The Buffalo Sabres are a bad hockey team. Not exactly breaking news, right?
And while it’s frustrating for fans (and hopefully the players and coaches) to watch such a poor product, the outcry from Buffalonians to trade someone, anyone, to shake things up and spark the team is, quite frankly, foolish.
Now before you jump all over me in the comments, hear me out. I’m not against trading players on the team, and trust me, there are more than a handful that I’d like to see go. But there’s no trade that the Sabres can make at this point that will provide a big enough boost to “fix” things for this year.
Lindy Ruff agrees, says Mike Harrington. This from Harrington’s article with The Buffalo News:
How about a trade to help? Ruff said one-player deals only work once in a while. I suggested a multi-player deal and he wasn’t buying what I was selling. “My responsibility is to get this team going and I’m going to take full responsibility for that,’ Ruff said. “There is an obligation on my part to do the best to get this team going and I feel that’s my responsibility. Darcy and I talk about every option. That includes trading players. It includes bringing up players and sending down players.”
Whether you want to blame the team’s disappointing record this year on injuries, key players under-achieving, a lack of talent, the Mayans, or anything else, the Sabres are almost certainly too far down the rabbit hole to come back and make a serious playoff run this season. (See how I left myself an out there? Almost certainly. Think positive!)
Let’s face facts: last year’s miracle turnaround was already seven games deep at this point. There was another team whose record was even better than Buffalo’s at the end of the year – but New Jersey’s hole was too deep to climb out of, despite playing like the 2012 Boston Bruins. So unless Darcy can swing a trade for the Western Conference All-Star team, I don’t think one or two players is going to turn this thing around – that’s only going to happen if everyone on the team catches fire starting tomorrow, and plays lights out for the rest of the year, which at this point is unlikely.
If the Sabres are going to explore trades, I’d much rather have them focus on getting better for next season rather than this one. Does trading Miller, Roy, Stafford, or anyone else for .50 cents on the dollar just to get them off the team help you in that regard? Then I’d rather keep the assets I have and hope they return to form next year.
We’ll talk more about this as we get closer to the trade deadline, but what say you, Sabres fans? Are you just dying for a trade if only to shake up the awfulness that’s been life as a Sabres fan the past two months? Can the problems be fixed in other ways? Sound off in the comments.