BUFFALO, N.Y. — There’s been one constant through the Buffalo Sabres' 13-year playoff drought, and that’s been owner Terry Pegula. I think it’s wrong to say that Pegula doesn’t care because I believe that he does. He just doesn’t have any idea about how to hire good people.
Before he finally got it right with the Buffalo Bills and hired Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane he actually got totally duped by the biggest con man in sports, Rex Ryan.
With the Sabres he’s hired Tim Murray, Jason Botterill, Kevyn Adams, Ron Rolston, Dan Bylsma, Phil Housley, Ralph Krueger and Don Granato. As of April 10, he still hasn’t gotten it right. The jury is still out on Adams.
Yes, the Sabres were still in the race until Game 79 this season, but in my opinion, they were never really in the race. Every time they got close, the collars got tight and they could never win a fourth game in a row. One example of not being mentally tough.
This was supposed to be the season where the drought was broken, and there was reason for that optimism. They had top end talent coming off great seasons, but that talent all regressed badly except for Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, JJ Peterka, Jordan Greenway, Henri Jokiharju, and Jacob Bryson.
For two seasons Granato has preached a system that stresses speed and offense. When the Sabres actually did what their coach asked of them, they played well, but for two seasons, that’s been rare.
Granato doesn’t seem to have a Plan B and just keeps forcing the same system down the throats of players that can’t seem to grasp it and play it. I think a major flaw in Granato is he doesn’t devise a system that fits his team and that they can actually play.
There are many scouts and NHL people that firmly believe that you can’t win big playing Granato’s system, which is why most teams don’t use it.
Players like Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens, and Kyle Okposo have mentioned more than once that the team pays too much attention to the outside noise, and they let it affect them. Okposo always sounded frustrated when talking about it and it was obvious he was trying his best to get that away from and out of his teammates. There is no way a player, coach, general manager, or owner should care about what you or I say. All that matters is what is said behind closed doors and the fact that they all do care is what is said outside of the room is another example of how they aren’t mentally tough.
This team never really got into the race because their power play is ranked 28th in the NHL. In 2022-23 it was ranked ninth and was in the top three for most of the season. A lot of the scoring regression can be traced back to a horrendous power play. It starts with the quarterback of the power play, and both Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power really slipped a lot in that area.
Another huge problem is loser points. Buffalo has five all season. There were so many games including Tuesday in Dallas where the Sabres were behind by a goal in the third period and couldn’t get the game to overtime to at least get a loser point. The New York Islanders have 15 loser points while the Pittsburgh Penguins have 12, and the Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers have 11. If you go to regulation wins, the New Jersey Devils have 32 while the Sabres and Pens have 31. The Islanders, who look good to make the playoffs, only have 27.
Adams has a lot of work to do. He has to find at least two more forwards that are hard to play against and a veteran center that can actually contribute and not just lead. I think one thing that gets overlooked is Adams' staff led him to believe that Erik Johnson could still play at age 35 and they found out quickly that when it came to 5-on-5, he couldn't keep up anymore.
Mistakes like that are killers, especially when you hardly did anything else.