A shuffle Sabres should follow
It’s like a blizzard every day, it seems, a roiling, buffeting, sometimes terrifying storm of news, sports, politics, fear, war, celebrity controversy, climate concerns and, sure, sometimes exhilaration, inspiration and joy.
If you choose to be tuned in, it’s a lot to digest, so much so many days it’s understandable why so many choose to tune out. Or tune in very selectively. Monday morning came with another blizzard. World Series marathons, slick baseballs, 40 Texans kneeling after their owner called them “inmates,” Paul Manafort charged, Oilers stumbling, Kevin Spacey confessing, Zach Miller’s leg, Maple Leafs recalibrating, Catalans revolting, Puerto Rico still in the dark, Penguins obliterated in the ’Peg, Alex Ovechkin’s generosity, record CO2 levels.
On and on. Remember Billy Joel’s rat-tat-tat hit single “We Didn’t Start the Fire” back in 1989? It’s like that. Yet seemingly at an even faster pace.
So in the midst of this cacophony of sounds and news flashes and controversies, it’s no wonder so many seek and embrace a bit of encouraging clarity. Something simple and good. Something that might last for at least a little while, something to cheer for.
Which brings us to Buffalo and the football Bills, and the notion that when things seem most bleak, a straightforward message of successfully putting the team ahead of individual agendas can really catch on. That’s got to be the headline for first year Bills coach Sean McDermott, who it would appear correctly calculated that addition by subtraction in order to create a larger sense of purpose was what this football operation really needed to become competitive again.
But here’s the really, really good news if you’re a Buffalo sports fan. The seven-game success of the resilient Bills might also be very encouraging for the beleaguered Sabres, as well, and we’ll get to that.
The Bills, meanwhile, are 5-2 for the first time since 2011, and 4-0 at home in Orchard Park, after thrashing the Leaving-for-Las Vegas Raiders 34-14 on Sunday. Going in, with former Buffalo college star Khalil Mack triumphantly returning home, the script seemed set for another one of those Bills letdowns. Instead, McDermott’s team gave up an early touchdown then took it to the Raiders, a team going from one of last season’s big surprises to one of this season’s big disappointments.
The Buffalo victory came a couple of days after the Bills had traded away star defensive lineman Marcell Dareus, the third overall pick of the 2011 draft, and the latest indication that McDermott’s no-nonsense, team-first approach would play no favourites regardless of salary and status.
Back in August, you’ll remember, the Bills traded away top receiver Sammy Watkins and defensive back Ronald Darby on the same day, which at the time was widely interpreted as a sign this was a tank job taking dead aim at the first pick in the 2018 NFL draft.
Apparently, that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, McDermott and GM Brandon Beane, both hired from Carolina, have brought in a lot of new people to exorcise the attitudes of years past and, reportedly, the lack of discipline in the previous regime run by the chatty Rex Ryan. So far, it’s worked very well, and the Bills are not only a dangerous team at the moment, they’re entertaining to watch.
In a larger sense, this provides some comforting evidence to locals that Terry and Kim Pegula, owners of the Bills and Sabres, actually do have the first clue about running professional sports teams. Until now, there wasn’t a scintilla of evidence of that. Their hiring decisions were a little peculiar, and until now, the best that could be said of their involvement in Buffalo sports was that at least their presence meant Donald Trump didn’t buy the Bills.
As mentioned, the off-season moves by the Bills didn’t get many excited. But so far, they’re working, and the team has taken on a more business-like, no-nonsense appearance. Sabres fans, watching the team start 3-7-2, can only hope this is contagious within the organization, and that the moves made by the NHL club over the off-season will bear similar fruit as time proceeds.
It’s not that dissimilar to the situation in Toronto back in 2013 when the Raptors started (surprisingly) to win soon after Masai Ujiri made the Rudy Gay trade. They became more of a team, and the success of the Raptors became the first substantive indication that the Rogers/Bell partnership running Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, with Tim Leiweke running the show, might actually have its priorities straight.
Four years later, both the Raptors and Leafs are winning, as is Toronto FC, also owned by MLSE. Ujiri, Brendan Shanahan and Tim Bezbatchenko, all hired by Leiweke, are viewed as three influential parties to the success of those teams, executives with the blessing to do whatever needs to be done without interference from above.
Many speculated Rogers and Bell would never be able to put their differences aside and be even cordial, let alone co-operate to produce winning teams. Yet here we are.
So if the Pegulas have finally managed to get the right people in place to run the Bills, perhaps, as happened with MLSE’s franchises, it provides hope that the Sabres will be similarly reoriented, or have already been.
As of Monday morning, however, only Edmonton, Montreal and Arizona were worse than the Sabres, and the Rangers were just as bad. The firings of GM Tim Murray and head coach Dan Bylsma last April, and their replacement by Jason Botterill and Phil Housley, respectively, hasn’t had a magical impact as of yet.
Jack Eichel seemed to have a lot of say in those changes and then was given $80 million earlier this month to anchor this painfully slow rebuild. He, Sam Reinhart, Evander Kane, Rasmus Ristolainen and Robin Lehner are the young Sabres core, and we’ll see how long that remains the case or, as with the Bills, the Sabres decide to put performance ahead of reputation.
The Sabres play in the desert Thursday against the dreadful Coyotes, a game that looks to be virtually a must-win proposition that comes very early in Housley’s run. Sabres fans could sure use a Billssized serving of encouraging clarity.