Did Tim Murray destroy our rebuild?

[haseoke39]

Two arguments I don't respect:

- Well, if he'd kept those picks he'd have probably/maybe/who knows picked a bunch of busts. That's why he was so smart, he totally understood how dumb he was.

- Well, if you didn't like this team with whatever overpriced accelerant piece he bought, wow you'd have hated it without those guys. I think you're wildly overstating the achievement of finishing bottom five as opposed to bottom three. We could've finished where we finished with UFA scraps. Seriously. And we're in the middle of all those guys' primes, we've had the full rewards already.

 

[Dreakon13]

The pining for marginal players like Armia and Grigorenko is hilarious. Keeping guys like Pysyk and Zadorov would've had us go from bottom feeders to slightly less bad bottom feeders. Hell, they'd probably be worse players if they stayed in Buffalo... considering this is the city where offense, confidence and fundamentals come to die.

Murray's moves didn't ruin the rebuild... the years of losing and the complacency in the locker room is what's killing us right now. We need leaders, in terms of players and organizationally. The players we moved never would've provided any of that.

EDIT: And the players we gained (ROR, Okposo) were attempts to address that. No one would've anticipated how quiet and ineffective they'd be as leaders, or Eichel's attitude/authority in the room (which I'm convinced Eichel's petulance and Kane's relative indifference, and their clique/friendship, is a big part of the problem).

 

[CatsforReinhart]

I just dont get why the defence was neglected so poorly when we all watched Edmonton playing..just mind blowing some of the decisions and defencemen passed on in the draft...

 

[struckbyaparkedcar]

Lotta Strome fans in this thread.

 

[dotcommunism]

In the sense that he's the one who hired somebody completely incompetent to build this roster for him, 100% correct. But that's really going out of your way to let the incompetent person off the hook.

No in the sense that Murray was brought in to build a team with guys above him like Lafontaine and Patrick and Black and that the structure above him almost immediately started to cave in on itself. Ownership then proceeded to do absolutely nothing to try to fix that, leaving the entire task of building the organization in the hands of a rookie GM, whose strong point clearly wasn't organization building. Regardless of whether those three were the right guys (and let's face it, Lafontaine's history is far from strong) that's still on ownership for bringing them in in the first place, and then failing to do anything to replace them. Nothing was done to allow Murray to play to his actual strengths.

 

[Duddy]

Things would have been much different even if they'd just kept Big daddy Ted.

 

[5 Minute Major]

Complete and utter nonsense. There is only one person who is responsible for the Sabres' failure to build a winning organization and his name is Terry Pegula.

I said this about a week ago and nobody agreed with me.

 

[DapperCam]

His first mistake was trying to built an LA Kings clone. The league moved away from that model towards a team speed model and the Sabres were stuck in the past all of the sudden. I think this mistake is probably forgivable. It’s hard to predict the future.

His second mistake was not making defense the #1 priority. This is unforgiveable. If we had 6 actual NHL defensemen, I guarantee our scoring would improve dramatically. Did he not see what happened to the Oilers for nearly a decade! It was right there! Darcy actually got the ball rolling in a great direction with Risto, Zadorov and Pysyk (and we had Myers who was a mixed bag, but better than Bogo imo). Murray just had to keep things going in that regard, and instead he traded all of those guys away, except for Risto.

 

[EichHart]

Letting Sekera go was also a huge mistake. Look at the Oilers without Sekera. Jame always brought out how good of a dman he was, and I believe he was right. Sekera was/is a legit top 2 dman when he isn't injured.

 

[Sabre the Win]

Regier is just as much to blame, look at his drafts leading up to Murray's time in office, I don't think a single one is playing for us and that right now is really hurting us and allowing these gaps to be shown on the roster.

 

[pigpen65]

Regier is just as much to blame, look at his drafts leading up to Murray's time in office, I don't think a single one is playing for us and that right now is really hurting us and allowing these gaps to be shown on the roster.

Why stop at Regier? I'm sure you could trace some trade trees back to Muckler too.

 

[Ralonzo]

The pining for marginal players like Armia and Grigorenko is hilarious. Keeping guys like Pysyk and Zadorov would've had us go from bottom feeders to slightly less bad bottom feeders. Hell, they'd probably be worse players if they stayed in Buffalo... considering this is the city where offense, confidence and fundamentals come to die.

Well hell man, since everyone that comes to Buffalo is instantly garbage, why field a team at all? Fold the franchise, and have a dispersal draft so these guys can actually live up to their potential.

 

[OkimLom]

You know I pine for the guys who had poor decision making and limited offensive abilities. I'm sure having those guys back there would've made any sort of difference. Maybe Pysyk would've been a better option in our own zone. This team lacks in the coaching department. It's been that way since Ruff. It will continue until Pegula does the right thing and actually copy other Franchises and stop trying to invent new ways to build a team.

He made the right call to get Lafontaine here. He needed someone to oversee the organization. Where it fell apart was allowing Tim to bypass Pat and let the issues cause Pat to quit. An owner would let Tim know who he answers to and Pat should've been that guy. Terry has destroyed any image of an NHL team that the Buffalo Sabres once were. Looking at this organization, this franchise is unstable. This falls on Terry's decisions. He's making it wose by allowing Russ Brandon to be a part of the organization.

 

[OkimLom]

Regier is just as much to blame, look at his drafts leading up to Murray's time in office, I don't think a single one is playing for us and that right now is really hurting us and allowing these gaps to be shown on the roster.

Girgs, McCabe, Risto, Pominville(if you want to get technical) playing for us. Bailey, Baptiste, Ullmark in the AHL.

Larsson was brought in via trade.

 

[markpenske]

Saw this post on facebook, it's been talked about a lot but just look at this. Murray was the worse thing to ever happen to this franchise.

When your burn assets and $ like a drunken sailor, draft poorly and have very little to show for it youre on the road to disaster, which is where Murray's 'accelerated' rebuild has left us.

Good rebuilds are almost always done primarily through the draft, whereas ours focused primarily on burning picks/prospects for established/veteran players that have largely underwhelmed. When you have as many holes as we did post-tank and have as many misses as TM did both in the draft and in trades it doesn't take a genius to figure out what went wrong.

This is what we have to show for it going forward on some of TM's finest work...

Pysyk for Kulikov - Nothing (did swap 2 picks for 1 to move up)

TWO 3rds for Disco/Vesey - Nothing

2015 1st for Lehner & Salary dump - Shaky starter that could well be gone next year for nothing

2015 1st, Myers, Stafford, Lemieux, ArmIa - DJ Blowgo liability @ $5.2M through 2020 & whatever we get for Kane at the deadline (mid-late 1st?)

2016 2nd for Gorges - Nothing since Gorges is untradeable and a liability/scratch

TWO 2nds, McNabb, Parker for Dez/Fasching - At best a 4th line player in Fasching, likely nothing.

In all that's (2) 2015 Firsts, (3) Seconds, (2) Thirds, Myers, Stafford, Armia, Lemieux, McNabb, Pysyk and Parker for whatever Kane gets us at the deadline, a shaky goalie that should be gone next year, a made of glass Dman who's brutal even when rarely healthy plus has a back-loaded contract with $5.2M cap hit through 2020 and a 4th liner at best in Fasching.

He drafted Nylander over Serg, McCavoy and Chrychrun.

The Moulson and Okposo contracts.

The list goes on and on.

What's most amazing to me is how long many defended Murray, seemingly for little more reason than liking his gruff demeanor, ridiculous mannerisms and the idea that he was the anti-Darcy. Fast forward to today and it's nearly universal dislike with a consensus of his tenure here being an outright disaster.

100% correct!! I thought we finally had it right. We were going to do a rebuild the right way and for some reason T.M. thought he needed to speed up the process. Now, the right thing to do is start the whole process over.

 

[Sabre the Win]

Girgs, McCabe, Risto, Pominville(if you want to get technical) playing for us. Bailey, Baptiste, Ullmark in the AHL.

Larsson was brought in via trade.

McCabe BUST.. Bailey BUST.. Baptiste BUST

Ullmark has a chance
Girgensons is teetering on bust

Risto is the ONLY player who is actually a mainstay and vital to our core and Larsson to some extent and he didn't even draft him.

 

[Icicle]

Risto sucks

 

[Sabre the Win]

Risto sucks

as a #1 and defensively sure but not every defensemen has to be a sound two way player, the fact hes an offensive powerhouse every season other than this one is still something we need. Just pair him with a sound stay at home defensemen as a 2nd pairing. Allow Scandella and hopefully Dahlin to take over first pairing because as of right now Risto is playing way to many minutes.

 

[Icicle]

as a #1 and defensively sure but not every defensemen has to be a sound two way player, the fact hes an offensive powerhouse every season other than this one is still something we need. Just pair him with a sound stay at home defensemen as a 2nd pairing. Allow Scandella and hopefully Dahlin to take over first pairing because as of right now Risto is playing way to many minutes.

What offense? He refuses to pass the puck out of our own zone. He sucks

 

[slip]

Girgs, McCabe, Risto, Pominville(if you want to get technical) playing for us. Bailey, Baptiste, Ullmark in the AHL.

Larsson was brought in via trade.

Most competitive teams in the NHL are currently reaping the harvest from shrewd 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks taken 3-4 years ago. The guys you mention above have brought next to nothing to the big club. How much more competitive would we be if one of those wingers was on pace to score 25 goals, or if Ulmark was called up and performed lights out? Where is that defenseman taken in the 2nd round working his way through the pipeline and ready to step into a bottom pairing or even a top 4 role? (sorry Jake, you suck). That's the thing with Regier and his scouts: I don't care how many picks you give these guys, they were awful at finding NHL caliber talent after the first round (and even that round presented challenges, most recently thinking Girgensons and Grigorenko could solve our center problem).

 

[Aladyyn]

Funny how people still mention "models" like they matter at all.

 

[OkimLom]

Most competitive teams in the NHL are currently reaping the harvest from shrewd 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks taken 3-4 years ago. The guys you mention above have brought next to nothing to the big club. How much more competitive would we be if one of those wingers was on pace to score 25 goals, or if Ulmark was called up and performed lights out? Where is that defenseman taken in the 2nd round working his way through the pipeline and ready to step into a bottom pairing or even a top 4 role? (sorry Jake, you suck). That's the thing with Regier and his scouts: I don't care how many picks you give these guys, they were awful at finding NHL caliber talent after the first round (and even that round presented challenges, most recently thinking Girgensons and Grigorenko could solve our center problem).

Agree. I was just listing who Darcy drafted that are on the team. I hated Darcy and felt he was fired 4 years too late.

 

[OkimLom]

McCabe BUST.. Bailey BUST.. Baptiste BUST

Ullmark has a chance
Girgensons is teetering on bust

Risto is the ONLY player who is actually a mainstay and vital to our core and Larsson to some extent and he didn't even draft him.

Like I told slip, just listed guys. But, yes he didn’t really leave us with much to begin with. I do wonder how long Terry would’ve kept Darcy around if he didn’t run into Pat Lafontaine.

 

[DapperCam]

Funny how people still mention "models" like they matter at all.

Murray said in an interview that he wanted to build us like the Kings. I guess “models” matter as much as the GM uses them as motivation to make roster decisions.

 

[Chainshot]

Why stop at Regier? I'm sure you could trace some trade trees back to Muckler too.

Bowman is the root of all evil.

Regier did a shit job of drafting and development for about 7 years before he got shown the door. His deficiencies show to this day, as does his mishandling of youngsters at the end of his tenure.