The Buffalo Sabres need another restart

But that restart can not just be limited to the head coach or general manager. It has to be more than that.

Before we get into dissecting the Buffalo Sabres I am in the process of trying to find a new host site for this newsletter. My goal is to make that as seamless for you, the subscribers, as possible, and so that you have almost nothing to do except keep reading. But if any of my fellow writer friends or subscribers have experience in making that transition and can offer some words of advice or assistance in making that happen, I am all ears for any and all advice.

---

It is hard to comprehend just how bleak the outlook is for the Buffalo Sabres.

They might not have the absolute worst record in the league (though, they are getting close).

They might not have the worst roster.

But it still feels like one of the most hopeless situations in hockey.

This shit is bad at every single level of the organization.

They entered the week riding a 10-game losing streak (that is now at 11 games after Tuesday’s embarrassment in Montreal) that has them on track to miss the playoffs for the 14th consecutive season, and it is hard to envision a scenario where they can easily fix this without scrapping the whole operation and trying to start all over again. The entire organization needs an exorcism and house cleaning because everything here is just absolutely rancid. There is a culture of losing that oozes out of every crevasse of the building that is impossible to escape.

In a season where they should have been desperate to make the playoffs, they entered the season with more than $5 million in unused salary cap space and have one of the lowest payrolls in the league. There was not somebody out there that could have helped an 84-point team take a step forward for that $5 million? Defensive depth? Scoring depth? Anything? Anybody?

They are consistently near the bottom of the league in terms of salary spent.

When you add it into the corners that owner Terry Pegula has cut with his front office, scouting staff and hockey operations department, and the way he seems to force himself into the hockey aspect of the organization, it makes it nearly impossible to win. When you have a team that consistently cycles through general managers, coaches and players and keeps producing the same bad results it is not hard to pinpoint the problem or the common denominator.

It is usually the owner and the people they put into place.

And man have those people been a mess as well.