The Buffalo Sabres Need to Give Up and Start Over, Again

It’s time for the Buffalo Sabres to start over yet again. It’s a cold, hard truth that we (the few fans who care) must accept.

They’ve lost ELEVEN straight games. They are three games under .500, and their GM is completely lost with, as he admits, no answers. Lindy Ruff has no answers. The owner made a trip to Montreal to talk the troops before the 11th straight loss, and it had the literal opposite affect.  The organization is staring at a 14th straight season without a playoff birth: an NHL record that embarrassingly continues to grow and will continue to grow unless they make sweeping changes.

Those changes need to happen now.

Before I go further, please know none of this is personal in terms of who everyone with the Sabres is, individually. I have no doubt that people like Kevyn Adams, the players, the coaches, and ownership are wonderful people who worked hard to get where they are. Certainly, they all have done good things. They are human; they make mistakes, things don’t work out, and it all happens. Also, my anger and opinions come from a genuine love of the Sabres. I grew up loving them more than any other team, including the Bills. Their struggles have been especially hard for fans like me. That being said, it’s time for more difficult discussions, and those won’t be flattering for most of these people. They never are when you’re losing.

I also would like to point this out: I hope I am one-billion percent wrong. I hope I look back on this and eat it. I hope every single person in the Sabres organization, including you, gets to laugh at me. I don’t want to be right. I want them to win. To win, I think they have to tear it all down again and do it now.

Why the Sabres Need to Start Over

In my opinion, there are two major reasons this team and club have to tear it all down again:

1. The players are too soft and not good enough, and that is not going to change without moving on from them. Just read what head coach Lindy Ruff said to Paul Hamilton after their last loss:

“It comes down to how hard it is again… don’t succumb to why didn’t it go in? Don’t succumb to the moral victories, how about we have to do a little more, put the work ahead of anything else, don’t succumb to ‘I have to cave in on the backcheck because it didn’t go in for me.”

As I wrote near the end of last season, this team is too soft. Its leaders don’t lead. Its top talent says it wants accountability, only not to be accountable. They CONSTANTLY needed to be encouraged, handheld, and treated “kindly,” which has resulted in <checks notes> zero playoff appearances. They might score, but they refuse to play defense. They make stupid plays constantly. Not questionable plays. Stupid. How many times can a team go offsides, shoot directly into bodies, make careless passes, and leave people wide open in front of your own net? These things are 101 at the NHL level, and yet they find more ways to do them every game and season. It’s stupid. Respectfully. They know it.

It’s for that reason I think they clearly don’t want to be here, and they don’t want to do the work to improve it. They say they do, but they continuously prove they don’t with their actions on the ice. Actions are what matter. The core of this team, including its captains, is irreversibly flawed as they seem to hold no one accountable, including themselves. When’s the last time you heard about the players getting in each other's faces over careless play? Oh, they bond together… to hate you, the fans, for booing them. If that leads to them winning out of spite, then I’d be all for it, but they continue to lose so clearly it’s not helping them. They talk a big game, and follow it up with nothing on the ice. That’s unacceptable and pathetic.

Nothing positive rubs off on them, either. You saw it against Utah, where Beck Malenstyn (a new guy) laid down a huge hit and then fought the player to try and spark his team in a then-close game. They responded by doing literally nothing, and it’s far from the first time that’s happened with this core of players going back several seasons.

They are too soft and ultimately not talented enough. That won’t change with more time.

2. General Manager Kevyn Adams has failed and can’t do his job. He made things so much worse at his press conference last Friday. He proclaimed Buffalo as not a destination city, essentially admitting he can’t upgrade the roster and that no one wants to come to Buffalo. He said the quiet thing out loud to a fragile bunch of players. They aren’t good enough, he can’t improve them, so they are screwed. In the player’s defense, that sucks. Kevyn brought these guys together. It’s on him to make it work and he hasn’t.

If we look back at the beginning of his tenure, Adams (and the Sabres as an organization) sabotaged any hope of his success years ago. When they denied Jack Eichel the ability to get the neck surgery he wanted, it was the immediate beginning of the end for him. Eichel was ultimately traded away to a team that 1. Let him have the surgery he wanted, and 2. Won the Stanley Cup. Few in Buffalo, myself included, have any love for Eichel. However, the way the Sabres and Adams handled this, and how it turned out, was a death sentence for the current version of the team. There are very few worthwhile NHL players who are going to play for an organization that won’t let them get the care they see fit, let alone can't win and have a GM admitting defeat a quarter of the way through the campaign. Throw in his latest comments, and players around the NHL probably see Adams and, as a result, Buffalo as a dead end.

Plus, there are what some would call panic-long contracts he has signed people to, like Dylan Cozens and Owen Power. Cozens is in a bit of a weird situation, seeing such a dramatic falloff in goals after scoring 31 two seasons ago. People get lucky sometimes, and they are at risk until they do it again. He doesn't look like he’ll do it again based on last year and this season thus far. Power has had a questionable season and has a massive contract. Due to the NHL’s system, maybe anyone would have signed these guys to long deals, but when you’re losing and have so many issues, they get examined, right or wrong.

So, here we are… again. I don't believe any of this is recoverable. Adams says he needs a Josh Allen, yet he’s had 4 of those: Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Dahlin, and Power. Two, of course, are gone and won Stanley Cups. The other 2, Dahlin and Power, look to be in over their heads and like they’ve never had to prove it. But, OK, let’s forget about those and look at how the Bills got Josh Allen: by firing the previous GM and Coach and hiring the right leaders. That’s what the Sabres actually need: the right leaders.

How The Sabres Could Fix This

The Sabres need to fire Adams and bring in a President of Hockey Operations and GM, both of whom are well-connected and respected, and bring with them an immediate statement that the Sabres are a REAL professional sports organization. Right now, they might be the worst organization in all of pro sports. That’s not being dramatic, either. The talk about them is that they have no idea what they are doing and that ownership is asleep at the wheel (allegedly). The only way to fix that, aside from getting a new owner, is to bring in people who have a lot of experience and are legitimately credible in the league. Not to fans, per se. To the league and the game itself. Not Pat Lafontaine and Ted Nolan, who were fun but not credible.

I believe that Lindy Ruff is the right leader as the coach. I do not blame him for any of this, even though he runs the team on the ice. He walked into a bad situation full of players who won’t listen to anyone, and that’s easily provable. I’d keep Lindy, as he has a good track record of building teams. This current team is impossible, but a new team needs a consistent voice who knows what they are talking about. Lindy is that.

From there, they make the difficult roster decisions and start over.

Terry Pegula needs to leave the new front office and coach alone, as well. Again, the talk about the team, which is a rumor, not fact, is that Terry makes a lot of emotional decisions based on who he likes versus what’s good for the team. Kevyn Adams had no business becoming this team’s GM so early in his front-office career. Yet, Terry really likes him, so here we are. It was the same issue with Don Granato. Everyone around the league knew Granato had to go, but Terry refused to make it happen. The same goes for Ralph Kruegger. Even Ted Nolan and Pat LaFonataine were massive failures and reeked of emotion vs. good decision-making. It just seems like there is a good case for saying Terry Pegula makes emotional decisions for the Sabres instead of cold and calculated ones, and that has to change.

As far as the roster? They don’t need a new goalie.

After that? I’m open to anything. If these players were so good, then we wouldn't have a 13-year playoff drought, 6-game-losing streaks, constant issues with accountability, and their coach saying they are mentally soft. I’m not married to any of them.

I like the new guys like Malenstyn, Zucker, and McCleod, to name a few. They are good, hard-working players any good team needs, but they aren’t your stars. I have nothing against them; they are very good players. Building around what they bring in intangibles is a good idea, but the “stars” on this team are the issue.

Hockey is a funny game. So many players are skilled and can dazzle you with amazing moves and goals, but hockey is so much more than that. It’s won with smart defensive zone play, hard forechecking, correct positioning, and basically a lot of hard work at things that aren’t pretty and fun. Unlike football, everyone is in the metaphorical trenches. No one can just coast around and check out. You have to win battles, not only for the puck but also away from it. These skills are even more important in the NHL because everyone there can dangle and shoot hard. It’s the little things you have to do great, always and consistently, to really succeed. I think that’s the issue with the “star” players on the Sabres. They just don’t want to do the stuff that’s no fun and seem to push back when coaches push them to do it. That will not work and hasn’t been working.

Do we really expect a core that’s been together for 4 years to change? I don’t. Why would I, or anyone, expect them to? Yes, many of them are young, but everyone is in the NHL these days.

The Sabres also can’t be afraid to move on just because Jack and Sam won Stanley Cups. They succeeded because they immediately went to places that were simply better situations. After all, they had established cores that could win and contend without them. They were the finishing pieces. The Sabres don't have a core that wins.

By the way, I don���t think it would ever work with guys like Sam and Jack as the core because they are not the people on whom you build your team culture. Barkov is. Stone is. They are really good players of high character who’ve done things in this league and earned the right to be a captain based on their willingness to do everything to win. They helped build tough teams on the ice and in the locker room. Not everyone can do that, no matter how talented they are. Eichel and Reinhardt are supremely talented, but they aren’t these guys. That doesn’t appear to be Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson, or Alex Tuch, either.

Change needs to happen, but it needs to happen in the right ways this time. Terry can’t continue to be perceived as absent. He can’t be loyal to people who don’t win for him, even if they are the nicest. It’s pro-sports. If you don’t win, you fail. Stop failing the fans, Terry. Do the thing that makes sense and bring in people who know what they are doing.

“What if it fails?” Who cares. It’s been 13 going on 14 years.

Remember two things, Terry:

"Starting today, the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence, will be to win a Stanley Cup."

“I’ll drill another well.”

Live up to your own words.

Or, prove me wrong. I'd love it, as would everyone in Buffalo.

Thoughts? Pat@WBUF.com