Speculation: Darcy Regier fired 5 years ago today.

[enthusiast]

He assembled a team that was one of the high points in franchise history and managed to work around financial restrictions to make another squad that gets overlooked for its quality (09-10)

The criticisms are all accurate but they overpower legitimate praise

 

[littletonhockeycoach]

Eh. There's a reason Regier isn't in the NHL in any capacity at this point.

Look at the state of the prospect pool when he was fired:

Buffalo Sabres 2013-14 Preseason Prospect Rankings ~ SabresProspects.com - The #1 Source On the Future Blue & Gold

I had zero confidence in him when his reign with Buffalo ended. But I understand that he left the Coyotes for personal reasons so I'm not sure your knock on his current status is fair.

I have no idea what's going on in his personal life at this point.

 

[sabres4ever]

In all honesty one of the most interesting things looking back on Regier, is that he's one of the few/only(?) GM's I can think of who got to go from 'poor ass' ownership to 'throw money at it' ownership, and that's kind of when his flaws/decisions can really be pointed at. Anything that didn't work earlier, you always had a "well his hands are tied" aspect to it.

Was he able to build a cup contender or just get lucky coming out of the lockout that the NHL was actually going to enforce obstruction rules and stick with it?

Should he be blamed for terrible draft years when they went to video scouting? Did he agree with that or had no choice? If you're a GM and somebody tried to force video scouting on you, how do you accept that?

HOW DO YOU HIRE RON ROLSTON FOR THE LOVE OF GOD?



I had actually somewhat blacked out the Ron Rolston hiring from my memory until 1point21Gigawatts brought it up, so his second firing should indeed be into the sun.

How could he be so bad with those gloves?

 

[1point21Gigawatts]

What I wont miss is his bad development with prospects, Grigorenko and Girgensons to a lesser extent were both handled poorly.

I think it started with Stafford. Regier had such luck with Roy, Vanek, Pominville, Miller, Campbell, etc - i think he became overconfident in his drafting. Stafford was by no means terrible, but he was definitely brought up quickly and was never quite as good as Regeir wanted everyone to believe. Of course, Myers was brought up almost immediately, and we all know what happened iwth Greg O'Renko

 

[brian_griffin]

I miss his clamp-down methods on rumor control. It is admirable that any organization in any endeavor (sports, business, military, etc.) was so tight-lipped. Which was contrasted by the Murray tenure of apparently self-inflicted waterboarding confessions. Botterill's regime seems like a middle-ground.

 

[DJN21]

Honestly I hold no ill will toward him at all. Nor ruff for that matter. There were good years, bad years, promising years, bottom of the barrel years. I never feared really losing a trade when it came to darcy. I was happy when he left but honestly the sh^t show really ensued afterwards. Rolston and nolan and murray and patty leaving 4 minutes after being hired really set the bar for this franchise to be a laughing stock.

Not saying I want him as gm still, but not saying i despise him for the work he did here. We were a few healthy dmen and one skate not in the crease away from him not still being gm not to mention a tight pursed owner for so long. This story could be so drastically different given a few huge outliers so I give him a pass.

 

[Zman5778]

Seems so much longer than 5 years.

 

[gvandeke]

He was the longest tenured and most winning Sabres GM. I have an overall positive feeling toward him, because he helped create a lot of my favorite Sabres teams, and he kept on my favorite Sabres coach, Lindy Ruff.

He drafted really well some years, and terrible in other years. I don't know how much ownership contributed to the bad years with the whole video scouting debacle.

I also don't know how much ownership pressured, thus contributed, to him making disastrous free agent signings, like Leino.

I also fault him for not getting done the rumored Seguin for Vanek straight-up trade Boston was proposing, but on the other hand, he did fleece NYI in the Vanek trade and Nashville in the Gaustad trade.

After seeing what the franchise went through after Regier, with Nolan, Lafontaine, Murray, I think a lot of negatively associated with Regier may be a rookie owners fault.

 

[Deleted member 27798]

What was the rumored Iginla trade that Regier supposedly turned down?

My memory is fading.

 

[Buffaloed]

Those were the days...

darcy regier | BuffaloObserver
I feel like I've won a prize finding this site.

 

[Djp]

also 5 yrs ago--thanks to facebook---was the centipede play at san jose...

 

[Djp]

REgier was poor when it came to two types of trades

1. trading when the buyers at the deadline. He didn't want to take risks.

2. poor at trading his players he picked. He wouldn't sell them when hot, wouldn't sell them when their value bottomed out....see Stafford and Afinaganov.



He was better at making trades when he was the seller or when it wasa a below the radar trades when there wasn't a bidding war going on.

 

[Tyler2829]

What was the rumored Iginla trade that Regier supposedly turned down?

My memory is fading.

Peca for Iginla iirc

 

[The Wizz]

To be fair, I'm sure we would all think differently of Regier had Golisano allowed him to resign Drury, Briere, and Campbell, and keep his scouting department up. The drafting from 06-11 was absolutely terrible because of it, so the players that were supposed to be coming up to supplement/replace Pommy/Vanek/Roy/Campbell/Briere/Drury/Miller were just too far and in between.

Regier really had no chance of building anything under the Pegulas because our prospect pool was completely barren and everyone knew it. He made some mistakes, and it was right to fire him, but I blame Golisano much more than I blame Regier (Or Murray for that matter) for the last 5 years.

 

[Buffaloed]

Almost 5 years spent wandering in the desert, eh?

I used to think the story of the lost tribe of Saskatchewan was myth until the Regier came to Buffalo.

 

[Buffaloed]

I had zero confidence in him when his reign with Buffalo ended. But I understand that he left the Coyotes for personal reasons so I'm not sure your knock on his current status is fair.

I have no idea what's going on in his personal life at this point.

Speculation is he was furious at the way the Coyotes treated John Scott.
https://thehockeywriters.com/did-darcy-regier-leave-coyotes-because-of-john-scott-trade/

It wouldn't surprise me. I'm surprised he didn't walk out on the Sabres with all the crap they fed him from the Lafontaine trade to the Briere-Drury fiasco.

 

[sincerity0]

Not really mad at Darcy. He did a lot with a little at times. It was simply time to move on from him, and ruff. The madness and agony that ensued was a result.

 

[La Cosa Nostra]

What was the rumored Iginla trade that Regier supposedly turned down?

My memory is fading.

Supposedly Iginla for Peca and Darcy demanded one of Calgarys young D I think Regehr. To be honest I doubt Calgary offered that. If anything it was Val Bure+ for Peca.

I mean Regier ran such a tight ship not a single verifiable rumor escaped the Sabres camp before a move was made.

 

[Yatzhee]

"SUFFERING"

~ The PROPHET (Darcy Reiger)

 

[Djp]

To be fair, I'm sure we would all think differently of Regier had Golisano allowed him to resign Drury, Briere, and Campbell, and keep his scouting department up. The drafting from 06-11 was absolutely terrible because of it, so the players that were supposed to be coming up to supplement/replace Pommy/Vanek/Roy/Campbell/Briere/Drury/Miller were just too far and in between.

Regier really had no chance of building anything under the Pegulas because our prospect pool was completely barren and everyone knew it. He made some mistakes, and it was right to fire him, but I blame Golisano much more than I blame Regier (Or Murray for that matter) for the last 5 years.

Even if druzy and Briere were resigned I think you’d still see the trade offs of the UFAs in 2012-2014 period. Extensions would have taken them to 2011/2012 time frame.

 

[beerme1]

Cheers Everybody! Happy fifth!

 

[rbochan]

"We don't have a need up the middle."

 

[Buffaloed]

Back by popular demand. The thread that won't die until the suffering ends.

 

[DolanPlsGoSabres]

Maybe Darcy's been giving notes to Botts on who to acquire. When Darcy was in charge, Berglund and Sobotka were pretty nice assets.

 

[jc17]

I wonder what the team would be like with Darcy. He had some bad moves at the end but some gems before. I'd rather have boring and effective