Darcy Regier's "emphasis" on small skill players

[nfreeman]

My bottom line on Darcy: he built one of my all-time favorite sports teams -- the 2005-'06 Sabres -- which was a great team, and it wasn't luck. That team was sabotaged by his incompetent/stubborn bosses. He also made a number of great trades over the years, and almost never "lost" a trade.

 

BUT...his incompetent bosses gave him back the keys to running the team, including the checkbook, in the summer of 2008, and his new boss doubled his budget in 2011 -- and he failed to put a good team together despite having more resources than most for 2.5 years and more resources than just about everyone else for another 2.5 years.

 

Those results are all that matters to me. He had plenty of time and resources to build a good team and he failed. The team got worse every year, to the point where watching them was unbearable by the time he got canned. He has to be accountable for that.

 

On a more micro-level, IMHO he was pretty good at drafting defensemen but lousy at drafting forwards. And I will never forgive him for sitting on his hands for 2.5 months in 2011-'12 while the team came out like zombies every night and the season went down the tube after Lucic ran over Miller.

 

Still, I think he is a good guy and a gentleman and I wish him well in Phoenix.

[inkman]

My bottom line on Darcy: he built one of my all-time favorite sports teams -- the 2005-'06 Sabres -- which was a great team, and it wasn't luck.

I never said Darcy was lucky in forming that team, he just lucked into getting every single penalty called the way they should be, therefore giving his smalls speedy skill team a decided advantage over teams who only months earlier were set up for success in the clutch and grab era.