The Buffalo Sabres had an excellent season last year, winning the highly-competitive Atlantic Division, then beating the Boston Bruins in the first-round of the 2025-26 Stanley Cup playoffs. The bar has been raised for Buffalo, but the rest of the Atlantic is just as competitive, if not more so than the Sabres are.
So, for the second straight season here at THN.com, we’re going to break down Buffalo’s Eastern Conference opponents in a series we like to call “Know Your Enemy”. We’re going to focus on the Bruins’ changes, as well as their scheduled games against Boston. Let’s get to it:
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NEW BRUINS PLAYERS: J.J. Peterka, (LW); Ivan Ivan (LW), Connor Clifton (D), Jiri Patera (G), Brendan Gaunce (LW), Will Borgen (D)
2025-26 SERIES: Sabres 1-1-2, Bruins 3-1-0
2026-27 GAMES AGAINST EACH OTHER: January 5, at Boston; March 23 at Boston; April 1 at Buffalo; April 7 at Buffalo
CAN THE SABRES BEAT THIS TEAM? The Bruins surprised many people this past season, and that includes the Sabres, who lost three of four regular-season games against Boston in 2025-26. Buffalo got their revenge in the playoffs, but that doesn’t mean the Sabres won’t have their hands full with the Bs next season. To the contrary.
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Buffalo will get a longer look at former Sabres star Peterka, who played with the Utah Mammoth last year before the Bruins traded for him this summer. But Boston’s other moves were largely cosmetic. The Bruins are still built around star winger David Pastrnak, defenseman Charlie McAvoy and goalie Jeremy Swayman, and that hasn’t changed.
The weird twists and turns of the NHL schedule will see Buffalo take on Boston three times in a two-week period at the tail end of their schedule. That means the Sabres will be a very different team post-trade-deadlne, and they’re going to have a tough time keeping pace with the rest of their Eastern Conference rivals.
Indeed, the Sabres and Bruins could wind up fighting it out for one of the final wild card berths in the East this season. And that makes every game they play incredibly important for Buffalo. The Sabres have to take care of their intra-divisional games, and although Buffalo won’t see Boston until the new calendar year, the two teams are going to be fighting it out, tooth-and-nail, for prime real estate in the Atlantic.
The Sabres will need to be consistently excellent to have a hope at winning their division. But as Boston has shown, there’s no lack of challenge for Buffalo, regardless of their opponent. The Sabres can’t afford any prolonged stretch of sub-par play, and that means taking care of business against a proud and determined Bruins squad.
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Because if they can’t do that and the Bs overtake them for a playoff spot, Buffalo will be haunted over their losses to Boston. The Sabres probably won’t be as dominant in 2026-27 as they were this past year, but finishing ahead of the Bruins will be a must for Buffalo.
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