Over the holidays, I had the chance to discuss the Sabres with a few more people than usual. Just about all of them argued for a trade. It’s the familiar refrain. Change something, anything, they explained to me. I haven’t yet reached the point of exasperation but I must admit I’m finding this message harder and harder to resist.
What’s bothered me most this season has been the home record. Prior to the game against the Leafs on December 16, the Sabres had won just two of their last ten games at home. That’s absolutely pathetic.
Let me be totally clear. The home team at FNC that season ticket holders have watched from their seats ranks to this point as one of the worst in the league. Ticket holders have legitimate reasons to be upset with the product. The Sabres have been dysfunctional at home all season long. They routinely allow leads to slip away and their effort has been, to put it lightly, inconsistent. Some fans will give the team more time to pull it together than others but there’s no escaping the widening gap between reality and expectations.
My most shared expectation was that the Sabres would show flashes of greatness. I didn’t expect their record to be elite. I imagined the Sabres would occasionally overwhelm an elite team but would otherwise have limited success against middling opponents. This has not been the case. The Sabres performance in bench-mark games has been disappointing. The Flyers and Bruins have a combined 4-0 record against the Sabres this season; the Red Wings and Penguins have each crushed the Sabres.
My hope at the start of the season was that at some point in the season the Sabres would put together a run where they win something like thirteen of fifteen games. I still think they’re capable of such a streak but the dynamic has changed now that the Sabres have tumbled so far down the standings table. I thought a winning streak would be enough to put the Sabres in a competition for the division title late in the season; considering the way the season has gone so far, it seems like a long winning streak might be a necessity just to qualify for the playoffs. Obviously I totally misjudged this team.
The leading story, now midway through, has been the inability of several high profile veterans to carry the Sabres through adversity. In the first quarter of the season, Tyler Myers played poorly by anyone’s standards and Ryan Miller directly cost the Sabres several games. Miller has been an average goaltender more recently and Myers, of course, has been out of the line-up. Drew Stafford has done some impressive things rushing to the net with the puck but he has been unable to finish nearly as often as the team has needed. Derek Roy, Ville Leino, and Brad Boyes have each been largely unproductive. These are players the Sabres depend on to bail the rest of the team out.
At present, the Sabres are a terribly unconfident and extremely fragile group. It’s plain to see. These recent losses against the Senators, Capitals, Devils, and Leafs are the product of their failures earlier in the season. The leads that slipped away and the pucks that almost made it past the goaltender are piling up and now they’re dragging the team down. Close losses in which the Sabres didn’t exactly play poorly were inevitable. I don’t usually have a fatalist attitude with the Sabres but I resigned myself to these most recent losses weeks ago. Far more than the soft team storyline that’s been totally overblown, the missed opportunities earlier in the year to close out wins have pulled the life out of the players and fans.
So now the conversation swings back to coaching and leadership. If we accept that poor execution from the talent is responsible for a disappointing first half of the regular season, the question becomes — why has the top-talent failed the team? Did the talent fail to meet our expectations because we’ve overrated their ability? Or, did the talent fail because of inadequate coaching and/or leadership?
It’s appropriate to ask where Lindy Ruff fits in with what has happened this season. He has coached the core of this team for five or six years — hundreds and hundreds of games. His opening day roster featured a Vezina trophy winning goaltender, two 40-goal scorers and three 30-goal scorers all in the prime of their careers, and arguably the most talented group of defenders he’s ever coached.
It’s also fair to ask why so many of the forwards, veterans and rookies alike, look uncomfortable on the ice when key leaders like Vanek and Pominville have been so dependable. If Vanek and Pominville are effective leaders, why hasn’t the rest of the team been able to rally around their individual success?
There has to be some kind of middle ground between blame and shared responsibility. Frankly, it’s a little insulting to see and hear people absolve Ruff of any blame. Certainly Ruff, and even highly productive leaders like Vanek and Pominville, share part of the responsibility for the team’s record.
But whenever I consider the quality of this particular coaching staff and leadership group, it feels like contributing factors that, at most, exacerbate a much larger problem — which is that the Sabres are built around a mostly undependable group of veterans. What do the Sabres do with Miller? What do the Sabres do with Stafford? I mean, there’s a list of players I could mention here, right?
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately within the context of the Sabres roster is the franchise’s status within the league. What Pegula did with the locker-room and player lounge is part of a transition. Those changes have become a punch-line when put in context with the Sabres home record but the reality is the athletes under contract with the Sabres play for an organization that has extremely committed ownership, first-rate facilities, and great fan support. I believe the Sabres have become a potential destination for the Mark Recchi, Gary Roberts, future hall-of-fame types who, as their storied careers come to a close, are trying to win one last ring. The point is — players should understand they’re very fortunate to play for the Sabres. They need to feel a sense of urgency to make the most of their time. Tomorrow they could be playing for a lower-rated franchise whether they’re productive or not but the unproductive players, everyone in hockey should be made aware, are expedited out of Buffalo. Players need to earn the right to stay with this franchise. That’s a message the Sabres will eventually to need to enforce, if not send.