To hear the Sabres – and specifically Kevyn Adams – tell the story, the team is moving in the right direction with the burgeoning young core in Buffalo, as well as pieces in Rochester and beyond who will help solidify the team. I can buy that. There are good pieces at every level of the organization from the QMJHL, to the NCAA, the AHL and basically every level in between.
What I don’t buy is the notion that the Sabres are fixing, or have fixed, their culture.
The Sabres talk a big game about the importance of developing a positive culture, solid leadership and, of course, people who want to be here. The notion that some people haven’t wanted to be here, or currently don’t want to be here is a neat way for the organization to paint those who were sick of the losing as quitters, while subsequently absolving themselves of any culpability in the matter. The reality of the situation is much different. The real reason why so many players in recent years have wanted to leave is due to inept management, poor coaching, rudderless ownership and a track record of failure that spans parts of three different decades.
That last part hasn’t changed. And it wasn’t meant to this season.
The Sabres always wanted one more bite at the proverbial apple this season in the form of a high draft pick at the 2022 NHL Draft this coming offseason. They had no plans to try to win. Look at the goalies they signed, look at the free agents they brought in, look at the players they traded away, look at the moves they have-and-haven’t made so far this season. This was always going to be a team that finished around 30th place.
Now, with a straight face, tell the fans you’re building a winning culture. Good luck.
It’s no surprise that the Sabres are looking at positively abysmal attendance figures given that they have been atrocious for a decade and haven’t won a playoff series since George W. Bush was president. So the Sabres were faced with a problem: “How do we sell a bad team with a track record of being bad to a fan base that’s really sick of being bad?… The answer is to appeal to appeal to a culture change. Those guys who were here before? Bad culture. These guys here? Great culture.
But the Sabres are never going to get their culture right until they decide that they actually want to win again. When will that be? No idea. The Sabres haven’t told us when they actually intend to start trying again, although Kevyn Adams has said they need cap space available for good players to come here whenever it is they decide to be good again. And they believe, again, with a straight face, that when they do try to be good again, they will simply flip a light switch and do so.
Never mind that the culture of losing is still hanging over the head of this franchise like a cartoon piano dangling out of a window.
To be clear here, I don’t even have a problem with what they’re doing, per se. They had reached the point of no return with veteran players who were no longer #peoplewhowanttobehere and thus had to trade them off for futures to try again. Understood and accepted. The problem lies in the Sabres’ hypocritical position that trying to lose again – as they are undeniably doing – is somehow a culture move. That’s a hell of a position to try to take. “Yeah, we’re losing on purpose, but this time it’s for culture.…
Great.
Usually when a team is 8-14-3, you’d get something like a firing, or a vote of confidence or a message from management/ownership, but there will be no such move because this was part of the plan. This is not a call for firings, it’s just a reminder that this was always part of the plan, and that’s why there will be no action.
That said, it would make sense that the President of a hockey club may want to get a message out to the fans about the direction of the organization. Of course, the fans will get no such message from President Kim Pegula. She has been almost completely silent since the press conference where she gave Jason Botterill a vote of confidence and then fired him shortly after.
Apparently the lesson that ownership learned from that is that they should never talk again, which is obviously their prerogative as the owners of the franchise. Typically a president wouldn’t display that level of silence for so long, but the Sabres aren’t a typical franchise.
Typically teams don’t miss the playoffs for 10 years straight.
So, fans will get no message from the president or from ownership and will instead be told by lower management and coaching that the culture is moving in the right direction as evidenced by the younger players being much happier (for) now. Simultaneously, they will be utterly silent on the issue of wins and losses. The message is that culture can exist in a losing environment. They are trying to sell to the fans that this is what good culture looks like.
That’s complete nonsense. Let’s call this year what it really is: it’s a losing year to be thrown on the pile of losing years in order to secure the services of another high draft pick. There’s your culture. Losing has completely and utterly permeated every surface of the KeyBank Center and the team is fine with it, even if they try to point to more fun in the locker room as evidence that things are much better now.
Here’s what I would like to know from Kevyn Adams. It’s a simple question:
When are you going to try to win again?
Forget the chatter about a better culture and people who want to be here. When are you going to try to win again? When are you going to acquire useful veterans to play meaningful minutes along side the young talent you’re grooming? Is it next year? The year after? How many more games until the franchise decides they actually want to win games?
This whole thing was old five years ago. It’s really old now. It’s understandable how and why the Sabres have gotten here. Now it’s time for management and ownership to tell fans when they’re actually going to start pouring in resources to the product on the ice to change this rotten culture in a concrete sense