The Sabres top rival is the Toronto Maple Leafs. Even though throughout the last few decades, the Sabres and Leafs weren't in the same conference, you could always tell that the Leafs were in town as busloads of Leafs fans would take over the Aud (or now the Marine Midland Arena), creating a playoff atmosphere. Now the two teams are in the same division once again and the rivalry is heating up. In the Leafs/Sabres game in February, 10,000 Leafs fans once again conquered our arena, chanting "Go Leafs Go" but the Sabres fans chanted back at the Leafs fans, creating a 'top this' mentality. You will see this rivalry grow now that the Sabres and Leafs are in the same division and will take part in an annual QEW series, featuring exciting home-and-home weekend series against each other.

After Toronto comes the Sabres rivalries with the Bruins and Habs, two rivalries which have been enlightened by some great playoff series throughout the years, especially in 1975 when the Sabres beat knocked out the Habs in OT of Game 5 of the conference finals to earn its first trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in the Montreal Forum. Recently, whenever Montreal would beat us in the Forum, you could hear the Montreal fans chanting "Na, na, na, na. Hey, hey, hey. Goodbye" as the Sabres would be eliminated from the playoffs.

The Sabres and Bruins once again met in the playoffs this season. Over the years, the Sabres and Bruins have had some very memorable season and playoff series against each other. The Bruins would always beat the Sabres but in 1993 that was changed as the Sabres swept the Bruins on 'May Day'.

While unlike Toronto, Boston, and Montreal, the Philadelphia Flyers aren't in our division, it has been the memorable playoff series between the two teams which has brought about this Sabres/Flyers rivalry. In 1975, the Buffalo Sabres went to their only Stanley Cup Finals in franchise history against the Broad Street Bullies of Philadelphia and a very intense rivalry rose above the fog (no pun intended). The rivalry has once again been renewed over the past few seasons as the Sabres and Flyers almost find it an annual routine of meeting in the playoffs. The only problem is that the Flyers aren't as optimistic about these two teams meeting up in the playoffs as they know they have to get past Dominik Hasek who shut down the Flyers in the 1998 playoffs.

Even though the Devils have only been in the league for about 15 years, it has been the great matchups between Dominik Hasek and Martin Brodeur which have sparked this rivalry. The year was 1994 and the Sabres and Devils played one of the most memorable games in Buffalo Sabres history. Brodeur and Hasek were going head-to-head as through four overtimes the score remained 0-0. It seemed like when the game was going to last the whole night and into the morning, at 1:52 a.m. the morning after Dave Hannan lifted a backhand shot past Martin Brodeur to beat the Devils 1-0 in the sixth-longest game in NHL history to extend that series to seven games. the Devils won Game Seven but none the less this series brought a ton of memories and started a great rivalry between the Devils and Sabres which still continues today.