BUFFALO – During those dark days, when doubt and negativity could creep in, Sabres stars Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch would often stay positive by talking about the talent that surrounded them.
They had too much of it for the losing to drag on forever. Players possessed maturity – a strong work ethic and desire to improve – to complement their skill.
Sooner or later, the Sabres had to start winning, right?
“Something we talked about a lot is the ability that we have in this room to turn it around and find a way to get ourselves back in the playoffs,” Thompson said following Thursday’s practice of his chats with Dahlin. “We knew it was just a matter of time if we did the right things and put in the work that we’d find ourselves there.”
On Sunday, at what promises to be a raucous KeyBank Center, the Sabres will host the Boston Bruins and play their first game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2011.
Dahlin, the Sabres’ captain and longest-tenured player alongside Thompson, their leading scorer and top center, never lost hope the day would come.
“We just knew we had to grind every single day to make it work and make it happen,” Dahlin said Thursday. “You can’t go your whole career without turning it around, so we kind of knew eventually it was going to turn around. We have so much talent in this in this room, so that was what gave us hope.”
Ending their record stretch of futility in grand style by going on a fourth-month heater and winning the ultra-competitive Atlantic Division only adds more intrigue.
The Sabres are a 50-win, 109-point team. Since Dec. 9, they’ve compiled a stunning 39-9-5 record.
They might be good enough to win the whole darn thing.
Of course, 15 Sabres, some of whom will be scratched for the opening-round series, have never experienced the NHL postseason.
Dahlin, 26, and Thompson, 28, combined to play 1,074 games over eight seasons before cracking the playoffs.
“It’s sad not to have any but now, finally, it’s been a grind,” Dahlin said. “It hasn’t been easy, but I can only speak for Tage. I mean, he’s so deserving of it. So many ups and downs and so many (lousy) years but now finally we did it. It’s unreal to be in the playoffs now.”
The Sabres possess some postseason experience, mind you. Defensemen Bowen Byram won the Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. Defenseman Luke Schenn won twice with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Tuch, goalie Alex Lyon and center Ryan McLeod have all played in the final.
Coach Lindy Ruff believes the Sabres’ performance over the final weeks – they kept rattling off wins as opponents were gunning for them – illustrates any inexperience might be a non-factor.
“This group got us here,” he said Wednesday. “You could say maybe the inexperience would hurt us down stretch, but you look at what that group did, and we were under pressure and under the gun to maintain a high level of play, and we were able to maintain a high enough level of play to (finish in first place).”
Ruff said “the only way to get experience is to do what we did in the regular season to get there.”
“I believe in our group, and some of them are younger, some of them have a little bit of experience,” he said. “But they handled all the pressure situations. When we needed to win games, the group came up.”
That the Sabres will play the Bruins, their Adams Division foe in 1980s and early 1990s, seems fitting.
The Sabres have enjoyed few rivalries over the last decade and a half because they’ve usually been mired at or near the bottom of the standings.
“When you’re not in the playoffs, you’re really not developing (rivalries),” Ruff said. “It might take just one play inside the game to develop bad blood. We’ll wait and see what that what is or if that comes about.”
Fisticuffs and black-and-blue hockey usually transpired in Ruff’s playing days as the Sabres and Bruins became bitter rivals, with Boston winning all four playoff series in the 1980s.
“You go way back, it was a lot of tough guys on both teams,” he said. “I can tell you that it was like an arms race. Whoever could have the better arms, they would load up. We would load up, and it would get pretty ugly.”