I really hate the narrative of comparing any rebuild to "worried about becoming Buffalo" its almost impossible to replicate.
Buffalo fumbled so many things so hard, they did it to themselves and then refused to fix it by doubling down on multiple terrible trades.
- Buffalo has been rebuilding for years yes.
- Buffalo last saw post-season success (winning a series) in 2006/7
- Buffalo lost the BIGGEST draft lottery and got Eichel as the consolation prize
- Buffalo then fumbled Eichel
- Terrible trade of Reinhart to Florida
- Jumped the gun and tried to re-tool in 2016 by signing Okposo for 6M x 7
- Doubled down and traded Montour to Florida - 3rd round pick return
- Skinner contract after his career year 9M contract
Sabres jumped the gun on their rebuild too fast. They got Eichel with the 2nd O/A pick and then tried to build a team around him, but the problem was their drafting was so poor up to that point that they didn't have that team.
Of their six first-round picks since 2011 prior to drafting Eichel, only Reinhart had any sort of sign of being a strong piece not to mention they traded 3 of those 6 1st round pllayers in 3 separate deals in Armia, Zadorov and Grigorenko for veterans.
Traded two of their three 2015 first-round picks was a dagger as well.
Terrible drafting has been their absolute plague since 2011 even with having 2 1st over all picks and 2 2nd over all picks.
2011 - Armia @ 16
2012- Grigorenko @ 12
2012 - Girgensons @ 14
2013 - Ristolainen @ 8
2013 - Zadorov @ 16
2014 - Reinhart @ 2
2015 - Eichel @ 2
2016 - Nylander @ 8
2017 - Mittelstadt @ 8
2018 - Dahlin @ 1
2019 - Cozens @ 7
2019 - Johnson @ 31
2020 - Quinn @ 8
2021 - Power @ 1
2022 - Savoie @ 9
2022 - Ostlund @ 16
2022 - Kulich @ 28
2023 - Benson @ 13
2024 - Helenius @ 14
2025 - Mrtka @ 9
What's funny is Calgary has only made it past the 1st round 2 times since 2004, so very similar success yet we haven't rebuilt like Buffalo by tearing it down to the studs like they did. In fact no other team has been as bad as Buffalo has in the last 2 decades.
Buffalo ownership and management are to blame, they made terrible franchise decisions, poor drafting moves and lost young star players by mismanagement which is no fault of any other franchise.