Scout's Analysis: Why the Sabres' potential isn't paying off

Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula paid a visit to his team on Monday in Montreal where the message was that the answer to the team's struggles was in the room. By all accounts, the owner backed his GM, coach and, most importantly, the players, and suggested no major trades would be on the way.

How did the team respond in their game against the Canadiens the next night? By getting pumped 6-1 and falling to last place in the Eastern Conference standings. 

Fourteen years on from their last playoff appearance, the Sabres are an absolute disaster. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be a season ticket holder, or a potential “walk-up” customer trying to support the tire fire that is the Sabres organization right now.

Buffalo has gone through an extended rebuild they have re-started at least once after trading Jack Eichel. So what's going on here? Why can't they turn the corner and get out of this cycle? 

I originally set out to try and understand the state of the Sabres organization by breaking down the roster and organizational depth. Once I started my analysis it became apparent to me that the structure and strategy of the organization is more to blame for the team’s struggles than the players are.

At some stage of my career I’ve laid eyes on every player on the Sabres roster and noticed from a distance how the organization develops their prospects. 

Here are my observations on the Sabres strategy and why it's just not helping them dig out of a rebuild.

BRINGING ALONG YOUNG PLAYERS TOO QUICKLY

It would be easy for me to sit back and criticize how homegrown prospects like forwards Dylan Cozens (seventh overall in 2019), Jack Quinn (eighth overall in 2020) and JJ Peterka (34th overall in 2020) are playing. I could include defenceman Owen Power (first overall in 2021), Jiri Kulich (28th overall in 2022) and Zach Benson (13th overall in 2023) in my assessment.

Outside of their skill and potential, do they play the game with the required detail to have success at the NHL level?

Should we throw captain Rasmus Dahlin (first overall in 2018), fellow defenceman Mattias Samuelsson (32nd overall in 2018) and goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (54th overall in 2017) into the blender of criticism as well? Another one of their goalies, Devon Levi (212th overall in 2020) was acquired in a trade and, at 22 years old, is playing NHL games for a third consecutive season, though not sticking with the team full-time.

The fact of the matter is the Sabres have thrust too many of their young players into the NHL before they were ready for full-time duty, and tasked them with important roles and assignments. And this has happened as expectations for the team have risen, thus increasing the pressure to deliver results. 

Here's a look at how old each of these core Sabres are, and how many seasons after their draft year it took for them to become a full-time NHL player on Buffalo's roster.

I believe every one of these players would spark interest from NHL teams in trade discussions, but I wouldn’t go down that road if I were the Sabres. This core of players isn’t close to maximizing its overall ability. They need time, structure, and, most importantly, an understanding of how to win. 

I want to hold the players accountable for the current state of the Sabres. But the reality is GM Kevyn Adams and his upper management group rushed too many of these players to the NHL and have failed to insulate them with enough complementary veterans as they develop. The Sabres entered this season as the youngest group in the league, with an average age of 25.4 that was nearly a full year younger than the next most inexperienced team (Montreal, 26.1).

A DISCONNECT IN THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN

From a distance, the Sabres seem disconnected when it comes to structuring a draft and development plan. 

On balance, Buffalo's amateur scouting staff has done a fine job building a core of players that have solid NHL upside. I’m also comfortable saying the player development department led by former Sabre Adam Mair works as hard as any development staff in the league. Mair is assisted by former NHL players Tim Kennedy and Zach Redmond. Goalie development coach Seamus Kotyk has also done a solid job with the young Sabres goalies. 

Where things break down is when the prospects are handed off to the AHL club in Rochester. 

The Sabres appear to have a plan in place where the scouts draft the prospect, hand them off to player development, and player development hands them off to upper management and minor league coaches to further their growth. 

On the surface this process could make sense if you allow the prospect enough time to work off his warts as a young pro in the AHL. But management hasn’t acquired or signed enough veteran players to insulate and allow for the growth of their prospects, which has resulted in players making mistakes at the NHL level that should have been ironed out at the AHL level. 

My experience in the league, when I worked for Nashville and Florida, was completely different than what I've seen unfold in Buffalo. 

When I was with the Predators, our GM David Poile preferred all of our prospects to spend time developing in the AHL. He wanted them to learn how to be a pro and understand the commitment it takes to be a good one before they arrived on our NHL roster. Our assistant GM, Paul Fenton, spent a ton of time with our team in Milwaukee. He had a hands-on approach with the coaches and prospects. The lines of communication never blurred and the results were positive. Defenceman Shea Weber, for example, didn’t arrive full-time in the NHL until four seasons after he was selected. 

With the Panthers, our GM was Dale Tallon and he was always aware of “giving too much too soon” to prospects, whether it was a full-time role in the NHL or a contract they hadn’t earned quite yet.

The most important part of our process in Florida was the role and continued involvement of our player development department. At different times it was led by former Montreal Canadien Brian Skrudland and later by former Maple Leaf Bryan McCabe. Neither of them left a stone unturned and communicated almost daily with our coaches in the minors. 

Maybe in time the way the Sabres structure their strategy of drafting, developing and turning players pro will plain out and better prepare their prospects before they arrive in the NHL. But I strongly believe there needs to be more involvement.

Adams isn't a GM who spends a lot of his time watching the AHL prospects live in Rochester and, to be fair, many GMs rely on their associates to relay information from the minor leagues -- this is what Fenton did for Poile with the Predators.

From what I'm told, the Sabres still need to improve on having their organizational leaders spend more time in Rochester with the players, rather than managing the bulk of hockey operations duties from a distance. If the management team isn't seeing the prospects live often enough, they end up relying on video coverage, or feedback from the coaches in Rochester, far too much.

In my opinion, a set up like that is far from ideal.

THE NEED FOR VETERAN LEADERSHIP

There are only so many NHL player jobs to go around. The league is guided by the structure of the salary cap and every organization can only have 50 contracts signed at any given time, including the NHL and AHL rosters as well as prospects signed and still developing with their club teams elsewhere in North America or Europe. 

There are several veteran players scattered throughout the league who are earning league minimum or slightly above. Some of them would have added a layer of insulation to a team like Buffalo over recent seasons, and allowed their youngsters to spend some quality time developing in Rochester.

Players such as Tanner Pearson, Noah Gregor, Zach Aston-Reese and Patrick Maroon, for example, won’t move the needle much on their own, but they are serviceable NHL players who have seen the league and would fit a role. If Buffalo wasn’t their first choice to sign with, make it worth their while by paying a bit more on a one-year contract. The Sabres had more than enough cap room to work with in the off-season -- plus five open contract slots -- and some of their prospects wouldn’t have been rushed to the NHL with this strategy over the years.

When I was with the Panthers, we had top prospects such as forward Aleksander Barkov and defenceman Aaron Ekblad make our team right out of their draft year, but Tallon made sure to surround our youngsters with veterans. Some of Ekblad’s best hockey was played skating alongside veteran partner Brian Campbell, while Barkov benefitted from the addition of Jaromir Jagr to our lineup. Jagr specifically would remain on the ice long after practice was completed to interact and work on set plays with all of our young forwards.

Players are always talking to other players about their experiences and agents are competing for contract dollars for their clients. It sounds simple, but where there’s a will there’s a way. It takes vision, structure and hard work. The Sabres have to find a way to add some veteran players to their organization and allow their youngsters the time they need to develop in the AHL, and/or be brought along slower in the NHL, if required. 

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?

There’s an entire generation in Buffalo that hasn’t seen the Sabres compete in an NHL playoff game and they're on the verge of extending the drought to 14 years.

I’m not convinced the current version of Buffalo's upper management understands what makes a successful process, despite the efforts of several reliable staff members and some genuinely good, but lost, young players. 

Judging by the team's on-ice response to the Monday meeting they had with ownership, the message either didn't resonate with the group, or the process is even more fractured than we thought.

There is no simple fix here. There is a deep, organizational problem to overcome.

All Sabres fans want right now is a reason to believe -- and they deserve better than this.