How Low Will The Buffalo Sabres Go?

While they might not sit dead last in the NHL just yet with 3 more games played than the Carolina Hurricanes, make no mistake, the Buffalo Sabres are the worst team in the league and it's not even close. Last year, the Sabres had the worst record in the three-point game era going 21-51-10 with 52 points. This year, they could go even lower.

Here are some fun stats to tell your buddies about just how bad the Sabres are:

• They've already been shutout 5 times in 13 games. This includes one stretch where they were shutout 3 times in 6 days. 
• They have only scored 14 goals in regulation or overtime, Corey Perry has 11 goals. 
• They have a goal differential of -27 already which over an 82-game season would prorate to -170. It's a far stretch from the 1974-74 Washington Capitals -265 and they likely won't be that bad, but they could be the first team to hit negative triple digits since the 2003-04 Pittsburgh Penguins who put up a -113 goal differential and had Dick Tarnstrom lead their team in scoring with 52 points. 
• They're powerplay is operating at 2.6%. 2.6%! With 1 goal in 42 opportunities they are 16 times worse than the Pittsburgh Penguins who are working at a 41.9% powerplay success rate. 
• Tyler Ennis and Drew Stafford are the team's leading scorers with 6 points. To compare, there are 40 NHL defencemen that have 6 or more points this season.
• They've only scored 6 goals at home. There is always a good chance that a Sabres fan goes to a game in Buffalo and doesn't have to leave their seat the entire game. 
• They've only scored more than 1 goal 5 out of their 13 games.
• The Sabres recorded a franchise low 10 shots on goal against the Maple Leafs last week and are averaging 20.9 shots/game. The lowest shots/game we can find dating back to the 1997-98 season is the Washington Capitals averaging 23.7/game in 2003-04. 
• It's nice that former Buffalo Sabres GM Darcy Regier (or Jim Corsi's moustache) invented the Corsi stat to measure the workload his goalies were getting because Michal Neuvirth and Jhonas Enroth are facing plenty of rubber this year with a league-leading 476 against. If this pace keeps up, the Sabres will pass the bar set by the Maple Leafs last year for shots against in a 82-game season and might even top the 3000 shots against mark. 

The next 69 games don't look too promising for the Sabres and we're pretty sure not too many people would argue if they let the team fly over to Switzerland in December to play in the Spengler Cup. Their coach, Ted Nolan, has likened them to a peewee team and when your GM is upset that their draft lottery odds were decreased 3 months before the season starts you know that this team is not built to win, but fail spectacularly. Just like the 1983-84 Pittsburgh Penguins, it looks like the Sabres are playing to lose in order to turn the franchise around with a generational talent like Connor McDavid: