Sabres' losing streak reaches 11 games after latest humiliation

The Buffalo Sabres' 2024-25 season is going from bad to embarrassing. Their 6-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night was the latest humiliation.

It not only extended their current losing streak to 11 games, but it also came just 24 hours after team owner Terry Pegula flew to Montreal to meet the team, offering a vote of confidence to the entire organization that the answers for turning the season around were all in that locker room.

Those answers were not — and are not — in that locker room.

It is not just that the Sabres have lost 11 games in a row.

It is not just that they were blown out on Tuesday.

It is that they were blown out on Tuesday by a team that entered the night with the worst record in the Eastern Conference, and are now on their way to a 14th consecutive non-playoff season. Their playoff drought is already the longest in NHL history, and there does not appear to be any end in sight. 

With Tuesday's loss, the Sabres now find themselves in sole possession of last place in the Eastern Conference.

The question now becomes how long this has to continue before the Sabres make a bold trade or some sort of change to the general manager or coaching staff. 

General manager Kevyn Adams was thrust into the position four years ago with almost no meaningful team-building experience in the NHL. He has managed like it, putting together a flawed roster that has obviously not been good enough. 

They brought back head coach Lindy Ruff (the last coach to get Buffalo to the playoffs in 2010-11), but that has been nothing more than a trip down memory lane and hasn't done anything to improve the roster. The Sabres had six different coaches between Ruff's stops with the team, and none of them found success. So it's hard to put all of the blame on the coach. Plus, would Pegula actually fire him less than halfway through his first season back in Buffalo?

The biggest issue is probably Pegula himself, who has slashed the scouting and hockey operations budgets and saw the team enter this season — a season where they should have been desperate to make the playoffs — with more than $5 million in unused salary-cap space. 

When the general managers, coaches and players keep changing and the results remain the same, it is usually a good sign that the problem starts at the top. That will not stop Pegula from making another change at some point, but the results are likely to again remain the same.

As for this current streak, Buffalo's next two games are not going to get any easier with a home game against Toronto on Friday which is then followed by a road game at Boston. That home game against Toronto could be especially ugly. Not only because of enraged and frustrated Sabres fans, but also because their arena might get taken over by Maple Leafs fans.