NBA/NHL playoffs open thread

It’s that time of year!

JA17 gets things kicked off with banging the drum and chugging a beer. #LetsGoBuffalo #NHLBruins #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/I7nsM5AZ9u— Buffalo Hockey Moments (@SabresPlays) April 21, 2026

For interested casuals, Rodger Sherman has a good roundup of why the Sabres/Bruins series is attracting outsize interest from nonaligned fans:

The best story in hockey keeps getting better. Buffalo’s long-awaited return to the NHL postseason started badly, with the Bruins taking a 2-0 lead into the third period in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series …

… but then the Sabres scored three goals in four minutes, turning that 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 win.

The scene in the arena was quintessential Playoff Hockey. So was the scene outside the arena, as shirtless Buffalonians went nuts in 40-degree weather. (I like that they knocked over the barricade. I guess that’s the hockey version of jumping through a table.)

So how did Buffalo go from the worst team in the league to the best overnight? I’d love to explain it, but there is no explanation:

• Buffalo is a hockey town, but the Sabres had fallen on really, really, really hard times of late. They hadn’t made the playoffs since 2011, the longest playoff drought in NHL history.
• And that streak didn’t look like it was going to end this season. The Sabres won just five of their first 16 games, and were in last place in the Eastern Conference through December 13th.
• Then their fortunes flipped. The Sabres closed December on a 10-game win streak, and won 45 of their final 65 games. They literally went from last place in the conference to first.
• What happened? It’s tough to say. My friends at Phantom Island were literally in the midst of producing an episode examining the Sabres’ downfall at the exact same time the Sabres began their turnaround. They had to recut the episode. (It’s a fun listen, and I’ve been imploring them to begin a similar examination of the New York Jets.)
• The Sabres’ turnaround does almost exactly coincide with the December 15th firing of general manager Kevyn Adams … but, like, it’s unclear why a general manager change would so drastically affect a team’s on-ice performance. (The Athletic recently wrote that Adams’ reputation has been resuscitated as a result of the team’s resurgence.)
• When asked how a team can improve its on-ice chemistry so quickly, captain Rasmus Dahlin gave a simple answer: “Drink beers.”
• Fans took that to heart. Another potential explanation for Buffalo’s turnaround is the team’s novelty “Beer Sabre,” which allows fans to drink Labatt Blue out of a plastic sword. As you’d expect, fans are drinking out of the Novelty Plastic Beer Containers faster than the Novelty Plastic Beer Container factory can pump them out. Beer sabres are not available at most games, and they’re reselling for hundreds of dollars on eBay.
• There’s a little bit of smoke-and-mirrors going on here. Buffalo’s opponents had more shots and more scoring chances than the Sabres did over the course of the season. The Sabres are third in the NHL in goal differential above expected, per hockey analytics site MoneyPuck.
• (They should call Buffalo’s hockey analytics “sabre-metrics.”)
• But mainly, a bunch of young-and-kinda-young Sabres lifers are coming together at once. Most of the team’s core players have been in Buffalo for their entire careers. Of the six players who recorded points last night, five have been with Buffalo for at least five seasons. Dahlin and defenseman Owen Power are former #1 overall picks, and the roster features a lot of other highly-drafted players who are coming into their own.

One thing Rodger didn’t mention about this amazing story is that the Sabres’ star defenseman Rasmus Dahlin had to go back to Sweden early in the season because his fiancee got a an emergency heart transplant. My guess is that Dahlin coming back and playing his best hockey after that was the most important variable in the team finally coming together, although firing Adams probably had something to do with it to. Anyway, it’s a very fun story, and I was pretty grateful to have Game 1 to watch on a cross-continental flight (although the woman sitting next to me told be she was a Bruins fan, so I tried to be non-demonstrative after the go-ahead goal.)

On the NBA side, here’s a roundup of early reactions. Discuss whatever!