Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
Looking back it's pretty remarkable how badly Adams mismanaged what should have been a strong core Buffalo had built.
If you look at the 2020 draft when Adams took over, and look at the players the Sabres had in their organization that were U-26 years old:
Forward: Reinhart, Eichel, Thompson, Mittelstadt, Skinner, Cozens, Quinn, Peterka, Rodrigues, Girgensons, Olofsson
Defense: Dahlin, Ristolainen, Montour, McCabe, Colin Miller, Borgen, Samuelsson, Jokiharju
Goalie: Ullmark, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
Should have been able to build a pretty good team with all those pieces.
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I have the Sabres in my Athletic feed, so I've read a bunch of 'what's wrong with the Sabres' articles over the last couple years. The biggest issues are:
* Bad ownership. The Pegulas have meddled in hires and hockey operations, and want a compliant GM who will do as they say. No other team in the league would have hired Lafontaine or Adams. They're also unpredictable in their spending - throwing money around freely in the early years of their ownership, but becoming much more tight-fisted in recent years.
* Culture. When they stripped it down to the studs for their rebuild, they didn't surround the young players with solid veterans. Guys like Eichel and Reinhart were treated as saviours, and ran the team before they had accomplished anything in the NHL. So the same mistake of creating a culture of entitlement that the Oilers made in the Hall/RNH/Yakupov era.
* Undesirable location. The above two flaws compound their handicap as a high-tax, bad weather, undesirable location. Players want out as soon as they have any freedom of movement.