The Buffalo Sabres are looking to improve on their solid 2025-26 season, in which they finished as the best Atlantic Division team in the regular-season. Buffalo beat the Boston Bruins in their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series before they fell to the Montreal Canadiens in Round 2. And now, Sabres fans are expecting at least as good a performance.
To that end, here at TheHockeyNews.com, we’re breaking down the Sabres’ Eastern Conference opponents in an second-year online series called “Know Your Enemy”. In each file in the series, we’re analyzing how Buffalo played against each East team, as well as how they’re likely to fare against each team in the East this year. And in this particular file, we’re focusing on the Ottawa Senators.
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The Senators suffered a massive blow this summer with the defection of former captain Brady Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers. Here’s this writer’s view on how the Sabres will perform in their four regular-season showdowns this season:
NEW SENATORS PLAYERS: William Eklund (LW), Samuel Ersson (G), Andre Burakovsky (LW), Philip Tomasino (RW), Sammy Blais (LW)
2025-26 SERIES: Sabres 2-1-0, Senators 1-1-1
2026-27 GAMES AGAINST EACH OTHER: November 4 at Buffalo; December 14 at Ottawa; February 26 at Buffalo; March 7 at Ottawa
CAN THE SABRES BEAT THIS TEAM? With the expanded 84-game schedule this season, the Sabres now will have four games against the Senators, and those four games are spread out across the regular-season fairly evenly. Three of those games will take place well in advance of this year’s trade deadline, which falls on March 1, 2027. So Buffalo scouts will have a fairly good idea of Ottawa’s lineup, and vice-versa.
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That said, with the Senators almost certain to take at least a small step backward without Tkachuk on board, there’s really no excuse for the Sabres not to capitalize on Ottawa’s weaker lineup and pounce on the Sens, right out of the gate.
Buffalo’s first game against the Sens will be in the Sabres’15th game of the season, which gives Sabres coach Lindy Ruff plenty of time to sort out his forward lines and defense pairings. And unless there are major injuries to either or both teams, Buffalo should take it to Ottawa – not with ease, but certainly, with authority.
Like any divisional rivals, there’s no shortage of bad blood between the Senators and Sabres – and there’s also recent trade history between them, including the Josh-Norris-for-Dylan-Cozens blockbuster. The Senators have won the trade to this point in time, as Norris hasn’t stayed healthy enough to prove his value to Buffalo. But certainly, that trade adds another layer to the animus between the two teams.
Regardless, with an extra game against each other this season, the Sens/Sabres rivalry will be supercharged – and these two teams could be squaring off against each other in the first-or-second-round of the 2027 playoffs. That’s why their regular-season games are so important. They want to establish dominance over each other, and whoever does will be on the right track to later-season success.
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