There’s a May Day/John Gurtler/Machinehead/Buffalo Blizzard amount of 90s going around with simulation-based projection models and the Buffalo Sabres, and combined with what feels like the most caution towards being optimistic from the fanbase going into the 2025-26 season, it feels like a bit of a strange clash.

So let’s meet the models:

DoNotTail (Vlad)	91.2	8.0
The Athletic (Dom)	90.1	8.5
HockeyViz (Micah)	92	8.5
Evolving Hockey (Twins)	98.8	8.3

As a reminder, probability density functions determine the probability that a random variable takes a given value – so in the context of this exercise, the probability that the Sabres finish with a specific number of points. With each of the projection simulations, we can calculate the probability that the Sabres reach or exceed a given point total.

	Probability of > 79 Points	Probability of > 90 Points
DoNotTail (Vlad)	93.64%	51.00%
The Athletic (Dom)	90.42%	45.78%
HockeyViz (Micah)	93.69%	54.68%
Evolving Hockey (Twins)	99.15%	82.63%

Those probabilities of reaching last season’s playoff threshold help to remove some of the sticker shock that comes along with seeing the 90 point mark, which the team of course has only reached one time during the drought (2022-23).

The Analyses

While Vlad has not yet posted any model breakdown content, we have gotten plenty from the other three modelers.

Dom Luszczyszyn’s write up is up on The Athletic, with support from Sean Gentille and Shayna Goldman. The open article features their offensive and defensive ratings for the projected roster (including the supporting numbers for what they’re projecting to be the 7th strongest rated defense according to their projections). Their bottom line: There might not be a team in the league tougher to judge on its own merits. The Sabres have plenty of reasons to believe, starting with Norris and Richard candidates at the top of the lineup. That, though, is backed by 14 seasons’ worth of well-earned skepticism.

The Twins Projections have had the Sabres in the 90s for each of the last two seasons of their projections (2025, 2024, 2023 as well while we’re here), so that further context kind of (?) makes the jump to 98 make a little bit more sense, but on their season preview podcast, even they were surprised in the process of tuning the simulations.

Micah did a splendid job of composing a thread on Bluesky to explain this year’s parameters for his simulations (full writeup here). The only other time his models have projected the Sabres as a 90 point team came in 2018-19 (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025).

These graphs below I think are the best way to get a glimpse of what is happening under the hood with those final mean point totals. The Atlantic is looking to be very clumped together again this season, so while the Sabres and even Senators have a big of buffer from the expected cutoff line, the difference between 87 and 92 points will be trivial once the games begin being played.

As for why the 10+ point increase shows up in the data, of course the health expectations are part of that, but it also seems from reading more closely into the linked writeups of the processes, the floor raising with swapping Dylan Cozens, JJ Peterka, Henri Jokiharju, and Connor Clifton with Josh Norris, Josh Doan, Michael Kesselring, and Connor Timmins was very heavily weighted. The injuries the Panthers are already dealing with and the roster shuffling in Toronto are definitely a big part of the changes.

What hasn’t changed year-over-year is that there is once again a path for the Sabres to get to the playoffs. There have been points of this summer where it has felt like everything would need to go right to get there, but if the competition around them is also changing, maybe the schedule is simply going to play out differently around the league. Only thing to do now is drop the puck.

(Photo Credit: Sabres.com)