With loss to Detroit, Buffalo has only a 0.1% chance of making the playoffs
With loss to Detroit, Buffalo has only a 0.1% chance of making the playoffs
Sports talk radio is not an avenue where patience is a virtue, and after a 3-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday, callers to WGR 550 expressed a high level of frustration at the current course of the club and were looking for reasons why their club will miss the playoffs for the 13th straight season.
Disappointment is understandable after expectations were raised last season when an exciting young group fell short of the postseason by one point. Sabres fans appear to casting the blame at GM Kevyn Adams and head coach Don Granato.
“We were out of this race by Christmas” One aggravated caller vented on WGR 550’s Jeremy and Joe show on Monday morning. “I asked your producer whether they fired Donnie yet and obviously they didn’t. Are they going to wait till the end of the season to let him go? If they don’t, (owner Terry) Pegula has to let go of Adams, because they cannot run this back exactly the same way.”
Adams has been at the helm since June 2020 and has overseen the transition from the core group of the rebuild under former GM’s Tim Murray and Jason Botterill, trading defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen, forward Sam Reinhart, and team captain Jack Eichel, as well as drafting Owen Power, Dylan Cozens, Jack Quinn, and J-J Peterka. Granato replaced Ralph Krueger in March 2021 and has a 120-124-26 record in three-plus seasons.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVfFBJ1b-C4[/embed]
Paid attendance in Buffalo (one of the strongest hockey markets in the NHL) had a slight uptick after last season from 15,567 to just under 16,000, but the number of empty seats at Key Bank Center after December (except for games against rivals Montreal or Toronto) reflected a growing apathy.
In reality, there appears to be no chance that Adams job is in danger, and Granato’s two-year contract extension signed in October 2022 has not started yet.
Fans may be calling for sweeping change with the Sabres, but the odds of that happening are slim.
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