The secret behind the Sabres’ sudden turnaround revealed by players!

Five months ago to the day, the Buffalo Sabres sat last in the Eastern Conference, with playoff hockey looking like a distant dream.

Since then, everything has changed. Starting on December 9, the team completely flipped its season, winning 39 of its next 53 games while suffering only nine regulation losses. Their 83 points over that stretch, the best in the league, helped them climb from 16th and last place in the East all the way to first in the Atlantic Division.

Head coach Lindy Ruff admitted that from the outside, the turnaround looked almost unbelievable. But inside the dressing room, there were clear factors at play, Dave Levesque of Journal de Montreal has reported.

“We were impacted by several injuries to start the season,” Ruff explained. “Josh Norris was out, Jiri Kulich — who we saw as possibly our top center — was also injured, Rasmus Dahlin had some issues and was in and out of the lineup, and one of our goalies was injured.”

“Once everyone came back, once Norris returned and UPL [Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen] was healthy, we got solid play from our goaltenders, I should say our three goalies. That’s when everything started to fall into place.”

Earlier in the season, star defenseman Rasmus Dahlin joked when asked about the team’s chemistry, saying, “We drink beer together,” before offering a more serious explanation.

But teammate Tage Thompson later confirmed there was truth behind the humour. “The only way out of the hole was relying on each other,” he said. “Adversity brings a group closer, and a lot of that happened by spending nights together off the ice.”

What once looked like a lost season has now turned into one of the league’s most surprising transformations: and according to the players, the reason is as much about chemistry as it is about hockey, and a little bit about beer.