You know how you forget how big horses really are until you’re right next to one, and then you’re agog? When the Buffalo Sabres came to town last week, it was like that, but for bad hockey. It was a revelation. The players were upbeat in the morning, cheerfully polishing off the morning skate, and then they went out and managed 10 shots, versus taking eight penalties, against the Leafs. The Leafs! Buffalo coach Ted Nolan called it “mind-baffling,” which is not even a real expression, but works anyway.

This is the year of the tank in the National Hockey League, in theory. 17-year-old Connor McDavid has seven four-point games in 14 tries, and is on pace for about 180 points on the season. Jack Eichel, the presumptive No. 2 pick, is wooing scouts at Boston University. Franchise changers, they say. The kind of players money can’t buy.

And then on Sunday, the tank took a holiday. The Sabres, a masterpiece of intentionally flawed engineering, beat Detroit. The Carolina Hurricanes, No. 29 in the league, beat the defending Stanley Cup champions. Arizona (26th) won, Winnipeg (21st) beat Chicago, and the No. 28 team, Columbus, did not suffer any reported major injuries. (The Blue Jackets did not play, but you can never be too careful.)

Oh, and Calgary, the team that tanking forgot, drilled Montreal. The one Sunday exception was Colorado, whose decline has been rapid and remarkable, and who lost. But Buffalo didn’t, for the third time.

“That one probably felt as good as anything just to be able to give (our fans) a little salute,” Sabres defenceman Tyson Strachan told the Buffalo News. “We appreciate them sticking with us through everything.”

Everything? It was Buffalo’s 13th game of the season. It just felt like more, probably.

There are bad years every year, of course, as Edmonton reminds us. Parity and the three-card monte of the NHL standings can make teams in the rearview mirror seem closer than they appear, but they’re still lousy. Buffalo, however, is a unicorn. Since 2006, 10 teams have failed to get at least 45 per cent of all available even-strength shot attempts on goal, not including shots that are blocked. None have dipped under 42 per cent for a full season. (Toronto, last season, came closest, at 42.22 per cent. Those goaltenders should have been given medals.)

The Sabres, through 13 games, are at 34.9 per cent, and scoring 1.08 goals per game. The rays of sunlight are going to be brief, probably. I mean, even Ondrej Pavelec is so hot right now that the Jets have gotten five points in three games while scoring two goals. Some things don’t last.

But you can’t just give up. Carolina made $7-million-per-year winger Alex Semin a healthy scratch, to create what Hurricanes coach Bill Peters told reporters was “an honest, hard-working lineup.” Longtime Coyotes captain Shane Doan called their win over Washington “huge.” Jets coach Paul Maurice was uncharacteristically cursing in press conferences before the Jets ran off five wins in seven games.

And Ted Nolan lambasted his Sabres after the Toronto game, because that was culture-destroying stuff. You have to try and then fail, rather than just fail. You can’t skip steps. Every loss counts, but you can’t blow up the bridge and set fire to the demolition company offices for the insurance, too.

In the best-case scenario, it’s long, and it’s painful. In the worst-case, it’s empty pain. The changes introduced this summer mean that the worst team will only get a 20 per cent chance at the top spot, down from 25 per cent; second-worst is 13.5 per cent, and third is 11.5 per cent. It drops gradually from there.

So Buffalo is dragging themselves through a sort of hell for a 1-in-5 chance of the top slot, and a slot in the top two either way. The Philadelphia 76ers are similarly incentivized to be a minor-league development tomato can, as are the Houston Astros in MLB. All of them, at times, feel like a scam.

But what’s the better option? How else can Buffalo build? Of the top 20 points-per-game players over the last five seasons plus this one, 13 were top-five picks: Crosby, Malkin, Stamkos, Ovechkin, the Sedins, Backstrom, Kane, Kovalchuk, Spezza, Kessel, Toews and Eric Staal. John Tavares and Taylor Hall are at 21 and 22, and rising. All but three have spent their entire careers with one team. You can complain, but this is the system.

At the end of the 2009-10 season, then-Leafs general manager Brian Burke gave one of his more Shakespearean closing statements, and he was asked why he hadn’t torn the Leafs down, rather than try to rebuild them on the fly. He had a response ready.

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“You can say Pittsburgh,” Burke said that day, “well, Pittsburgh picked a ball out of a drum to get Sidney Crosby. Don’t tell me there was any skill there. When you say, gee, what a great rebuilding job they did — they won a goddamned lottery. I know; I came in second. You know what I say every time I see Sidney? ‘This close, Sid. You were this close to being a Duck.’ ”

Meanwhile, Buffalo charges over the cliff. Others will join them, no matter the odds. It’s the logic that has sustained lotteries forever, no matter how probable it is that you will remain one tiny part of the great faceless unlucky mass. Someone has to win.

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