conditioned. The combination resulted in a thick fog that limited the players’ view and completely obscured the ice from spectators. Eventually, the game ended with a 5–4 Sabres win in overtime. However, they lost the series a week later. It would be their last appearance in the finals for twenty-four years.

During the first period of the Fog Game, a bat swooped down on the players. Sabre Jim Lorentz knocked the bat out of the air with his stick, and it was removed from the ice. It is the only known time that an animal was killed during an NHL game. Lorentz carried the nickname “Batman” for the rest of his career.

In the early 1980s, the league realigned its divisions, assigning the Sabres to the Adams Division in the Prince of Wales Conference. Although the Sabres fielded many strong teams during this time, they had difficulty getting past perennial powerhouse teams such as the Montreal Canadians and Boston Bruins. Their luck improved in the 1990s with the signing of forward Pat LaFontaine and goalie Dominik Hasek. This combination brought the team an upset win over the Bruins in the 1993 Division semi-finals, but it lost to the Canadians in the division finals. Between 1987–1988 and 2000–2001, the Sabres only missed the playoffs once in 1995–1996. However, their only appearance in the Stanley Cup final series came in 1998–1999 when they lost four games to two to the Minnesota Stars.

Their best overall record during this time came in 1996–1997, when they finished at the top of the Northeast division. The Sabres repeated this feat in 2006–2007 and 2009–2010. After appearances in the division quarterfinals in 2010 and 2011, they failed to qualify for the playoffs in the remainder of the 2010s and early 2020s.

Notable players

As the first player ever to score for the Sabres, Perreault played a total of 1,191 games with the team, notching 512 goals and 814 assists. Seven of those points came in one game. Perreault was awarded the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year and the Lady Byng award for sportsmanship. He has been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame along with his French Connection teammates. The long-time team captain was a perennial All Star and the only Sabre ever to wear number 11, as it was retired to honor his career.

Other retired numbers for the Sabres belonged to French Connection line mates Rick Martin and Rene Robert. Martin played for ten seasons with the Sabres before moving to the Los Angeles Kings and finishing his professional career with 384 goals and 317 assists in a total of 685 games. Robert played eight seasons with the Sabres before moving to the Colorado Rockies for the 1979–1980 season and was the team’s first player to have a 100-point season in 1974–1975.

Another 1970s-era player with a retired number is Danny Gare, who played for the Sabres between 1974 and 1982. He took Robert’s place on the French Connection line during Sabres power plays and holds the team record for being the quickest player to score a goal in his first game. He scored this goal with just 18 seconds into his first shift with the Sabres in 1974.

Two players from the Sabres’ strong 1990s seasons are also represented with retired numbers. LaFontaine and Hasek each had his jersey retired in 2006 and 2015, respectively.

With the team from 1991 to 1997, LaFontaine averaged 1.17 points per game, the best among all American-born NHL players. His career was ended by post-concussion syndrome in 1997. Since then, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor Society Patriot Award for his work building military morale and several awards from his humanitarian work. He served as Sabres president of hockey operations for a time and is in the Buffalo, United States, and Hockey Halls of Fame.

Czech-born Hasek played for the Sabres from 1992 and 2001. He won the Vezina Trophy awarded to the NHL’s outstanding goaltender six times in his eight seasons with the Sabres and was chosen to represent the Sabres in the All-Star game six times as well. In 1997 and 1998, he won the Hart Trophy for most valuable player (MVP) in the regular season and in 1994, he posted a staggering 70 saves in an Eastern Conference Quarterfinals game against the New Jersey Devils.

The Sabres also retired the number of Tim Horton, a Hall of Fame defenseman and founder of the Tim Horton chain of restaurants. His two years with the Sabres in 1973 and 1974 were the last of his NHL career, which began in 1951 with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Horton died in a single-vehicle, driving-under-the-influence (DUI) accident at the age of forty-four in 1974.

Clint Malarchuk also made his mark on the Sabres in part because of an accident. On March 22, 1989, Malarchuk was in net for the Sabres in a game against the St. Louis Blues when a collision near the net sent the blade of a skate across his neck. The skate left a 6-inch gash that severed Malarchuk’s carotid artery and narrowly missed slicing his jugular. Team trainer Jim Pizzatelli quickly applied pressure and helped Malarchuk off the ice, which was covered in a pool of his blood. Despite nearly bleeding to death and needing three hundred stitches inside and out to close the wounds, Malarchuk left the hospital the next day and was back with the team ten days later.

Bibliography

Associated Press. "Owner Pegula Dissolves Buffalo Sabres,' Bills' Parent Company." ESPN, 28 Aug. 2023, www.espn.com/nhl/story/‗/id/38277804/owner-pegula-dissolves-buffalo-sabres-bills-parent-company. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“Buffalo Sabres.” Hockey Reference, 2024, www.hockey-reference.com/teams/BUF/index.html. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“Buffalo Sabres.” Hockey Writers, thehockeywriters.com/category/buffalo-sabres/page/1/?source=cbbuf. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

“Buffalo Sabres.” NHL.com, 2024, www.nhl.com/sabres. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“Buffalo Sabres Team History.” Sports Team History, 2020, sportsteamhistory.com/buffalo-sabres. Accessed 18 Mar. 2020.

Harrington, Mike. “Sabres’ Fog Game had it all: Unforgettable Atmosphere, Iconic Goals, Odd Interruptions.” Buffalo News, 7 Oct. 2019, buffalonews.com/2019/10/02/fog-game-story-working-final-section/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

Kania, Melissa. “Buffalo Sabres History: Buffalo Bisons Hockey Rink.” Sabre Noise, 2016, sabrenoise.com/2016/03/17/buffalo-sabres-history-buffalo-bisons-hockey-rink/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

Malarchuk, Clint and Dan Robson. “Clint Malarchuk Details the Night He Nearly Bled to Death After Skate Gashed His Neck.” PostGame, 5 Feb. 2015, www.thepostgame.com/blog/throwback/201502/clint-malarchuk-nhl-matter-inches-survive-crease-goalie-skate-blood. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

Stainkamp, Mike. “A Brief History: Buffalo Sabres.” Bleacher Report, 5 Aug. 2010, bleacherreport.com/articles/430240-a-brief-history-buffalo-sabres. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.