What happened to Les Sabres?

[lamaisonbleu]

Up until Murray Les Sabres had a proud history. Even if they were not in playoff contention they left it all on the ice and the games were entertaining. Remember Gerry Mehen beating Favell and Shero's Flyers to knock them out of the playoffs. Shero said the only time he felt as bad was when he lost his mother. Now players can't wait to get out of town. The management and coaching hires are terrible. Couldn't they have gotten Burke, Trotz, Lamorello  to name a few. They paid top price for players and coaches and got zilch. So sad.

Edited July 12, 2021 by lamaisonbleu

[Pimlach]

What happened?  

The new owners had a simplistic vision of simply spending more money than the previous owners and the winning would happen.  It didn’t.  

The new owners never understood how to improve the hockey team, they hired bad people, and they got bad advice.  

They bought into the idea of tanking (losing by design) in order to get top draft choices.  The organization was gutted to shambles and the losing continued, even with the shiny new draft choices.   Pride, courage, patience, and leadership were all lacking.  

The firing and hiring continued.  The pattern became hire inexperienced people that they can control. The losing continued. 

This created the culture of losing and an organization in perpetual turmoil and constant change.  

This is where we are today.  A historic ten year playoff drought.  Another rookie GM trying hard to fix it with newly issued constraints on resources and staff.  Another NHL rookie Head Coach trying hard to reach out to the next wave of potential core players.  Our best players, the shiny draft choices, wanting out.  

Edited July 12, 2021 by Pimlach

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Welcome to SabreSpace.

Is this the Ghost of @PASabreFan?

[Marvin]

  On 7/12/2021 at 12:05 PM, lamaisonbleu said:

Up until Murray Les Sabres had a proud history. Even if they were not in playoff contention they left it all on the ice and the games were entertaining. Remember Gerry Mehen beating Favell and Shero's Flyers to knock them out of the playoffs. Shero said the only time he felt as bad was when he lost his mother. Now players can't wait to get out of town. The management and coaching hires are terrible. Couldn't they have gotten Burke, Trotz, Lamorello  to name a few. They paid top price for players and coaches and got zilch. So sad.

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Welcome to the board.

[Cal Naughton Jr]

[rakish]

  On 7/12/2021 at 12:58 PM, New Scotland (NS) said:

Welcome to SabreSpace.

Is this the Ghost of @PASabreFan?

Expand  

@PASabreFan would have added a random diacritical mark in the title, his comedy always goes one step further. It's his tell.

[lamaisonbleu]

I'll answer my own question. Get real hockey people in mgr and coach and get rid of the prima donnas. They did it in 2005 when Regier and Ruff put together a bunch of castoffs and hungry rookies and to the surprise of everybody got to the conference finals. On the way they depantsed the Senators and Chiara. Brenda beat the Sabres in the conference finals. Unfortunately the Sabres were depleted on defence or the story might have been different. Ownership should get out of the way and not hire soccer coaches and pay 5 million per year. Trotz might have jumped at that offer. He left the Caps who low balled him and joined the Islanders for less than that. Ownership is clueless. They should have hired a crusty vet such as Burke as head of hockey operations. The penguins did just that for 3 million. Buffalo deserves better. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by lamaisonbleu

[Marvin]

  On 7/12/2021 at 1:34 PM, lamaisonbleu said:

I'll answer my own question. Get real hockey people in mgr and coach and get rid of the prima donnas. They did it in 2005 when Regier and Ruff put together a bunch of castoffs and hungry rookies and to the surprise of everybody got to the conference finals. On the way they depantsed the Senators and Chiara. Brenda beat the Sabres in the conference finals. Unfortunately the Sabres were depleted on defence or the story might have been different. Ownership should get out of the way and not hire soccer coaches and pay 5 million per year. Trotz might have jumped at that offer. He left the Caps who low balled him and joined the Islanders for less than that. Ownership is clueless. They should have hired a crusty vet such as Burke as head of hockey operations. The penguins did just that for 3 million. Buffalo deserves better. 

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Welcome to the board.

[mjd1001]

This is re-visiting a topic that has been discussed many times, but it hasn't been brought up for a while.

The 'tank' in itself wasn't the issue. The DEGREE of it, and how it was executed was.

-The Sabres should have had a better/more robust scouting department all along.  Mistakes were made at the 'beginning' of the tank, and the scouting staff was gutted recently.

-Murray made some decent movies, but 'accelerating' the rebuild probably was a mistake.

-It is a topic on these forums, but it 'appears' that when the owners 'meddle' in the hockey dept. bad decisions are made.  No hardcore proof on this, and most owners will want to be involved in decisions....but many feel Terry make some bad decisions that he didn't have to be directly involved in.

Any one of those would be bad.  However, each one amplified the others and made them worse. 

 

You don't need a veteran coach. You just need a better one.  You don't need the highest paid scouting staff in the league, you just have to make sure you don't have the lowest. You don't need an owner who is 100% hands off, but you do need one that has a little better 'luck' when he does step in and make decisions.  All this will pass, this franchise will get better on the ice.....the only question is how long will that take and just how much better will they get.

[Thorner]

  On 7/12/2021 at 3:21 PM, mjd1001 said:

This is re-visiting a topic that has been discussed many times, but it hasn't been brought up for a while.

The 'tank' in itself wasn't the issue. The DEGREE of it, and how it was executed was.

-The Sabres should have had a better/more robust scouting department all along.  Mistakes were made at the 'beginning' of the tank, and the scouting staff was gutted recently.

-Murray made some decent movies, but 'accelerating' the rebuild probably was a mistake.

-It is a topic on these forums, but it 'appears' that when the owners 'meddle' in the hockey dept. bad decisions are made.  No hardcore proof on this, and most owners will want to be involved in decisions....but many feel Terry make some bad decisions that he didn't have to be directly involved in.
Any one of those would be bad.  However, each one amplified the others and made them worse. 

 

You don't need a veteran coach. You just need a better one.  You don't need the highest paid scouting staff in the league, you just have to make sure you don't have the lowest. You don't need an owner who is 100% hands off, but you do need one that has a little better 'luck' when he does step in and make decisions.  All this will pass, this franchise will get better on the ice.....the only question is how long will that take and just how much better will they get.

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I still don't believe that the strategy itself of "accelerating" the rebuild was the issue. Weren't we just saying that the tear down was too extensive? We *needed* capable vet players. Murray arguably targeted the wrong players, (I'd argue ROR was the right one, though) considering what we've heard about how some of them affected the room, but I don't think the concept of supporting your youth with good now players is the problem, in fact I think it's what we need to do this go-round. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Thorny

[Stoner]

  On 7/12/2021 at 12:58 PM, New Scotland (NS) said:

Welcome to SabreSpace.

Is this the Ghost of @PASabreFan?

Expand  

Tuttle is real, alive and spectacular.

[inkman]

  On 7/12/2021 at 1:34 PM, lamaisonbleu said:

I'll answer my own question. Get real hockey people in mgr and coach and get rid of the prima donnas. They did it in 2005 when Regier and Ruff put together a bunch of castoffs and hungry rookies and to the surprise of everybody got to the conference finals. On the way they depantsed the Senators and Chiara. Brenda beat the Sabres in the conference finals. Unfortunately the Sabres were depleted on defence or the story might have been different. Ownership should get out of the way and not hire soccer coaches and pay 5 million per year. Trotz might have jumped at that offer. He left the Caps who low balled him and joined the Islanders for less than that. Ownership is clueless. They should have hired a crusty vet such as Burke as head of hockey operations. The penguins did just that for 3 million. Buffalo deserves better. 

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Brian Burke is a buffoon.  

[Stoner]

  On 7/12/2021 at 12:05 PM, lamaisonbleu said:

Up until Murray Les Sabres had a proud history. Even if they were not in playoff contention they left it all on the ice and the games were entertaining. Remember Gerry Mehen beating Favell and Shero's Flyers to knock them out of the playoffs. Shero said the only time he felt as bad was when he lost his mother. Now players can't wait to get out of town. The management and coaching hires are terrible. Couldn't they have gotten Burke, Trotz, Lamorello  to name a few. They paid top price for players and coaches and got zilch. So sad.

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Good post. It's a simple but necessary 30,000-foot-view question while most of us are poking around in the British Open rough for our balls.

Pimlach stole all my thunder. I'd add that Terry's mistake wasn't limited to thinking that his money would make the difference for a historically budget-conscious franchise, but that his leadership, involvement and hockey acumen would, too.

[Stoner]

See also: the lure of the dynasty and the looking down the nose at "just making the playoffs." The lure ("Pegvorka") raised expectations and, failing to work, lowered the entertainment value of Sabres hockey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

[Weave]

  On 7/12/2021 at 3:28 PM, Thorny said:

I still don't believe that the strategy itself of "accelerating" the rebuild was the issue. Weren't we just saying that the tear down was too extensive? We *needed* capable vet players. Murray arguably targeted the wrong players, (I'd argue ROR was the right one, though) considering what we've heard about how some of them affected the room, but I don't think the concept of supporting your youth with good now players is the problem, in fact I think it's what we need to do this go-round. 

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Exactly.  You cannot rationalize a thorough tanking and not rapidly replenish the veterans you jettisoned.

At the end of the day we are where we are because we compounded a couple of big mistakes with annual smaller mistakes when the room for error was negligible.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

  On 7/12/2021 at 3:54 PM, PASabreFan said:

Tuttle is real, alive and spectacular.

Expand  

 

[Weave]

  On 7/12/2021 at 3:54 PM, PASabreFan said:

Tuttle is real, alive and spectacular.

Expand  

Perry?

[Thorner]

  On 7/12/2021 at 4:19 PM, Weave said:

Exactly.  You cannot rationalize a thorough tanking and not rapidly replenish the veterans you jettisoned.

At the end of the day we are where we are because we compounded a couple of big mistakes with annual smaller mistakes when the room for error was negligible.

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One of the most succinct write-ups I've seen of it. 

[Thorner]

  On 7/12/2021 at 4:20 PM, Weave said:

Perry?

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More like corey Teri

[Sabres Fan in NS]

  On 7/12/2021 at 4:20 PM, Weave said:

Perry?

Expand  

Captain.

[FogBat]

  On 7/12/2021 at 3:21 PM, mjd1001 said:

This is re-visiting a topic that has been discussed many times, but it hasn't been brought up for a while.

The 'tank' in itself wasn't the issue. The DEGREE of it, and how it was executed was.

-The Sabres should have had a better/more robust scouting department all along.  Mistakes were made at the 'beginning' of the tank, and the scouting staff was gutted recently.

-Murray made some decent movies, but 'accelerating' the rebuild probably was a mistake.

-It is a topic on these forums, but it 'appears' that when the owners 'meddle' in the hockey dept. bad decisions are made.  No hardcore proof on this, and most owners will want to be involved in decisions....but many feel Terry make some bad decisions that he didn't have to be directly involved in.

Any one of those would be bad.  However, each one amplified the others and made them worse. 

 

You don't need a veteran coach. You just need a better one.  You don't need the highest paid scouting staff in the league, you just have to make sure you don't have the lowest. You don't need an owner who is 100% hands off, but you do need one that has a little better 'luck' when he does step in and make decisions.  All this will pass, this franchise will get better on the ice.....the only question is how long will that take and just how much better will they get.

Expand  

Exactly! Let's not forget the devastating ROR trade that might as well have relegated us to the ECHL.

[Digger]

Consider that we had 3 first round draft picks in the 2015 deep draft where we picked Eichel 2nd overall.  #2, #21, #25 and only picked one player and only have one player still with the team today (Kane and Lehner).  Look back at the names of players we could have had and would be contributing to the team if we had drafted well.  Not all stars but some nice players.

Counter argument is that Boston had 3 back to back firsts (#13, #14, #15) and they left Matt Barzal and Kyle Connor on the board.  So you do need a competent GM and scouts.

[pi2000]

Who is Les Sabre?

[mphs mike]

  On 7/12/2021 at 12:05 PM, lamaisonbleu said:

Up until Murray Les Sabres had a proud history. Even if they were not in playoff contention they left it all on the ice and the games were entertaining. Remember Gerry Mehen beating Favell and Shero's Flyers to knock them out of the playoffs. Shero said the only time he felt as bad was when he lost his mother. Now players can't wait to get out of town. The management and coaching hires are terrible. Couldn't they have gotten Burke, Trotz, Lamorello  to name a few. They paid top price for players and coaches and got zilch. So sad.

Expand  

Meehan scoring on Favell with 4 seconds left brings a smile to my face and wistful tear to my eye. I remember it well

[Marvin]

  On 7/12/2021 at 7:13 PM, mphs mike said:

Meehan scoring on Favell with 4 seconds left brings a smile to my face and wistful tear to my eye. I remember it well

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Same here.  I was at the game.