Buffalo currently is on course for a 14th straight season of not making the playoffs
Buffalo currently is on course for a 14th straight season of not making the playoffs
If the movie “Groundhog Day” had been made about a professional hockey franchise, it would have been about the Buffalo Sabres. Exactly one year ago, coming off a 3-2 shootout loss to the Montreal Canadiens, the Sabres were 11-14-3 (25 points), three points out of last place in the Eastern Conference, and were an organization in disarray. After an offseason where they brought in a half dozen forwards via trade, free agency, and internal promotion to improve their depth, Buffalo is coming off a 6-5 shootout loss to the Detroit Red Wings and are a nearly exact 11-13-4 (26 points), and one point out of dead last in the East.
GM Kevyn Adams's comments at last Friday’s press conference offered explanations and excuses for the club's current state and why some of its attempts to address its needs have fallen short.
"There are a lot of players in this league that we're on their (no trade) list, so we need to earn the respect, and it starts with getting over the hump and getting in the playoffs," Adams said. “There were other guys pursued that chose other places. That's what happens in the UFA market. In terms of trades, there was a trade that we worked really hard at this summer, that we went all in on, you guys probably would have roasted me. Said we were going to overpay to get the player, and they ended up not trading at me still on that team."
The Sabres are in the midst of their second rebuild in the last decade and the current iteration is beginning to resemble the group centered around Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart. How do you make the playoffs?...... You have good players. How do you get good players?.... You’re a team that is competitive and makes the playoffs. Buffalo has talent in Rasmus Dahlin, Bowen Byram, Owen Power, Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, and Alex Tuch, but they do not have enough talent or the group they have surrounding their core group is too young to make them a complete team.
The buyout of a fading Jeff Skinner was an understandable move for cap management purposes last summer, but Adams failed to replace his 24 goals and the Sabres offense has been inconsistent at best this season. The trade that he referred to (numerous sources have indicated it was to acquire Carolina’s Martin Necas) did not come to pass in part because the restricted free-agent forward would not agree to sign an extension with any team he was traded to.
The inability to lock up a player to a long-term deal like Necas (who Buffalo would have to give up a number of young players or top draft picks to acquire) is a non-starter for a club that cannot get free agents to come to, especially when those young players can be kept in the fold for up to seven years.
At some point, this seemingly endless cycle of dysfunction will end, but right now hockey fans in Buffalo see no end in sight.
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