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The Sins Of The Buffalo Sabres In The Last 15 Years, List Them...(One Per Post Please)

Fezzy126 said:
I loved McCabe, but I can't remember a single person other than myself that advocated for McCabe as a viable defensive defenseman. He was one of the biggest whipping boys with fans continually wanting to shoot him into the sun. "If he's a defensive defenseman why is he so bad at defense" was repeated ad nauseum on these boards.

Add him to the long list of guys like Paille, Foligno, Hagel, etc where the hindsight takes don't match the opinions at the time said player was a Sabre.
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I agree. Almost no one protested at the time he left and almost no one brings it up as a strike against Adams.

I think part of why he was so underrated here is that he was our #2 guy next to #1 Risto. Hard to look good in that situation.
 
BFLO said:
I agree. Almost no one protested at the time he left and almost no one brings it up as a strike against Adams.

I think part of why he was so underrated here is that he was our #2 guy next to #1 Risto. Hard to look good in that situation.
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He wasn't playing well in a Sabres uniform by the end of his time here for quite a few seasons. Letting him walk shouldn't have been a strike against Adams. Shoot, he didn't really start to bring his game back to respectful levels until his 2nd year in Chicago. McCabe is just another example of players going to other teams and finding their game again after playing bad hockey here.
 
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OkimLom said:
He wasn't playing well in a Sabres uniform by the end of his time here for quite a few seasons. Letting him walk shouldn't have been a strike against Adams. Shoot, he didn't really start to bring his game back to respectful levels until his 2nd year in Chicago. McCabe is just another example of players going to other teams and finding their game again after playing bad hockey here.
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In McCabe’s defense, his first year with Chicago was after he blew up his knee playing for the Sabres, so I feel like he needed that year just to get back to feeling normal.
 
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OkimLom said:
He wasn't playing well in a Sabres uniform by the end of his time here for quite a few seasons. Letting him walk shouldn't have been a strike against Adams. Shoot, he didn't really start to bring his game back to respectful levels until his 2nd year in Chicago. McCabe is just another example of players going to other teams and finding their game again after playing bad hockey here.
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I'll repeat again that it's hard to look good playing next to Risto on the first paring. He only played 13 games before exploding his knee in his final season with Buffalo. But he and Risto as our first pair had an xGF% of 57% and GF% of 67%. Those are excellent stats. But the McCabe/Risto pairing had plenty of sub 50% seasons previously.


He has had good, but not amazing advanced stats his entire career outside of 2 seasons.
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His biggest detraction is that he's injury prone. You can't count on him to play more than 60-70 or so games a year.

I think we got tired of him being injured so often and missing time, or playing poorly through injuries. And we conflated his performance as an individual, with his pairing performance with Risto. He wasn't the weak link on that pairing.

And Adams has failed to replace him in the 4 seasons since he left. It shouldn't be that hard to find another middling top 4 defensive specialist defensmen.
 
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Beerz said:
McCabe was one of my favorites.


To this day I am surprised he didn't do better offensively. He had some great offensive instincts in the offensive zone.
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Its weird Buffalo seems to have a common theme of trading away toughness

McCabe
McNabb
Foligno
Kassian
Kane
Weber
Bogosian

Just to name a few. Sure there are backstories to each player and why they are traded but there is still a common theme here.
 
Delaying having a needed time-sensitive conversation with the GM of your hockey club because of the NFL draft?

The hopeful Sabres fan says that it's because they're actually working to have the next step lined up when they promote Adams out of the way.

The pessimist in me says that he really thinks multi-tasking is too hard.
 
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Fezzy126 said:
I had a @SundherDome - like man-crush on Corey Tropp. Admittedly, after I made way too big a deal of losing him, I pivoted too far the other way with Carrier. I vastly undervalued his role...
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It's wild that they have had so few tries at responsible, even reasonably physical forwards in their draft history or acquired prospect pool since Terry took over. I do think he has a "thing" about not liking the actual brand of hockey played at this level and is an underlying reason why they don't make it something they want in their prospect and draftee rankings. They pluck one every now and then - Strbak and to a lesser extent his partner Geary are, Ziemer has some sand in his game as well - but man do they avoid it like they've been told it's wrong/bad/not what the boss wants.
 
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toddkaz said:
Its weird Buffalo seems to have a common theme of trading away toughness

McCabe
McNabb
Foligno
Kassian
Kane
Weber
Bogosian

Just to name a few. Sure there are backstories to each player and why they are traded but there is still a common theme here.
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Maybe also why there has never been a testosterone promotional night with a Doug Flutie bobblehead giveaway...
 
Has anybody mentioned this beautiful mulleted 3rd line center? Signed for a 2 year $4.5m contract to score 19 points total. Out of the league after his tenure with us. These were the priority UFAs we were targeting. But hey! At least he was slightly above a 50% face off percentage!

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A low-key one - the split affiliation with Florida with the Amerks. Cheap and throttled talent development that put them deeper on the path to the rebuild need.
 
The worst NHL defense pairing I think I’ve ever witnessed. It is 10 years later now, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Andre Benoit and Andrej Meszaros
 
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Passing on Brayden Point five different times in the 2014 draft in favor of Brendan Lemieux, Eric Cornel, Vaclav Karabacek, Jonas Johansson (the only member of this group to play NHL games for us), and Brycen Martin.
 
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Man, put them all in a hat, and pick one. So many over the years, but one that sticks out to me is the players admitting they slacked during the offseason after missing the playoffs by 1 pt. It was at that moment that I realized we're in it for the long haul with this core and management.
 
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