Retrospectively Did The Sabers Give Up Too Early On Guys Or Were They Never Gonna Get it Done in Buffalo?

[dirtydanglez]

I've never cared for the Buffalo/Ottawa comparison.
The main problem with Ottawa has been extremely cheap ownership who wouldn't give management the necessary resources to succeed, fostered a hostile relationship with players, and didn't hold incompetent coaches/front office people accountable for amateur hour stunts.
The main problem with Buffalo has been poor player evaluation. For the past decade, they've built their Top 6 and Top 4 based on draft position--not readiness or actual ability. And they always dish out premature contracts that screw the cap table.

arent the pegulas known for being cheap? i thought buffalo did heavy video scouting just because they didn't want to pay for the extras with in person scouting.

 

[Mattilaus]

arent the pegulas known for being cheap? i thought buffalo did heavy video scouting just because they didn't want to pay for the extras with in person scouting.

Yes.

If you want proof just look at the last two years where we were supposedly trying to make the playoffs. We are 28th in spending this year. Last year we were 29th with over 10m in cap space unused. If the owner wasn't cheap you'd think we'd like.....use the cap space in a year where we are supposed to be going for it.

 

[JeffreyLFC]

And now they draft undersized forwards at every opportunity.

 

[tucker3434]

It doesn’t matter until the team turns the corner. None of those guys individually would have done it. Until that point, the team is less than the sum of its parts. After, more. But they haven’t had that transcendent talent to drag them to the next step.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Whatever the question, usually a good bet the Sabres did the wrong thing.

 

[VaporTrail]

It didn't matter when they got rid of them...they would not have enough been successful with the guys they let go....There's a losing culture in Buffalo that had to be changed first.

 

[Dubi Doo]

They were on far, far worse teams with terrible GMs.

Buffalo fans knew any chance of building a contender went out the window when Botts traded O'Reilly. Eichel then got pissy because...why wouldn't he? He was on trash teams that were poorly coached for his entire career. Reinhart they screwed the pooch on by not locking him up long-term. They were good players surrounded by bad mentors, mediocre teammates, and, worst of all, they had GMs who were ass at their jobs. Pegula also appears (or appeared) to be too involved.

That's what it takes to have the longest playoff drought in the league, so no, the Sabres are (and were) always going to be bad- to-average until they find good management.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

The owner doesn't want to spend money on free agent signings. And they've been rebuilding since the 80's. Probably the worst ran franchise in the league.

 

[Soundwave]

The owner doesn't want to spend money on free agent signings. And they've been rebuilding since the 80's. Probably the worst ran franchise in the league.

Eh that's a bit of a stretch. They were in a Cup Final in 1999 and in a Conference Finals in 2006 and 2007. They've been rebuilding like since like 2012 not the 1980s, that's a bit ridiculous. Are you gonna argue the Flames for example have done a lot more than the Sabres in that same time span in the last 30 years?

 

[Dread Clawz]

Buffalo is the youngest team with the least experienced roster in the league.

It's rather trope-ish to say that, but they needed veterans to help them learn how to win in the league. The Jagr trade was one of the most important trades in Panthers' history. They were a loser franchise, with a losing mentality where veterans only went to coast. Jagr changed Barkov and Ekblad.

Huby too, who was traded for Tkachuk.

 

[Steddy33]

You could write a best seller about the Pegula ownership's failings. Clueless fan owners meddling in a team and blaming everyone else but themselves. There's problems at every level of the organization but it starts at the top. It always starts at the top

 

[kerrabria]

arent the pegulas known for being cheap? i thought buffalo did heavy video scouting just because they didn't want to pay for the extras with in person scouting.

The only thing I’ve heard the Pegula’s (allegedly) being cheap about is spending to the cap. Half a dozen owners in the league have embarrassing, verified stories about unique cheapness.

The Pegulas instigated the biggest tank and tear down we’ve seen (cheap ownership avoids rebuilds). They basically always have multiple GMs/coaches on the payroll bc of how happy they are to fire people. Buffalo has doled out countless, 7-8 year contracts at above market value to their players. They have frequently try to make big trades for high paid, big name guys. They’ve bought people out. They don’t abuse LTIR to eat up cap, even when not competing for a playoff spot.

Moreover, I recall Buffalo circulating a letter in 2018(?) to season ticket holders saying they’d reduce prices as an apology for the on-ice product.

Buffalo fans have taken to blaming ownership for the team’s failure bc they refuse to admit that their core players just aren’t good. They point to their recent cap space as evidence of Pegula’s cheapness.

Much more obvious reasons for the $8m in cap space include:
- It has become impossible to get any decent UFAs to sign there
- They load the roster with their never ending pipeline of overhyped young guys who are on ELCs and bridge deals
- They always have a giant contract extension about to kick in or under negotiations, which complicates the ability to spend to the cap every season.

It’s also bogus to blame an unspent $8m as a huge difference maker. Look at how much dead cap the Wild have or how much the Panthers had in 2023.

 

[bleedgreen]

Neither of those are true. Do you have quotes?

ROR wanted to compete and didnt like the losing culture and was headed down the depression route. Eichel similar but then the team didnt have his back health wise and we now know n hindsight he was right. They could have let him have his surgery and either come back rejuvenated or trade him for actual value instead of spare parts.

I’m not a Buffalo fan but I do follow the team mildly enough to pay attention to them - but I get there’s limitations there and it’s not really my place to stick to my guns on strong opinions. It’s not my team. I always felt like Eichel was unhappy being there long before the surgery issue. He seemed frustrated every year. He did kind of come off like a brat, though I get why his frustrations were real. I just struggle with people pointing to the surgery issue as where things went wrong with the guy? It always seemed like things were wrong with that guy on that team. He always seemed destined to be somewhere else.


Per the thread title I think he falls into “was never gonna get it done there”.

 

[kerrabria]

You could write a best seller about the Pegula ownership's failings. Clueless fan owners meddling in a team and blaming everyone else but themselves. There's problems at every level of the organization but it starts at the top. It always starts at the top

Give us the table of contents.

 

[kerrabria]

I’m not a Buffalo fan but I do follow the team mildly enough to pay attention to them - but I get there’s limitations there and it’s not really my place to stick to my guns on strong opinions. It’s not my team. I always felt like Eichel was unhappy being there long before the surgery issue. He seemed frustrated every year. He did kind of come off like a brat, though I get why his frustrations were real. I just struggle with people pointing to the surgery issue as where things went wrong with the guy? It always seemed like things were wrong with that guy on that team. He always seemed destined to be somewhere else.


Per the thread title I think he falls into “was never gonna get it don’t there”.

Eichel was arrogant and pissy even before the draft. But honestly, looking back, it seemed more like an American teenager with a basketball player's attitude then him just being a d-bag. He (understandably) had a chip on his shoulder about being dubbed the consolation prize, and Buffalo didn't really hide their disappointment in their tank not working out. Remember how he was drafted?

"Buffalo selects Jack Eichel."

Eichel then had to deal with Byslma as a coach and a roster filled with lazy, underperforming vets. They threw him the wolves as a 1C, threw the captaincy at him too early, and gave him no support system. Botterril (who was a highly coveted GM hire at the time) actually tried to reform the lockerroom and give him support, but by then the relationship had already soured.

 

[bleedgreen]

Eichel was arrogant and pissy even before the draft. But honestly, looking back, it seemed more like an American teenager with a basketball player's attitude then him just being a d-bag. He (understandably) had a chip on his shoulder about being dubbed the consolation prize, and Buffalo didn't really hide their disappointment in their tank not working out. Remember how he was drafted?

"Buffalo selects Jack Eichel."

Eichel then had to deal with Byslma as a coach and a roster filled with lazy, underperforming vets. They threw him the wolves as a 1C, threw the captaincy at him too early, and gave him no support system. Botterril (who was a highly coveted GM hire at the time) actually tried to reform the lockerroom and give him support, but by then the relationship had already soured.

Agreed on the first paragraph, the rest is what a Sabre fan would know. Just seemed like a bad fit from the get go and there were yearly updates on how it wasn’t going well with him. “Will he stay?“ and “Can they make him happy?” seemed like annual questions. I was glad to see him traded so they could move on from that. With TT’s emergence I hoped they were going in the right direction finally and I liked some of the moves over the summer - aside from scape goating Skinner. I’m also glad Skinner is gone because he was taking some unfair blame and now we see he wasn’t the issue behind their defensive woes - though he obviously doesn’t help that side of the game much. I thought they’d step forward this year.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

I think the Sabres gave up on their players wayyy too early.


That said, I think certain coaches are good at bringing incoherent teams together.
Teams like Toronto, Edmonton, LA, were all sorta taught structure and professionalism with coaches like MacLellan, Tippett, Gallant, Babcock, Keefe, Michel Therrien, and Torts.

I mean you can't win a cup with guys like that. You need someone savier with ability to make adjustments in-game, but those guys are great for transitioning a young team in disarray into a playoff team.

 

[kerrabria]

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

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

That's what shocks me about the Leafs though, they win in regular season but lose in playoffs and their players just like getting the money (signing bonuses).

But they at least get there every year thus giving themselves a chance to win.

Teams like Buffalo and Ottawa don't get there, they don't give themselves a chance to win.

The Leafs are the Capitals prior to 2018.

Nobody thought Washington could breakthrough and then they did.

Leafs are in that same situation nobody thinks they can breakthrough until they do.

If Woll and Stolarz keep giving them saves who knows.

 

[Rorschach]

The Kings were headed into the exact same situation in the mid 00s until they hired Lombardi, who promptly brought in guys like Mike Richards, Rob Scuderi, Willie Mitchell, Justin Williams, a whole bunch of winners. Then he brought in some glue guys like Jarret Stoll as well.

Vegas brought in Eichel but first they brought in Mark Stone. Franchises like the Red Wings, the Sabres, the Senators...they never go out and get those leader types and enough of those leader types to form a locker room of something other than losing.

 

[Beerz]

Some of these players did request a trade. For example, the Sabres would not let Eichel get the surgery he wanted and so he demanded a trade

You have to figure though, if you undid every move the Sabres made and did different ones, the Sabres would have to be in a better spot, right?

Eichel demanded a trade before his injury.

The trade request was a factor in not allowing Eichel to get that surgery.