In Greek mythology, the god of the underworld, Hades, sentenced Sisyphus to roll a boulder uphill for all of eternity as punishment for cheating death twice. The torture was designed to punish Sisyphus for the hubristic belief that he could outsmart Zeus and the pantheon of other Greek gods.

The Sabres have attracted a similar fate meted out by the hockey gods.

The Sabres twice tried to outsmart the system by tanking for Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel nearly a decade ago, starting in 2013-2014. It appears that Sabres management is attempting a similar strategy in the coming season in order to land the highest odds of drafting Canadian wunderkind Shane Wright. Caught in the middle of these shenanigans are the likes of Don Granato, Casey Mittelstadt, Dylan Cozens, Rasmus Dahlin and Henri Jokiharju, among others, who will be faced with the Sisyphean task of leading a team with almost no capable NHL goaltenders to something approaching respectability or even mediocrity.

Buffalo management, led by General Manager Kevyn Adams, decided not to provide anything approaching respectable goaltending to their rookie coach and their core of young players who will almost certainly sink at the beginning of the season before it even gets going. It’s understood and accepted that this team does not have the horses up front or even on the backend to be a playoff team, but the total disregard for the morale of the young squad is another finger in the face of the hockey gods.

The Florida Panthers waived goaltender Sam Montembeault on Friday, and the 24-year-old netminder was subsequently claimed by the Montreal Canadiens. The Sabres, who hold waiver priority over the Canadiens and the rest of the league by virtue of their last-place finish in 2020-2021, decided that their goaltending situation led by 40-year-old Craig Anderson and backstopped by a cast of unproven or provably bad goaltenders, decided that Montembeault was not worth taking a flyer on.

Yes, everyone knows the score here: the Sabres are tanking (again).

It’s still incredibly gross to watch the Sabres completely ignore lessons of the past which allowed losing to become a fact of life and therefore acceptable to the core of the team. Don Granato is being set up to be the sacrificial lamb for Sabres failure by the organizational leadership who refuse to get him anything approaching NHL-average goaltending. Former coach Ted Nolan could certainly relate to the situation that management has handed Granato this season. Where Nolan was given terrible forwards by former-GM Tim Murray, Granato has been given a very bad situation in net by Kevyn Adams. With all due respect to Aaron Dell, his performance last Thursday against the Columbus Blue Jackets proved what we knew all along: Dell is not an NHL goaltender.

To the Sabres credit, they did try to retain the services of oft-injured goaltender Linus Ullmark, and the Swedish-born netminder decided to take his talents to Boston instead of accepting a similar offer from the Sabres. Since then, though, they’ve done absolutely nothing to help the rest of their team by trading for, signing, or accepting a waiver claim on any starting-caliber goalie around the league. There are more than a few candidates around the league for the Sabres to target. The Edmonton Oilers would love to shed the contract of Mikko Koskinen, whom the Oilers are due to pay $4.5m against the cap this season, despite the fact that Koskinen posted an .899 save percentage last year.

While there’s no guarantee Montembeault or Koskinen would be an improvement over what the Sabres had, it is guaranteed that what the Sabres have is not good enough.

Everyone in the Sabres locker room, including Don Granato, surely knows the team is in dire straits with respect to their goaltending situation, even if Andreson looked respectable in his squad’s 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday. If Anderson were the 32-year-old version of himself who led the Ottawa Senators out of the basement and to the Eastern Conference Championship, then this wouldn’t be a conversation worth having, but he’s no spring chicken. Anderson is a true professional and a man who very easily could have retired after the last season rather than play for this bottom-feeding Sabres team, so in no way am I interested in lambasting a veteran goaltender who has paid his dues. It’s simply unthinkable that the Sabres plan is to hand 40-50 starts to the third-oldest player in the NHL. As a backup goaltender, Anderson is completely reasonable, despite his age.

Still, what kind of message does this send to the rest of the locker room?

Cozens, Mittelstadt, Jokiharju, Dahlin and the rest of the team deserve to be given a puncher’s chance with a ‘tending duo that could conceivably win some games. Instead, the young core will inherit the Sisyphean task of propping up some goalies who have no business handling the task that’s been laid at their feet. Can Kevyn Adams show his face in the room and tell them he’s given the team the tools they to succeed? Absolutely not. It would be impossible for him to look into the eyes of Rasmus Dahlin and tell him that the Sabres are trying to make this team a winner. Small wonder then that Dahlin elected not to sign a long-term contract with the Sabres this summer and instead opted to sign a three-year agreement that will put the young defenseman a year away from free agency.

Up next the Sabres will face the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight following some camp bodies being shed off the roster over the weekend. The Sabres should give a longer look to Dustin Tokarski who has looked better that Dell and UPL to this point. The absolute least they could do is allow Tokarski to edge out Dell if he continues to look better.

It’s clear, based on the fact that the Sabres broke up Cozens and promising winger JJ Peterka, that the team has no interest in allowing Peterka to play games this season. Likewise, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has proven that he is not read for the show. The team is going to pick and choose which players they choose to expose to the mess that will be this season. They’re not trying to win and they’re going to choose which players they can shield from the impending disaster. What of those left behind though?

Forget the fans who want to watch a non-trash product; the Sabres owe it to their young players to do better.

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