I'm excited. The off-season is a time for optimism.
It is true that the Sabres have been bad for so long and have piled so many mistakes upon mistakes that it is well within reason to have no faith that good things will now start happening. For this reason I can't say that I have faith or confidence that things will turn around. I do remain optimistic though, because:
- I think this is Kevyn Adams' first true off-season as GM. For the most part, I think that the good moves from his tenure (not committing to any really bad long-term deals, replenishing our draft capital, firing Krueger, hiring Karmanos) were his decisions. At the same time, I largely think that the bad moves (gutting the hockey ops, going with the "flat" management set-up, Hall, Eakin) were the Pegula's or Krueger's decisions. Aside from the above, Adams has essentially no track record in this role. That's frightening in one sense because he could be quite bad at it. On the other hand, he's not Murray or Botterill so there is at least hope that he is finally the guy who gets it right. On balance, I think he has done more good than bad to this point and has positioned the team with cap space and draft capital to take a positive jump forward next season
- I think we have assets in place that will allow us to be successful IF the hockey ops dept starts piling good decisions on top of good decisions. I don't think the Sabres will be a playoff team next year. Assuming we go back to the standard divisional format, it is hard for me to see them leaping one of Tampa, Toronto, Florida or Boston next year. Perhaps a wild card is possible, but that would mean jumping 4 Met division teams, all of whom had a better record than us this past season. What I do think though is that if you add Eichel, Girgensens, McCabe, Ullmark and a solid back-up goalie to the roster that ended the season, and you have the right coach in place, we will then be poised to have the best season we have had since we last made the playoffs. With the vet core still being young and with lots of good young talent starting to emerge, the future is bright. Unfortunately, we have positioned ourselves in a spot where our two best players, Eichel and Reinhart, may have simply had enough. If that is the case and the organization chooses to move on from those two, then the return should be very good and will either net us good veteran players who can replace Eichel and Reinhart on next year's roster or future high-end assets or a combination of both.
To summarize, my optimism rests with my firm belief that the pieces are in place for a competent management team to execute a legitimate move to being a playoff team by 2022-23 and a contender shortly after that. My optimism is tempered by not having evidence that the management team is competent...but at least it is not the case that they have proven to be incompetent.
