Sabres shuffle an annual affair
Buffalo is back in the basement as other rebuilds show promise
BUFFALO, N.Y.— It was just a couple of years ago that the Buffalo Sabres’ rebuilding plan seemed to be ahead of that of the Maple Leafs.
The Sabres had pocketed a number of high draft picks — notably Jack Eichel, the No. 2 selection in 2015, and Sam Reinhart, No. 2 a year earlier.
They had surrounded their young players with productive and still young veterans such as Ryan O’Reilly and Kyle Okposo.
But they have gone nowhere, backwards even.
The general manager brought in to put the plan in place, Tim Murray, was fired and replaced by Jason Botterill. The coach brought in to nurture the young stars as he had done before in Pittsburgh, Dan Bylsma, was fired and replaced by Phil Housley.
“Certainly it shows bottoming out in the standings doesn’t guarantee anything, getting top picks and all that stuff,” Leafs winger James van Riemsdyk said.
“Things still have to go your way. Even the year we did finish last, I think we had a lot of good pieces. We had some injuries, but lots of things have to go your way to be a good team in this league. That certainly isn’t lost on guys who have been around for a while. You’re not just guaranteed to be good when you finish low and hopefully get a high draft pick.
The Leafs face the Sabres on Monday, the end of a four-game road trip in which Toronto has yet to register a win (0-1-2). The geographic rivals are facing each other for the first time this season and will now see each other four times in three weeks. At the beginning of the season, this stretch looked like it could have huge playoff implications. It will, but only for the Leafs.
The teams are trending in opposite directions. The Sabres will be in the draft lottery again, having shipped out Evander Kane to San Jose at the trade deadline with Botterill telling reporters in Buffalo how disappointed he was in his team.
The Sabres are eighth in the eight-team Atlantic Division for the fourth time in five years. They were seventh the other season.
“The group that we have right now is not working,” Botterill told The Buffalo News. “I think the conversations set up well for the draft and the summer. We’re going to improve our team again and certainly make adjustments to our group.
“We all know exactly where we are. You look at the standings, and we know where we are, and there needs to be a lot of improvement in this organization across the board. The beauty of our league right now, it’s a very competitive league. You can look at teams such as Colorado, such as New Jersey, they made the adjustment really quickly.”
The Avalanche and the Devils were the last-place teams in their conferences last season, and are in the middle of the pack this year. The Leafs were last two seasons ago, in the middle last year, and among the league’s elite teams this season.
There is more to it than just Mike Babcock, who chose the Leafs over the Sabres when he left Detroit in 2015.
“We got fortunate in the lottery draft,” Babcock said, of Auston Matthews being available at the top of the 2016 draft. “It was one of the things that was beyond our control and it worked out for us.
“But most of the stuff is within your control: how you go about doing your job every day, how you scout, how you trade, how you control your cap, how you manage your product. To me, you’re not hoping to get lucky there. You’re hoping to do it right, and work hard, and be smarter than the next guy and get ahead.
“That’s what it’s all about. That’s why you want to be in the best league, because you want to compete against the best. There are 31 teams that are trying to be the best they can be, just like us. You’ve got to do a better job than they do; otherwise, you can’t get to the top and stay there.”
The Leafs are far from perfect. This winless road skid is one example of the lows they can go through. Matthews is hurt. Goalie Frederik Andersen, has been wobbly lately, though he showed no ill effects in practice Sunday of the hard hit he took from Morgan Rielly in Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the Capitals.
“We’re a work in progress,” Babcock said. “Washington slapped us, which goes to show you. We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the other teams. We worry about what we’re doing. If there’s something to learn from, we learn from the other teams that are doing well.”