The new one out there when it comes to Ristolainen, Buffalo's 25 yr. old defenseman, concerns whether or not he should be traded right now not because he stinks, as had been the argument for nearly the entire length of his career, but because he's playing very well, possibly the best hockey of his career. "Strike while the iron's hot" is the mantra and there's some validity to that. The Sabres have had the tendency, unlike many top-notch organizations, to hold on to their players past well past their expiration date assuring the team of a minimal return on investment if they get any at all.
On the opposite side you could argue that Ristolainen may, in the very least, be plateauing as a solid top-four or possible #2/3 all-situations defenseman who's found his way via his fifth head coach in his seventh NHL season, all with the Sabres. Ristolainen's cap-hit is $5.4 million for two more seasons.
However, regardless of Ristolainen's play, and that of others as well, the Sabres are having yet another difficult season. A hot start was followed by nearly two months of struggles culminating with a four-game losing streak to finish off the 2019 portion of the season has left a team that was at the top of the NHL in early October flailing in 25th place just prior to their first game of 2020. Buffalo has played well since and began the new year with 5-3-0 record before a nine-day break between games as the league's schedulers butted their "bye week" up against the NHL All-Star Break. With the Sabres off and other teams in the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference gaining points on almost a nightly basis, Buffalo finds themselves falling further away from the playoffs. Which leads to an article published today, "The Tank Index" from Sean McIndoe of The Athletic and, of course, the Sabres are on it.
McIndoe has three categories that make up his index for "also-rans in the best position to get worse down the stretch"--Seller potential, Goaltending and Motivation--and he has Buffalo as the fifth-best probability of selling off their assets and going for the highest possible pick in the upcoming 2020 NHL Draft, otherwise known as tanking. No. 1 on McIndoe's list is the New Jersey Devils, followed by the Ottawa Senators, Los Angeles Kings and NY Rangers.
On Seller Potential McIndoe writes of Buffalo--"They've got a ton of pending FA's on the roster...The question is, how many of them would actually be of interest to a contender." McIndoe comes up with one, Bogosian, and concludes "that's actually kind of depressing." Which it is.
On Goaltending: "It's Buffalo so goaltending's an issue," he wrote and how this affects their tank index McIndoe continues, "Linus Ullmark has actually been decent for much of the year, so they may need to nudge up Carter Hutton's workload." To, of course, up their tankability.
And finally McIndoe gets to Motivation. "On the one hand," he writes, "the Sabres know the drill by now. If they're out of the race by mid-February, they'll know what to do. On the other hand, the Sabres know the drill by now. They know it really, really well. How many times can you sell a rebuild to your fans before you have to break the cycle and stop cycling out the limited talent you have?"
McIndoe hits it with the motivation portion although the cost of breaking the cycle is very high and Sabres fans are seemingly uninterested in patience anymore. In some chat rooms and/or on social media you'll see some fans talk about a "stealth-tank," as if this roster they deem as putrid was designed to tank without anyone outside "Central Command" at KeyBank Center knowing. Or they'll openly call for a tank so they can get "just one more top pick."
Far be it for me to turn down a top-pick in a draft as coaching and will can only get a team so far. As we've seen with Jack Eichel, one of two players desired by Buffalo during their infamous 2014-15 tank season, after a solid start to his NHL career featuring flashes of brilliance, Eichel is proving this year that he is one of the best players in the game as his talents are on display on a nightly basis. But it's been a trying career for him and for the first time since he was drafted Eichel seems to have fully immersed himself in the process and is succeeding in the roles he has as a superstar, leader, and as of late, an Atlas-type hero carrying the weight of a struggling franchise in transition on his shoulders.
The Sabres have a multitude of pending free agents, six of which are playing roles on the team. Five of them are forwards--all in the bottom-six roles--and the other is Bogosian, who asked to be traded. One would think that Bogosian will get his wish if there's someone out there willing to take him and his pro-rated $5.41 million salary. Despite his self-confidence, he like the others can be replaced. There will be opportunities for Botterill to upgrade those forward spots in the off-season but the balancing act Botterill and company have is how to weigh what their return would be at the trade deadline with what their worth would be to the team if they finished out the season as a Buffalo Sabres.
Fact is, none of Michael Frolik (whom Buffalo recently traded for,) Conor Sheary and Jimmy Vesey (both of whom were traded for by Botterill in recent years,) Girgensons or Johan Larsson will fetch more than a mid-round pick and that's being very optimistic. However, what they're bringing to the team might be worth more this season.
The argument could be made that any of those players could either be replaced by younger players, like Rasmus Asplund, or Buffalo would benefit by having new faces like C.J. Smith and Andrew Oglevie from Rochester while moving on from the faces of failure. If you want to go through the cycle of losing for the highest pick possible, then this is your road. However, there comes a time when capitulation and deliberate losing needs to come to an end. For what we've found these last two seasons, especially after finishing last and getting one more top pick (first-overall draft pick Rasmus Dahlin,) is that learning how to win is proving much more difficult than many expected.
It's easy to blame Botterill for not surrounding the likes of Eichel, Dahlin and Sam Reinhart with quality outside of Jeff Skinner and maybe Marcus Johansson and/or Brandon Montour and/or Henri Jokiharju, but they still, as a team, need to learn how to win. Heck, they didn't even have a true identity until head coach Ralph Krueger came along this season and they're finding out that forging that identity is a painful process. The players on this team are still suffering through the scourge of the tank years and subsequent failures of the previous regime as well as any shortcomings this regime might be held accountable for. It's the pain of losing they need to rise above while sticking to their new-found identity and they're starting to do so as a team. Sure, the record isn't quite there, but they're playing together and they're playing real good hockey on a pretty consistent basis.
“What winners are able to do is bring themselves into constructive processes quickly. That’s what processing pain in life is all about,” said Krueger prior to their first game of 2020. “So, if you stick with the pain and you stick with the process too long (dwell on a loss,) it will eat you up. There’s no room in this National Hockey League to feel sorry for yourself. There’s no space and time for you to have pity on yourself here, because the league will just eat you up and spit you out. So, you need to regroup quickly, and that’s what this group (does). I’m really, really happy with the attitude of those players in that room right now. It’s been really, really good in so far as these kinds of processes are concerned."
That's what this team is learning to do, let go of the last game and move forward. Although many will not be around next year, they're collectively shouldering the responsibility and carrying the weight of this transformation process, and that includes the likes of Girgensons, Larsson, Ristolainen, McCabe and a host of others deemed deplorables over the years. While they're taking up this difficult task, the future of the Blue and Gold are in their respective leagues learning how to play the game and hopefully how to win with their respective teams. The last thing anyone should want is for a prospect to be rushed and come into a situation that's devoid of structure with a team that until recently, took the easy way out on a yearly basis. Young players Tage Thompson and Casey Mittelstadt saw this first-hand and are examples of talent and potential crushed after playing in a situation like this.
“What can we learn?" continued Krueger. "Let go, let’s be better, and let’s fight forward. If we do that over and over again, that will make us stronger for challenges even within games to recover even at warp speed. So you’ve turned over a puck in the game, you’ve processed it and it’s over and done with, boom. So what we’re doing now between games, if we can bring it into the game, will make us a better hockey team. Pain is there to test you and for you to learn and grow from is you use it properly. Otherwise, all it does is eat you up and turn you into a loser. Making those winning decisions is what we need to learn to do better.”
That's what's at stake. Although adding talent, especially top-notch talent, is welcomed, adding that talent will go farther if they're brought into a sound structure that's conducive to winning. The Sabres do not have that yet but as a team they're moving in that direction. Dumping every player that's bearing the brunt of this transition only to have young players face that abuse on a nightly basis is not an ideal way to move forward and perhaps it's time to break the chain of even semi-tanking even though the odds of making the playoffs this year are getting longer as we head into the All-Star Break.
Botterill has been patient (some would say way too patient) and methodical and is seemingly in wait-and-see mode when it comes to moving anything of significance from his organization for anything of significance in return (like a top-six forward.) It's been argued by this author for months that he really owes it to his team to do something as a way of giving them a jolt to keep them moving forward in this process and that position still stands.
It's also the opinion here that the Sabres need to say goodbye to tanking and focus whole-heartedly on winning. Krueger has a structure in place and everyone has bought in. Especially Eichel. The captain has willingly taken on this responsibility knowing full well that the hurdles they face on a nightly basis are high. But no matter how futile it might look, tanking would be a slight to him and his team mates and would undermine the work they've put into this season and the pain they've been through while trying to lay a new foundation.
McIndoe is right in saying that the Sabres are lining up once again to be sellers at the trade deadline and the organization does have the drill down pat. Yet, "How many times can you sell a rebuild to your fans before you have to break the cycle and stop cycling out the limited talent you have," he asks?
I've had enough.
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