The last time the Buffalo Sabres made the NHL playoffs, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was playing with the Red Deer Rebels in the Western Hockey League and would be drafted first overall two months later. The year was 2011.

There isn’t a fan base in the salary cap era that relates more to the current struggles of the Sabres than Edmonton Oilers fans. But the Decade of Darkness (2007-2016), when Edmonton missed the playoffs for 10 consecutive seasons, pales in comparison to Sabres fans’ heartache as they’ve watched their team miss the playoffs the past 14 seasons, and today they are in last place in the Eastern Conference and well on their way to a 15th consecutive playoff-less campaign.

Of the 793 active players in the NHL (minimum five GP this season), 57 of them were in the NHL the last time the Sabres made the playoffs. Which means 92.82 percent of active NHL players haven’t played when the Sabres made the postseason. Here are some other things that happened in 2011.

Corey Perry led the NHL with 50 goals and 98 points in 2011.

Alex Ovechkin finished the 2011 season with 301 career goals. He now has 911.

Vancouver won the President’s Trophy with 117 points, 10 more than any other team, and lost in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

The Oilers finished 30th with 62 points. New Jersey won the draft lottery and moved up from 8th to 4th, while Edmonton retained the #1 pick.

The terms LOL and OMG were officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The top song was We Found Love by Rihanna.

Minecraft was released.

Steve Jobs, Amy Winehouse and Elizabeth Taylor passed away.

Osama bin Laden was killed.

The final episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired.

Game of Thrones premiered on HBO.

Fast forward to today and the Sabres will play their 1,105th game (and counting) without making the playoffs. RNH will skate in his 980th regular season game. He’s also played 96 playoff games. Gilbert Perrault holds the Sabres’ record for most playoff games played with 90. RNH is tied with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl for 11th most playoff games played in Oilers history.

Historically and recently Oilers fans have enjoyed much more success than Sabres fans. Oilersnation gets upset when the team has a slow start (which is understandable), but since the Decade of Darkness ended, Oilers fans have witnessed McDavid and Draisaitl produce the most regular season points, and most playoff points, as they rank first and second in both. Edmonton has played the fourth most playoff games the last nine seasons with 96 behind only Dallas (103), Vegas (106) and Tampa Bay (108) and will add to that total in April.

As you sit down to watch the Oilers and Sabres play tonight, be thankful your team managed to pull themselves out of the ditch after a decade of losing, while the Sabres continue digging themselves a deeper hole.

SNAPSHOTS…

— Buffalo ranks 18th in GF/GP (2.97) and 30th in goals against at 3.55. They’ve lost the first three games of this road trip by scores of 5-2 in Philadelphia, 4-1 in Winnipeg and 7-4 last night in Calgary. Colten Ellis started in Philly, while Ukko-Pekka Luukonen started the last two games. Alex Lyon was the backup in all three and he played the third period of last night’s game after Luukonen allowed five goals on 22 shots in the first 40 minutes. Lyon has only started one of the Sabres past 12 games, even though he started 12 of their first 17 games. He got pulled in his 12th start after allowing two goals on the first three shots. He’s only started once since and allowed five goals on 23 shots. Will the Sabres start him or Ellis tonight? Ellis has seven NHL appearances on his resume. He’s made two starts since November 20th. Lyon leads the Sabres trio with zero goals saved above expected. Ellis is -1.5 while Luukonen is -2.4. The Sabres aren’t very good defensively.

— Alex Tuch leads the Sabres with 25 points and his second with 10 goals. If he decides not to re-sign, he’d be one of the most sought-after trade deadline acquisitions. If the Sabres retain 50 percent of his salary, he’d be a $2.375m cap hit in the playoffs. His cap hit will be very manageable for teams, including the Oilers, who would be looking to acquire him.

— The Sabres have given the Oilers problems during the McDavid-Draisaitl era. The Oilers have only won eight of 19 games going 8-7-4. McDavid has 19 points in 17 games, while Draisaitl has 18 points in 20 career games. They’ve had one dominant game, when McDavid had four assists and Draisaitl scored 1-2-3 and the Oilers won 8-3 in Edmonton on March 21st, 2024.

— The Oilers are 4-1-1 on home ice in their last six games against the Sabres and outscored them 28-15. However, they’ve only won once in Buffalo in their last six games. This is a game Edmonton should win, and needs to win, as starting this Saturday, they have a stretch of six games in nine nights in six different cities.

— Adam Henrique made his NHL debut the last time the Sabres made the playoffs in 2010-11. Henrique played one game on April 10th. He did score 25-25-50 in 73 AHL games that season.

— McDavid needs one even strength point to move ahead of Jari Kurri (724) for second most in Oilers history. Kurri had 724 EV points in 754 games. Tonight is McDavid’s 742nd game. He’s still got work to do to catch Wayne Gretzky’s 1,122.

— Kevin Woodley was on my show yesterday and brought up a talking point that was made last week, but Stephen Valiquette, regarding Jordan Binnington and Stuart Skinner.

I wanted to go back to some comments that were made by Stephen Valiquette last week, because a few of people got up in my mentions about my appearances here on your show. Steve went on a show and said that Jordan Binnington plugged into Edmonton’s environment would save the Oilers 16 goals this season.
Now listen, I work with the numbers at Clear Side Analytics, and Stephen Valiquette is frankly brilliant, and his systems are brilliant, and I’ve said for years, that if the Oilers listened to some of those numbers, they wouldn’t have done the Jack Campbell experiment, they would have had upgraded backup goaltending, they might even have a cup by now.
But the caveat I really wanted to throw out there, when Stephen comes on and says, hey, if they had Binnington, it’s based on a model they use called crease swap. And so, crease swap basically takes a goalie from another team, and statistically places him in the other environment, and sees what the results are.
Now, the part that doesn’t get mentioned is when you perform that crease swap metric, the goalie going into the current environment, he’s calculated based on this season, and last season.
So, when he said 16 goals, he meant that’s Binnington last year and this year. And at this point, that is basically mostly last year, right? Because we’re not even a third of the way into this season. Binnington last year and Binnington this year are not the same.
That said, he’s got a track record. For those who were all over me saying I defend Skinner too much, when he said it was 16 goals. Of those 16, six were Stuart Skinner, and 10 were Calvin Pickard in terms of what Binnington would upgrade.
I ran the numbers back on a napkin, manually and didn’t include last season. I only used this season and based on this season’s results, just Skinner, just Binnington, Jordan would have given up, based on shot quality and types of chances, 14 more goals to this point this season behind the Edmonton Oilers than Stuart Skinner has.
So, listen, I don’t think I’ve ever come on here and said that career-wise and overall, Binnington isn’t a better goaltender than Stuart Skinner. We saw what he did at the Four Nations, but this year has not been great for him. And there is a risk there. And when people sort of pounce on that one number and that one metric, you need to understand it’s based on last season as well.

— My take on Binnington is that he’d be a huge risk at this point. If you had him and Skinner, I could see it, but trading him for Skinner today makes little sense for the Oilers. Now, if Binnington goes to the Olympics, and plays —which is far from a guarantee the way Logan Thompson is playing — and plays well, then Edmonton would have to reconsider acquiring him. Analysis on players is always evolving and moving. Binnington had a great final game at the 4-Nations. His first three games he didn’t have a save percentage above .900. And this regular season he has not played very well at all. He’s near the bottom in goals saved above expected as well as save percentage. And he makes $6-million compared to Skinner’s $2.6-million. Until Binnington has a stretch of solid games, I see no reason why the Oilers would look at him. There are other goalies playing better, who have a lower AAV.

— I still think the more prudent move would be to add a goalie to push/challenge/complement Skinner, so they have two options in the playoffs. I’ve yet to see a goalie in trade rumours who is a guaranteed upgrade. Tristan Jarry has played very well this season, but he’s only started 12 games. I’d want to see more before I acquire him straight across for Skinner. Jarry has won two playoff games in his career. If you had Skinner and Jarry, that could work out well, but I’d need to see another 20 solid starts from Jarry before I’d even consider a swap of Skinner. Skinner has had ups and downs, no question, but he’s also had stretches where he’s played quite well in the playoffs.

LINEUPS…

Oilers…

RNH – McDavid – Hyman
Podkolzin – Draisaitl – Savoie
Janmark – Henrique – Mangiapane
Frederic – Lazar – Tomasek

Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – Regula
Kulak – Emberson

Skinner

No lineup changes for the Oilers. They are starting to get some bottom six contributions, while their top lines are producing much more. And the power play has been outstanding the past four games clicking at 63.6 percent with seven goals on 11 chances. Meanwhile the Sabres’ penalty kill is 69.2 percent in their last four games allowing four goals on 13 kills.

Sabres…

Greenway-Thompson-Tuch
Benson- Norris-Doan
Malenstyn-McLeod-Quinn
Kozak-Krebs-Dunne

Samuelsson-Dahlin
Power-Bryson
Byram-Timmins

Lyon

Sabres didn’t skate this morning, but Jason Zucker was injured in Calgary last night, so Joshua Dunne will draw in and the Sabres will have to adjust their bottom six. The goalie is just a projection based on last night’s lineup and the fact Lyon hasn’t started in many games and today is his 33rd birthday.

TONIGHT…

GDB Photoshop Stan Bowman Edmonton Oilers Buffalo Sabres

Photoshop by Tom Kostiuk

GAME DAY PREDICTION: Edmonton wins three consecutive games for the first time this season and picks up a 6-2 victory.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Oilers score two power play goals.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Andrew Mangiapane scores his first goal in 16 games.

MONTH OF GIVING…

Thanks to Jim for his awesome bid on the A-1 Heating package yesterday.

DAY SEVEN: The Brick Fan Package

A $2500 gift card from the Brick. https://thebrick.com/. Buy whatever you wish.
The 75 Inch LG UHD AI UA70 4k Smart TV 2025. Fantastic picture quality.

You can bid via text between 2-6 p.m. on Sports 1440 by texting 833.401.1440 (can call the same number) and include your name and donation amount. All money raised will go Santas Anonymous.

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