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Sabres Central

Sabres fail to live up to their end of the bargain

By Rick Anderson
May 20, 2007

And suddenly it was over. Daniel Alfredsson got through the defense and shot the puck to the far corner that somehow beat Ryan Miller. The Ottawa Senators shed their chains of playoff failures past and put them on the Sabres shoulders. Alfredsson’s goal gave the Senators a 3-2 overtime win and sent the Sabres to the golf course after a dismal 5-game series.

The day after blowing what could be their last chance to win a Stanley Cup, the Sabres will look into the mirror and see the reason why they choked. A few players will have already shaven their playoff beards. Others will do so and will be tempted to cut their throats in the process. That's what they did on the ice, cut their own throats by not sacrificing, not playing with the effort, desire, desperation, drive and hunger necessary to win.

The players will now know what the Ottawa Senators have gone through the past ten years. In fact, they seemed to switch places from a year ago. The Sabres won the first 3 games last spring, Ottawa did that in this year's series. The Sens came back to win Game 4 to prevent a sweep as the Sabres did. The Sabres scored in dramatic fashion in overtime to win the series, as the Senators did Saturday.

Now the Sabres will have a long summer hearing the fans and the media talking about how they didn't show up, how they failed to live up to expectations, how they are a huge disappointment. They have only themselves to blame. Had they showed half the desire and desperation they had a year ago when they were down 6 defensemen, they would have won.

Sabres let down their fans

Now if only the Sabres players had put forth half the desire, half the heart, half the desperation, and half the effort as the Sabres fans had displayed during the playoffs, they would have beaten Ottawa. As it was, the team was a bitter disappointment as they largely underachieved. Once they won the Presidents' Trophy, they thought they had a wild card pass to the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Sabres of last year and this year were opposite extremes. Last year the Sabres fought through 6 injuries to defensemen and the loss of Tim Connolly to get to just one period from making it to the SCF. This year, that element of desperation was strangely missing.

The Sabres underachieved. They never really displayed the heart and desire they did during the regular season to get home ice advantage throughout the playoffs. They only showed desperation in fleeting moments, when they had to come from behind to win a couple games. Outside of that, they rested on their laurels, and were too arrogant to win.

Sabres must sign Drury

If there was one player who was more than willing to go down with the sinking ship, it was Chris Drury. Drury used his body to block shots, not only from the Senators, but once accidently got his face in front of a Tim Connolly blast that hit him in the mouth and resulted in 11 stitches. At one point, Drury made a spectacular save, one that would have been great even if Ryan Miller had made it.

Drury had medals of honor all over his body after the Sabres final game. Those were the bruises and stitches that showed where his heart was on this team when a lot of other players didn't even show up.

Now that the Sabres season is over, Darcy Regier must address the most important matter at hand: sign Chris Drury. That could be a difficult task as many teams have their eyes on Drury as a possible leader to help them rise to the top.

Drury has been a championship caliber player since he won the Little League title as a pitcher. He won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. The past two years, he tried to accomplish that same fate for the Sabres. Only they came up a little short. That's one thing that cannot be said about Drury, coming up short. He plays much bigger than his size of 5'-10", 200 pounds.

Drury will be one of the top free agents available in the offseason. He may attract as much at $8 million from the Rangers who need that one element he could give them to get over the hump.

Postseason grades

Coaching: F - Lindy Ruff failed to make the adjustments needed to contain the Senators offense and to get his offense rolling. While Ted Nolan and Tom Renney were able to take lopsided Game 1 losses and turn their team around by making adjustments, Ruff only made line changes.

The lack of motivation by the Sabres throughout the postseason is unacceptable. In the Conference Finals, a team should not have to be motivated and should play with desperation and heart. The Sabres lacked that from the opening faceoff in the first round to the overtime in Game 5 of the ECF. It was Ruff's job to figure out the problem and press the right buttons. Ruff came up short in that department.

The special teams were a joke, especially the power play. The loss of Scott Arniel as the special teams coach was as huge a loss as losing Jay McKee in the offseason. The Sabres have to get someone capable of rescuing their special teams so they would be as special as they were last season.

Goaltending: A - While Ryan Miller will be the first to admit that he should have stopped Daniel Alfredsson’s shot that eluded him to end the Sabres season, on the whole, Miller was sensational. He stepped up to the challenge, while the rest of his teammates were flopping around on the ice. Miller has definitely proven himself to be a top-flight playoff performer for years to come.

Forwards: D - Outside of Chris Drury and the resurrection of Maxim Afinogenov after his benching, the Sabres forwards didn’t show up. The main culprit was Daniel Briere, who just wasn’t himself in the playoffs. His size may not be acceptable to postseason action, as he was constantly knocked off the puck and pushed down. He did score that timely goal to force overtime with seconds remaining in Game 2, but in all, Briere is not worth the money to keep him here next year. He is just too small and didn’t show the desire, desperation needed to be a big playoff performer.

Jason Pominville, Thomas Vanek Ales Kotalik, Tim Connolly all fell down on the job. The Sabres needed much more production out of them to advance.

Defense: C - The Sabres on the whole on D were adequate. They were not great, but in most cases, came up with solid performances. The exceptions were Dimitri Kalinin and Teppo Numiminen. Kalinin saw his ice time diminish as his mistakes increased. Numminen’s age came into play in the final series.

Front Office: F - The Sabres fate in this postseason may have been decided two years ago. That’s when, with the Sabres coming out of the lockout, Darcy Regier decided to be cute and offer the players not signed long term a one-year qualifying offer. His reasoning was that he didn’t expect the Sabres to do that well the upcoming season and he would be able to sign them all to relatively cheap contracts the next season. Well, the egg was all over Regier’s face last year as the Sabres came within a period of advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Arbitration was in store for 7 Sabres, starting with Briere. When Briere was awarded a $5 million contract by the arbitrator, Regier panicked. He immediately went to work trying to sign any and all who were next in line for arbitration. Regier paid a high price for his mistake and it took him right to the salary cap of $44 million. Had he used a little long-term wisdom the year before, Regier would have had all the players signed long term at half the price.

Regier’s shortsightedness cost the Sabres dearly. Jay McKee, who was an unrestricted free agent, had begged Regier the year before to give him a reasonable offer. He would have accepted half of the $4 million per year he got from the St. Louis Blues. McKee was the top shot-blocking player in the playoffs last season. Add to that list of ex-Sabres that could have definitely helped the Sabres were Mike Griere, who was as gritty a player you could find. J.P. Dumont was allowed to walk without even getting compensation and he landed in Nashville, where he scored many playoff goals this spring. Taylor Pyatt, who the Sabres traded to Vancouver for a 4^th round draft choice, scored a couple of overtime goals the Sabres could have used against Ottawa.

In final analysis, Regier failed the team most of all. His smugness and coy negotiating cost the Sabres a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals this year. Had the Sabres kept McKee, Grier and Dumont, they probably would have beaten the Senators at home and would now be preparing a trip to the Finals. Instead, Regier must now try to find a way in the salary cap to keep either Chris Drury or Biere, along with preventing Vanek from being coaxed away to another team as he is a restricted free agent.