BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – The Buffalo Sabres could lose up to $10 million this season, and are unlikely to turn a profit even if they make an extended playoff run, the team’s managing partner said on Thursday.

Larry Quinn blamed the anticipated loss on the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement, which he said makes it impossible for most teams to make a profit. The agreement expires in September.

The $10 million loss projection is the worst-case scenario in the event the team doesn’t make the playoffs and lose out on generating revenue from at least two more home games. The Sabres would still lose about $3 million even if they make it to the Eastern Conference finals, Quinn said.

“I’m very concerned,” he said. “If you don’t have the possibility of at least breaking even, then it’s not smart business. And right now we don’t have the possibility of that.”

With 19 games remaining, the Sabres are in ninth place, six points behind the New York Islanders in the race for the East’s eighth and final playoff berth.

Quinn said Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano is prepared to pick up the losses this season, but it’s not fair to rely on him to do that every year.

Quinn’s projections come 10 months after Golisano, a Rochester-based billionaire, purchased the Sabres out of bankruptcy and was credited in preventing the franchise from relocating or folding.

While bankruptcy made it difficult to determine the Sabres losses last season, the team did run out of operating revenue in January of last year. To complete the season, the franchise used up most of a $25 million court-approved debtors-in-possession loan, which Golisano had to repay as part of the purchase.

The Sabres payroll is at about $32 million, about $7 million more than what the team finished with last season. The projected losses come despite a significant increase in attendance.

. Through 32 homes games this season, the Sabres drew 478,534 fans, about 50,000 more than at this point last season. The team has also sold out 10 games, seven more than it sold out all of last season.

In an effort to increase fan interest, the team cut ticket prices from last year, and also featured several ticket sales to bolster attendance at midweek games.

Quinn said the projected losses are close to but still worse than what the team had anticipated for this year.

He called this another example of why the NHL needs to come up with a better business model when it negotiates a new collective bargaining agreement with the players.

A dispute between the players and the league looms, threatening the suspension of part or all of next season.

Earlier this month, the NHL released an audit conducted by former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. that found the NHL’s 30 teams combined for $272.6 million in operating losses last season.

Levitt’s report found that 19 of the 30 teams had operating losses last season and that 75 percent of league operating revenue went to pay for player salaries, up from up from 57 percent in 1993-94.

The NHL Players Association has challenged the results. Ted Saskin, the union’s senior director of business affairs, said that its examination of four teams’ finances – Boston, Buffalo, Los Angeles and Montreal – found revenue and benefits to the clubs had been underreported by $52 million.

AP-ES-02-26-04 1858EST