The Buffalo Sabres’ Only Hope for Success: Terry Pegula Must Sell the Team for Any Real Change to Happen

“The Sabres' dysfunction starts at the top, and without a change in ownership, this franchise will continue to flounder—Terry Pegula is the root cause of the team’s 14-year playoff drought.”

The Buffalo Sabres find themselves in a situation that feels all too familiar: a bad team that can’t seem to escape its endless cycle of failure. After another humiliating loss, this time a 5-0 defeat to the

New Jersey Devils on Friday afternoon, the Sabres remain at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, holding the worst record in the NHL. It’s been a dreadful season for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in over a decade—a franchise that has been sabotaged by one fundamental flaw: Terry Pegula’s ownership.

Ownership: The Root Cause of Buffalo’s Woes

The chants from frustrated fans in the arena after the game made it clear: they don’t want a new general manager. They don’t want another head coach. They want

Terry Pegula to sell the team.

Since Pegula took over the Sabres in February 2011, the team has had zero success. The one time the Sabres made the playoffs under his ownership was in 2011, where they were eliminated in the first round. Since then, the Sabres have not qualified for the postseason, marking the

longest playoff drought in the NHL and tying it with the New York Jets for the longest active playoff drought in professional sports. That’s 14 years of failure, with no end in sight.

While every other team in the league has managed to reach at least 14 playoff games since 2011—many even more than that—the Sabres remain stuck at zero. Their .454 points percentage

since the start of the 2011-12 season is the worst in the league, a clear indicator of systemic failure under Pegula’s leadership.

Pegula’s Mismanagement and the Cycle of Failure

During Pegula’s ownership, the Sabres have gone through

four general managers and eight head coaches, yet the team continues to regress. The roster has been rebuilt and retooled numerous times, but the results remain the same: failure. Despite having two No. 1 overall picks in Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power, as well as two No. 2 picks in Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel, the Sabres still can’t put together a competitive team.

The most painful part? Prominent former players have left Buffalo and immediately found success elsewhere, winning Stanley Cups with teams like the Vegas Golden Knights (Eichel), Florida Panthers (Reinhart, Montour), and

St. Louis Blues (O’Reilly). Meanwhile, the Sabres remain mired in mediocrity.

A Lack of Commitment to Winning

To make matters worse, Pegula has repeatedly failed to commit to building a competitive team. Despite having multiple holes in the lineup, the Sabres have failed to use their salary cap space effectively. For the second year in a row, the Sabres have more than

$5 million in cap space while the roster remains incomplete, highlighting a lack of ambition and commitment to fielding a winning team. This is a team with a fanbase that is desperately loyal but has been let down year after year by management that doesn’t seem to care enough to make meaningful changes.

A Call for Change

The Buffalo Sabres deserve better than what Pegula has provided. The fanbase deserves a team that can finally compete for a playoff spot, not one that continues to wallow in mediocrity and frustration. The only way for this team to finally turn things around is if

Terry Pegula steps away from ownership and allows new leadership to come in, with fresh ideas, a commitment to success, and the understanding that winning is about more than just making a few transactions—it’s about building a winning culture.

Until that happens, the Buffalo Sabres will continue to be a team that gets stuck in its past, unable to break free from the cycle of failure.