How badly did the tank fail?

[Marvelo]

The tank was a desperate plan to get top talent in a good draft year and then was continued in an attempt to land a generational talent with a very good consolation prize.  It was a terrible idea and was compounded by an ill advised scheme to try to speed up a rebuild.  

 

As for Babcock.  I am convinced that when he left Detroit there was only one place he would end up and he did.  Thinking / planning / hoping that he would come to Buffalo was not reality.

 

The tank will haunt the Sabres for a long time, IMO.  Possibly forever.  I am a fan of the team, but hated management for tanking.  For me, a Stanley Cup, if it ever happens, with Eichel and Samson on the roster (the two players directly resulting from tanking for 2+ years) will be tainted.

 

All true.

[bob_sauve28]

Too early to tell!!! 

[erickompositör72]

For me, a Stanley Cup, if it ever happens, with Eichel and Samson on the roster (the two players directly resulting from tanking for 2+ years) will be tainted.

 

I had this same feeling when the idea of tanking was catching on. However, the fact that Jack was #2 overall, rather than #1, actually mitigates that a bit for me (probably just rationalizing, I know). I also like the fact that Jack is such a unique player.

 

If we win a cup before the Oilers, it would truly be icing on the cake.

[Crusader1969]

I wish more of the fanbase came to this conclusion back when that graphic was distributed. IMO it was always snake oil. A get rich quick scheme that can work when everything falls into place perfectly, but generally it sells hope and not much else.

 

I think that out tank had proven quite conclusivley that it isn’t the draft picks, it’s the management that is building the team that is the difference. This would have been alot less painful had the owner went out and hired competent team builders first instead of chasing a generational player first.

 

Right now we don’t have a generaltional player or a team. And most of the picks obtained in that plan are not going to be on entry level deals next season. Worst case scenario.

 

 

what was the purpose of the tank? if it was to acquire top end talent then yes it worked. The rebuild is where we've gone off the tracks but don't forget - Rome wasn't built overnight.

 

The tank was a desperate plan to get top talent in a good draft year and then was continued in an attempt to land a generational talent with a very good consolation prize.  It was a terrible idea and was compounded by an ill advised scheme to try to speed up a rebuild.  

 

As for Babcock.  I am convinced that when he left Detroit there was only one place he would end up and he did.  Thinking / planning / hoping that he would come to Buffalo was not reality.

 

The tank will haunt the Sabres for a long time, IMO.  Possibly forever.  I am a fan of the team, but hated management for tanking.  For me, a Stanley Cup, if it ever happens, with Eichel and Samson on the roster (the two players directly resulting from tanking for 2+ years) will be tainted.

 

Just like how the Penguins and the Black Hawks have asterisks next to their names as stanley cup champions.  Will you put one next to the Leafs if/when they win one?

Edited March 15, 2018 by Crusader1969

[Drunkard]

The tank was a desperate plan to get top talent in a good draft year and then was continued in an attempt to land a generational talent with a very good consolation prize. It was a terrible idea and was compounded by an ill advised scheme to try to speed up a rebuild.

 

As for Babcock.  I am convinced that when he left Detroit there was only one place he would end up and he did.  Thinking / planning / hoping that he would come to Buffalo was not reality.

 

The tank will haunt the Sabres for a long time, IMO.  Possibly forever.  I am a fan of the team, but hated management for tanking.  For me, a Stanley Cup, if it ever happens, with Eichel and Samson on the roster (the two players directly resulting from tanking for 2+ years) will be tainted.

Tainted Stanley Cups count the same as real ones, so I'm fine with a bunch of them and plenty of cusps to go with them.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Just like how the Penguins and the Black Hawks have asterisks next to their names as stanley cup champions.  Will you put one next to the Leafs if/when they win one?

 

No.

 

If you go back to Mario the Penguins did not tank to get him.  They didn't have to.  They were terrible and in financial crisis, even bankrupt.  They did not tank to get Crosby, or Malkin, or Fleury.

 

The Hawks did not tank to get their big 2.

Tainted Stanley Cups count the same as real ones, so I'm fine with a bunch of them and plenty of cusps to go with them.

 

NO MORE CUSPS!!

 

PA and have had our fill.

 

:P

[Drunkard]

No.

 

If you go back to Mario the Penguins did not tank to get him. They didn't have to. They were terrible and in financial crisis, even bankrupt. They did not tank to get Crosby, or Malkin, or Fleury.

 

The Hawks did not tank to get their big 2.

 

 

NO MORE CUSPS!!

 

PA and have had our fill.

 

:P

I said cups first. I'm fine with getting plenty of cusps as long as it results in a few CUPS as well. All that means is we're a serious contender every year. We can't win it all every year.

 

The Penguins did tank to get Lemieux though. They sent a hot goalie down to the minors because he won too many games for them as they were heading down the home stretch and they were worried they wouldn't get Lemieux so they shipped him out. You don't get more tanky than that.

 

I also fail to see the big distinction between the two. Why does losing due to incompetence or cheap ownership get a pat on the head but realizing the team overall needs better talent to compete worthy of such disdain?

[Crusader1969]

so if you are naturally just inept then you deserve the accolades when you land players like Crosby,Malkin and such but if you actually plan to sell off your over paid- non producing players from your mediocre hockey club then you are vilified? 

[GASabresIUFAN]

Color me confused. All the Sabres did was be honest about their mediocre core group and decision to move on from those guys. The media dubbed it a tank. It’s no secret that the top talent in this league comes from the top players in the draft. There are some exceptions but they are few and far between. Crosby, Kane, Malkin, Doughty, etc... were all top 3 picks. So how does a team trapped in lower tier playoff contention ever get top talent? They have to rebuild. Weren’t you sick of drafting the Kryukov, Novotny, Pysyks, Armia, and Zagrapans?

 

It was a rebuild just like any other it just started at a higher point then say the rebuilds in Tor, Pitt or Chi. Those teams were at the bottom for years and years (Tor since 1967). So we “tanked” and they rebuilt. What a bunch of horse apples.

 

Look at what the Rags traded at the deadline. Nash, Mcdonagh, JT MIller, Grabner and Holden all out the door. Don’t be surprised if Zuccarello and Staal follow them out the door this summer. So are they tanking or are they re-tooling? Once they dump Zuccarello and Staal, they won’t have anyone over 30 on their roster except the King.

 

Our rebuild has yet to work out, but it is only 5 years into the process and 4 years since we drafted Samson. It could be worse. We could be the Oilers with 4 1st overall picks in the last 11 drafts plus two other top 5s, another 3 top 10s and 5 additional 1st rd picks. Were are they? Looking at another top 10 pick.

 

No question that the Sabres have mis-managed the rebuild process. 4 coaches, 3 GMs, wasted draft picks, poor trades and a frustrated fanbase. However, I truly think this is the bottom. Jbot is going to do what TM should have done and build a proper foundation. He has pieces to work with in Jack, Sam, Risto, and ROR. I think he has 2 more seasons to get things really moving forward, but next year will be significantly better.

 

Like the Rags, I expect everyone over 30 to be gone. At the start of the season, the Sabres only had 5 players recently drafted by the Sabres on the roster. I expect that number to jump next season and to really jump the year after. Once the majority of the roster is internally develop players, then and only then will we turn the corner long-term.

Edited March 15, 2018 by GASabresIUFAN

[Sabres Fan in NS]

I also fail to see the big distinction between the two. Why does losing due to incompetence or cheap ownership get a pat on the head but realizing the team overall needs better talent to compete worthy of such disdain?

 

There is a big difference between being not very good at your job and actually deciding to gut a team with the plan to lose games to secure a better draft position.

 

so if you are naturally just inept then you deserve the accolades when you land players like Crosby,Malkin and such but if you actually plan to sell off your over paid- non producing players from your mediocre hockey club then you are vilified? 

 

Correct.

[Drunkard]

There is a big difference between being not very good at your job and actually deciding to gut a team with the plan to lose games to secure a better draft position.

 

Correct.

Fair enough. I find how honest they were about it kind of refreshing personally, but I can see your side of it from a honor stand point.

 

That doesn't mean Chicago and Pittsburgh didn't tank for their high picks (sans Crosby) though. In theory they should have been firing the GM's and coaches once they proved to not be up to the task so one could argue that refusing to do so is the same thing as trying to lose and jettisoning veterans. That means it's entirely possible they tanked just like we did only they did it more stealthily.

 

I'll give you that the Pens didn't tank for Crosby, but they certainly tanked for Lemieux.

 

Here's a link to an article about it. They traded players, sent guys down, and lost games on purpose. I fail to see how that is any more honorable than what the Sabres did.

 

https://hockey-graphs.com/2015/04/03/nhl-tanking-toronto-edmonton-arizona-pittsburgh-penguins/

Edited March 15, 2018 by Alkoholist

[GASabresIUFAN]

What was honorable about Harold Ballard’s mis-management of the Leafs for 5 decades or Dollar Bill Wirtz’s terrible management of the Blackhawks for 4 decades. Remember he was the jerk that refused to allow TV broadcasts of local games.

 

I think what the Sabres did was at least honest. We didn’t have the horses to be a Cup contender and we no longer had a penny pinching owner (Golisano). We tried buying a team to add to the mediocre core and that failed miserably. What other option did they have to build a winner?

[Crusader1969]

all I know is when Eichel, Mittelstadt, Svechnikov (or whomever they get this year) and Reinhart are leading this team to the play-offs in another year or two, I will give two Molson Canadians how the Sabres got them on the roster. 

[Ducky]

GMTM tried to do it too fast and traded away too much of the future. You shouldn't be trading away first round picks like he did.

I hope you guys get Dahlin this summer because he will help with the rebuild enormously and it is about time the ball bounced your way. If Deadmonton wins the lottery again, I will effin scream.

Edited March 15, 2018 by Ducky

[inkman]

Rome wasn't built overnight.

 

A bird in hand is worth 3 olives

[Taro T]

No.

 

If you go back to Mario the Penguins did not tank to get him. They didn't have to. They were terrible and in financial crisis, even bankrupt. They did not tank to get Crosby, or Malkin, or Fleury.

 

The Hawks did not tank to get their big 2.

 

NO MORE CUSPS!!

 

PA and have had our fill.

 

:P

They most certainly did both times. They & Joisey both tanked to try to land Lemieux & the Pens pulled out more stops than the Devils & won that race. That each was tanking was a VERY poorly hid secret.

 

As for the later tank. Compare the '01 Pens roster that snuck past the Sabres to their roster 2 seasons later. Do you really not see a "tank" there? Though it was done to accomodate Mario's significant undercapitalization (he'd basically "bought" the team in trade for money owed him & obviously was short cash because he was owed $MM's) and the team's being saddled w/ an ancient rink lacking many of the boxes that teams now use to siphon corporate cash, it still was a selling off of essentially every useful veteran they had. Which, from this vantage point, looks an awful lot like a tank.

 

And, though the Sabres intentionally sold off their roster & tanked under the current owner, they almost definitely would've done the same 5-7 years earlier had Hammister bought them out of bankruptcy rather than Golisano. He could barely afford the Arena football team he had.

 

:beer:

Edited March 15, 2018 by Taro T

[Kruppstahl]

I don't think we need to fully blow it up again, but we need to rebuild almost from ground level.

 

It is possible the only name currently on the team who is still on the team in 3 or 4 years is Eichel.

 

Among the current group, who should stay?  They are all expendable.

[GASabresIUFAN]

GMTM tried to do it too fast and traded away too much of the future. You shouldn't be trading away first round picks like he did.

I hope you guys get Dahlin this summer because he will help with the rebuild enormously and it is about time the ball bounced your way. If Deadmonton wins the lottery again, I will effin scream.

Bettman has already guaranteed the Rags will win the lottery.

[Robviously]

The Tank didn't fail.  Tim Murray failed.  

 

The team bottoming out is why we have probably our two best players - Eichel and Reinhart.  And since only ~4 guys are left on the team since the end of the 2013 season, that means the rest of the roster is Tim Murray's doing.  And it's utter trash.  

 

Regarding all the negative effects to the team culture and what "nuking" the team meant, I'm copy/pasting something from a few months back:

 

The roster deserved to be nuked.  Is everyone forgetting how much we hated the teams we had in the years leading up to the Tank?  Because I remember this message board back then and we HATED those teams.

 

We were terrible to start every season and then there'd we'd string together some meaningless wins to end the season.  Exactly 0% of the end of season momentum would carry into the following season and we'd be out of the playoffs again.  And again and again.

 

Those teams were awful, and awful to watch.  We lost nothing by destroying them to Tank.

 

And the year after the Tank we had 81 points, so basically no lingering effects from that disaster of a season.  It's just that the team Murray built also sucked, and we're still trying to fix that.

 

Tearing down and rebuilding works in pretty much every sport.  The Astros and Cubs won the last 2 World Series.  They weren't *trying* to lose but trading all your assets for future assets is basically the same thing.  You're giving up everything right now to get a lot more later.  Inter-temporal trades work. 

[Stoner]

They most certainly did both times. They & Joisey both tanked to try to land Lemieux & the Pens pulled out more stops than the Devils & won that race. That each was tanking was a VERY poorly hid secret.

 

As for the later tank. Compare the '01 Pens roster that snuck past the Sabres to their roster 2 seasons later. Do you really not see a "tank" there? Though it was done to accomodate Mario's significant undercapitalization (he'd basically "bought" the team in trade for money owed him & obviously was short cash because he was owed $MM's) and the team's being saddled w/ an ancient rink lacking many of the boxes that teams now use to siphon corporate cash, it still was a selling off of essentially every useful veteran they had. Which, from this vantage point, looks an awful lot like a tank.

 

And, though the Sabres intentionally sold off their roster & tanked under the current owner, they almost definitely would've done the same 5-7 years earlier had Hammister bought them out of bankruptcy rather than Golisano. He could barely afford the Arena football team he had.

 

:beer:

But did they tank TO GET CROSBY ( N S' wording)? I don't see how they could have, as there wasn't a season before the Crosby draft. The Sabres had the same odds of getting Sid. If they had, would you say the Sabres tanked to get him?

[Weave]

separating TM from the tank to call it a success is disingenuous IMO. It’s cherry picking. Th tank was the whole damned package, from moving Miller and Vanek right on through “The Sabres select Jack Eichel”, and everything in between. It was a whole plan. The whole plan was deeply flawed.

[Taro T]

But did they tank TO GET CROSBY ( N S' wording)? I don't see how they could have, as there wasn't a season before the Crosby draft. The Sabres had the same odds of getting Sid. If they had, would you say the Sabres tanked to get him?

There was a season before the Malkin draft and the Pens stunk that season. The Pens were 1 of 3 teams that had 3 balls in the Crosby lottery.

 

THEY didn't tank for Fleury, as they'd traded for that pick. (Thus him not pulling a ball out of the Pens bag.)

 

You conveniently neglected that Syd wasn't the only player NS discussed. And the Pens DID tank a 2nd time.

[Robviously]

separating TM from the tank to call it a success is disingenuous IMO. It’s cherry picking. Th tank was the whole damned package, from moving Miller and Vanek right on through “The Sabres select Jack Eichel”, and everything in between. It was a whole plan. The whole plan was deeply flawed.

You can separate TM from the Tank pretty easily when you consider it was never his plan; he didn't put it into motion.  The plan changed when TM showed up and we started targeting guys like Lehner, Bogo, Kane, Kulikov, Moulson (round 2), Okposo, etc.  Unless you're saying TM spent years executing Darcy's vision, which is nuts.  

 

Darcy built some of the best teams in Sabres history and he might have been able to pull this off if the Pegulas hadn't gotten cold feet.  If nothing else, he'd have never overpaid for players he'd fallen in love with in multiple deals.

 

Disingenuous is saying you're upset about what the Tank did to our team culture while ignoring the fact that our team culture was utter trash before the Tank.  We were miserable watching those teams play and they deserved to be blown up.  There's a reason no one was upset when the dismantling started.  Compare that to the Page 1 reactions in the threads when many of Murray's moves were announced.

[Crusader1969]

separating TM from the tank to call it a success is disingenuous IMO. It’s cherry picking. Th tank was the whole damned package, from moving Miller and Vanek right on through “The Sabres select Jack Eichel”, and everything in between. It was a whole plan. The whole plan was deeply flawed.

Moving on from Vanek and Miller and landing Eichel would seem to be a huge win to me

[apuszczalowski]

Wait, didn't we argue for months about all the assets TM pissed away.  Didn't you tell me he acquired so many other assets that it didn't matter.  Didn't you say he acquired, albeit lower quality, almost as many picks as he pissed away?

 

The tank hasn't failed, yet!  In fact this is the year that may save the tank.  However TM failed the tank.  You can't accelerate a rebuilt.  You need to build a base, then acquire the vets to fill roster holes.  It's what Pitt did and Chi.  Also rebuilds can take a decade or more.  Toronto has truly sucked since 2007, long before they hit on Marner, Nylander and then bottoming out with Matthews.  Guys like Kadri and JVR were already there.  Chicago had Seabrook (2003) and Keith (2002) long before they drafted Kane (2007) and they sucked for the better part of 2 decades.

 

TM traded away our base of young player and draft/prospect assets to acquire his future stars and destroyed the depth of the organization.  It also didn't help that he was a terrible amateur and pro player evaluator.  It hasn't helped that he didn't draft any D besides Guhle of the pedigree he traded away.  It didn't help that he and DR drafted or acquired some 15 or so forwards (in the 1st 3 rounds) from 2013 to 2016 and only 2, Jack and Sam are contributing.  It didn't help that choose Nylander to compete with Tor and forget our organizations gaping hole on defense.  

 

However we are far from done.  Guhle, Asplund, Mittelstadt and maybe Borgen and Olofsson, can make up for the failures of their brother prospects.  A top 4 pick this year regardless if it's Dahlin or a forward will help significantly.  Maybe a Pu or Nylander and or Fitzgerald will also make a surprise impact.  

 

I'm am really optimistic for 2019-2020 which admittedly seem like forever from here however with some luck our roster could look like this using just internal players  (I'm writing off KO for now).  Age in ( ) at start of or early in the  2019-2020 season.  If the below happens and this group of kids succeeds (not unlike what the Avs look like this season or Tor last year), then the tank ultimately was a success but the rebuild will have gone from 2012/13 to 2019/20 or 7 years, which is actually really short by historical standards.

 

Svechnikov (20) Jack (23) Nylander (22)

Olofsson (24) ROR (28) Reinhart (24)

Asplund (22) ) Mittelstadt (22) Pu (21)

Girgensons (25) ERod (26) Baptiste (24)  (Other Parts Wilson, Bailey, Smith, O'Regan, Davidsson)

 

Guhle (22) Ristolainen (25)

Scandella (29) Borgen (22)

McCabe (26) Nelson (27)

 

Ullmark (26)

Johansson (24)

They were so bad they made the playoffs in 2013 and were an epic 3rd period collapse away from knocking out the Bruins.........

 

Theres nothing wrong with speeding up a rebuild and using picks to obtain good players

The problem is that they lost out on the reason for the Tank (McDavid), and TMs drafts weren't able to obtain anything of real value. The prospects he drafted (along with most he traded away) really aren't all that awe inspiring or special

 

TMs biggest problem, was that he didn't know how to trade from a position of power. When he saw something shiney he gave whatever they wanted to get it. Lehner was no where near worth a 1st, Ottawa was in a position where they needed to move someone. He should have been able to obtain what he did in the Kane trade for half of what he gave up. The entire NHL knew kane was done in Winnepeg and the Sabres were the only team that would take him of their hands while he was out for the remainder of the season. O'Reilly was also known to be out in Colorado, but that deal was atleast a little closer to being a reasonable deal. He overpaid for FAs (although that may have had more to do with getting them to Buffalo) and failed to really obtain any diamonds in the rough.

 

And in poor coaching hires and its why they are in the mess they are in.