The end-of-season NHL standings over the last five years have been a bit like scenes out of Groundhog Day. As sure as Punxsutawney Phil would emerge to look for his shadow at the festival at Gobbler’s Knob each Feb. 2, the Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings would emerge as league cellar dwellers when the regular-season schedule wrapped.

A few other teams have taken their turns in the bottom third of the league standings over this period, including the Arizona Coyotes, Ottawa Senators and New Jersey Devils. However, the Sabres and Wings have been fixtures, stuck in the mud and spinning their wheels.

The 2021-22 season is about to close with each of them on the outside looking in again. However, both teams showed signs this year of putting the dark times behind them and stepping into the light. Though the eight playoff teams in the Eastern Conference this season will almost certainly remain competitive next year, there is bound to be at least one team that falls off the pace early and can’t recover. Think this year’s New York Islanders. If that happens, it’s not unreasonable to think the Sabres and Wings can be the ones pushing to take that spot in the tournament.

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How did these teams stay in neutral for so long, and what’s different now?

Let’s start with the Sabres. Over the last 10 years, they have been as cold as a Buffalo winter. Their highest finish in the overall standings was 23rd, something they accomplished twice and also where they currently sit in 2021-22. Their other finishes were 31st (twice), 30th (twice), 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th.  It’s an incredible run of futility.

Buffalo can’t even blame bad drafting for its plight. Since 2010, the Sabres have made 14 first-round picks, and they have hit on every single one of them in terms of that player becoming (or being on the verge of becoming) an NHL regular. The list includes Mark Pysyk, Joel Armia, Mikhail Grigorenko, Zemgus Girgensons, Rasmus Ristolainen, Nikita Zadorov, Sam Reinhart, Jack Eichel, Alexander Nylander, Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Dahlin, Dylan Cozens, Jack Quinn and Owen Power. Not a murderer’s row, but several players that would constitute high-end talent and no outright whiffs.

During that span, the Sabres also drafted Jake McCabe, Linus Ullmark, JT Compher, Cal Petersen, Brendan Lemieux, Rasmus Asplund and Victor Olofsson. The Sabres have been able to identify talent, but they just haven’t been able to keep or develop enough of the players they have selected. Whether it’s losing players through free agency or trading them away before they reach their ceilings, Buffalo just hasn’t been able to turn its strong annual draft position into an advantage.

Even Eichel, perhaps their most talented draft pick ever (with due deference paid to Gilbert Perreault, Alex Mogilny and Ryan Miller), eventually had to be shipped out in a deal with the Vegas Golden Knights, following a lack of alignment with management on just about everything, including how to treat his neck injury.