Buffalo has a strong hockey following, but its still a smaller market. And pulling fans from the other side of the border doesnt work for the Sabres, like it does the Bills, as Buffalo is located so close to the most popular hockey team in the world.
Buffalo is also a blue collar city, so enticing fans to shell out a couple hundred bucks to attend a game, isn't an easy thing to do.
Perhaps their biggest problem is ownership. Pegula may be the 2nd worst NHL owner behind only Melnyk. And since dung balls run down hill, it's not surprising this team has been bad for a while.
Arizona is different tho. It was a large market with a lot of money to spend. Phoenix's population was booming at the time the Jets were relocated there. And although the native population were not hockey fans, the league was counting on the influx of ex-pats from Northern markets to generate support for the team and fill the seats. Essentially the same plan that was used for the Vegas expansion.
But there were major hurdles for AZ that Vegas didn't have. First is the arena issue. It was built in Glendale, a NW suburb of Phoenix. The Phoenix Metropolitan Area has 4.5 million residents spread out over 6 different cities. It is vast. And many of the fans attending the games were driving from the East Valley Area, which was a long commute to attend games. If they had built their arena in a better location, like downtown Phoenix, like the Suns, the drive would have been much more palatable for even casual fans. But that was never going to happen since the city of Phoenix was not going to pay to erect 2 arenas. But Scottsdale or Tempe would have been much better options.
The Coyotes also started off with bad ownership and management, and a mediocre team on the ice, which did nothing to generate a bigger local fan base. Vegas found almost immediate success because they were superior in all of those areas from day one.
With a new billionaire owner, who has a strong history of successful turnarounds, I think the Arizona Coyotes will finally succeed in the desert SW, just as Vegas did. So long as they can get the arena issues resolved, and bring in better management. Both of which I think will get taken care of very soon, if Alex Meruelo's past business ventures serve as a predictor.