The Sabers had players who went on to success after the Sabers like Jack Eichel, Ryan O Rielly, Sam Reinhart, Evander Kane, Brandon Montour. Should they have held onto those players and tried more to build around them or is it just the case that they were able to work in successful systems where they weren't necessarily "THE guy?"
Last post and then I have to actually do my job lol.
In my opinion, you have to look at these guys case-by-case. There are so, so many guys who underachieve with one team and then thrive on another. The sample size coming out of Buffalo really isn't all that big considering how long they've been bad.
Reinhart...I may be biased, but I view Reinhart as a testament to Florida more than an indictment of the Sabres. At the draft, nobody expected Sam to be a 50+ goal, two-way winger. When we acquired Reinhart, Sabres fans (crazily) claimed that we were getting a true 1C. The Panthers tried Reinhart at center, and it didn't go well. And even for the first two years, Reinhart really didn't impress all that much. He was soft, and he put numbers by ystat padding in blowouts from the third line. He was our fourth most important forward as of Summer 2023, but the Bill Zito/Paul Maurice Panthers have a way of bringing out the absolute best in players. I still don't think Reinhart is capable of being "the guy." But he's thrived as one piece on an elite team with an A+ culture.
O'Reilly...ROR was never an offensive force. It was dumb to think he'd drive offense without dynamic wingers. We also know that he's a kind of a weirdo and a MacKinnon/Crosby-esque freak when it comes to training, so it isn't surprising that losing destroyed his psyche, and he dialed it up to 11 when given the chance to compete.
Eichel...For whatever reason, Sabres-world considered Eichel a Top 10 center by his sophomore season--something he debatably isn't even today. It was always a uniquely dysfunctional relationship that was never going to work.
Kane...The Sabres were right to excise Kane. It's not like he was, or became, any type of special player anyway.
Montour...Montour is another Florida success story. When he left the Ducks, he was a proming middle pair guy. The Sabres (as they always do) played him way over his head, and he flailed. Similar to Reinhart, Montour was not impressive the first year and a half with Florida. He exploded for a career year in 2022-23 (as part of a 1D by committee with Ekblad/Forsling, in which he was given the easiest deployment). But that was the only season of Montour's career where he played like a reliable, top pair D.
Lastly, and very importantly, this doesn't account for all the young guys with pedigree who left the Sabres and did jackshit afterwards...Ristolainen, Myers, Pysyk, Bogosian