BUFFALO, N.Y. — When the Buffalo Sabres got to the rink Tuesday morning, the finality started to sink in. So many of the players were numb late Monday night, unable to process the way their season ended with a 3-2 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens in Game 7 of the second round. The dressing room was filled with tears and blank stares. A fluttering shot from Alex Newhook was the difference between the Sabres’ season ending and the team possibly moving on to play the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference finals.Instead, players had to go to the rink for their least favorite day of the year. They began the process of exit interviews with general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen and coach Lindy Ruff. They packed their bags and started a long offseason.“It’s a strange feeling today,” Sabres goalie Alex Lyon said. “I think everybody thought that we had the capability to move forward and had a lot of belief that we were able to move forward. It ended really abruptly, as it always does.”The abrupt ending doesn’t overshadow what this team accomplished. Shedding the weight of the playoff drought matters more than most realized. The fanbase is energized, playoff revenue is flowing back into the organization, and the rest of the NHL world can now look at Buffalo a bit differently. Maybe this run will get the Sabres off a few no-trade lists. Maybe free agents will take a closer look at Buffalo after seeing the scene in the city during the playoffs.That all matters. And so does what the Sabres were able to build on the ice. Players such as Zach Benson and Josh Doan look like core players who are just beginning to realize their potential. Noah Östlund and Konsta Helenius made an immediate impact in the playoffs and looked poised for big things in 2026-27 and beyond. Ruff managed to blend this team’s fast-paced playing style with a more detail-oriented approach to defense. The Sabres, who started the season as the third-youngest team in the NHL, have a strong foundation on which to build.They also have a few glaring questions to answer. Ruff is 66, and his contract is expiring. If Ruff wants to continue coaching, it’s hard to envision Sabres owner Terry Pegula telling him no. But it’s still a question, and Ruff was a major component of this team’s success. If he does return, what will his staff look like? The team’s power play was an issue all season, and that’s something that needs to be addressed.Beyond the bench, Kekäläinen is going to have some difficult decisions in his first offseason as the team’s general manager. Alex Tuch’s contract is the first domino that needs to fall in the offseason. If the Sabres plan on meeting his price and retaining the 30-year-old winger, it’s going to require some other moves to make the necessary salary-cap space.Buffalo enters the summer with $12.9 million in cap space, but Tuch isn’t the only one on an expiring deal. Of the players in the lineup for Game 7, Beck Malenstyn is an unrestricted free agent, while Peyton Krebs and Benson are restricted free agents. All three will be due for raises on their next contracts.On top of that, Bowen Byram is eligible to sign an extension July 1. Next year is the final year of his contract, after which he will be an unrestricted free agent.“We are in a position where we’re pretty fortunate to have as much depth as we have, and a lot of guys and young guys coming up, and that’s one of the strengths of our group,” Doan said. “But there’s a lot of what-ifs heading now into the offseason that, as a group, you can kind of push away when you’re playing, and then one second later the season’s over, and now those questions are glaring in your face. You got a lot of friends and people that you’ve grown with this year, that like you said, no team is ever the exact same the next year, so that’s the harsh reality of sports.”The Sabres have a lot of their roster locked up as they enter into a competitive window, but extending that window will mean being sharp with their spending. There’s a temptation to fall in love with the group that got you there, to cling to a magic season and try to re-create it with the same parts.But the organizations that succeed are often those that are ruthless in their pursuit of improvement. The Florida Panthers won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2022 and then lost in the second round of the playoffs. They proceeded to fire their coach and swing a blockbuster trade for Matthew Tkachuk. They then went to the Stanley Cup Final three years in a row and won it twice.Kekäläinen said before the playoffs that this is the time of year when you find out a lot about players. The next few months might tell us exactly what Kekäläinen learned about this team. We already saw him try to swing a trade for defenseman Colton Parayko at the deadline and engage in talks for center Robert Thomas. Those are at least hints about his willingness to be aggressive and improve this roster.The Montreal series came down to a Game 7 in overtime, so it’s difficult to say that fatal flaws were revealed. The Sabres were a bounce away from being one of the last four teams alive.The Sabres’ goaltending let them down in a few big spots, so that could be a position to upgrade if there’s an opportunity. Another center might be needed, especially if Tage Thompson is going to play on the wing the way he did in the final two games against Montreal.Those are just a few of the hard questions Kekäläinen will need to ask about this roster in the weeks and months ahead. Getting to where the Sabres did was an incredible achievement. Building on this success will be a new challenge. The Panthers will be healthy again. The Canadiens aren’t going anywhere. The Maple Leafs and Red Wings will be among the teams in the division chasing them, too.“Just because things really clicked and worked really well this year, doesn’t mean that it’s automatically just gonna happen again next year,” Lyon said.“Making it to the final eight is an extremely difficult thing to do,” Lyon said. “It’s just really hard, and realistically, we only got halfway to get to the ultimate goal, and it just shows how difficult it is. And it’s the same thing with next season: Just getting to the playoffs is a huge accomplishment and a huge hill to climb. I don’t think that anybody in the room will take it for granted. I think that everybody understands that, but that’s always in the back of your mind.”