Sabres Find Themselves in a Familiar Place

          The 2018-2019 season comes to an end and the Buffalo Sabres find themselves in a very similar position: Outside of the playoffs and in the draft lottery. It’s a position the Sabres have found themselves in in each of the past 3 seasons. “No, it’s not easy” GM Roberto Martucci said at the end of season press conference. “I really believe you need to build your team through the draft, however constantly watching your team lose and being on the outside isn’t easy. We would like to be playing hockey in May/June.”

          An interesting question came Roberto’s way at the press conference, and perhaps more interesting was his answer. When asked why he has focused solely on building up a large pool of prospects and picks and not using those prospects/picks to acquire players who were ready to help the Sabres make it to the next step, this was his response:

          “It’s funny you mention that. I was doing exactly that this season, and was very vocal about putting my prospects and picks on the block. There were very few untouchable players, but I was very adamant that my better prospects will be much more difficult to acquire and I would need significant pieces in return. I had multiple discussions with a few GMs about some of my younger players, and nothing materialized. Would you like to know why? Well, it felt as though my players were not “good enough” to warrant a substantial return and they’re “just prospects who haven’t proven anything”. It’s funny though, because when I try to acquire a prospect, their potential is so high so it must cost me an arm and a leg to acquire them. When the roles are reversed, my prospects are “just prospects” and nobody wants to give up anything of substance for them. I pushed for weeks leading up to the deadline about this, and nothing. Interesting how that works.”

          Roberto was visibly irritated when giving his response, and this must have been something that had built up for a while. These are not the type of responses the media usually gets, and it was great to see some raw emotion come out of a GM in a league where most GMs are very tight lipped about what is going on with their team.

          While the season was another disappointing one, it was great to see the development of the Sabres’ young players. Rookie Pierre-Luc Dubois put up a very respectable 59 points (just 1 goal shy of hitting the 30 goal plateau), Kyle Connor was 1 point shy of hitting 82 points and being a PPG player. And Sabres MVP Auston Matthews had himself a season. He wins the Rocket Richard Trophy for the most goals in the season with 50 (tying the league record), and becomes only the 2^nd player in EHE history to hit the elusive 50 goal mark (Alexander Ovechkin was the other who scored 50 in 2016-2017). He also finishes 2^nd in scoring to Sidney Crosby, who had a tremendous end to the regular season, surpassing what many believed was Auston Matthews’ title.

           The Sabres had some great personal success stories, however the ultimate goal has not changed: Win the Stanley Cup. They still have a long road ahead, but it looks like Roberto is ready to make the jump and get himself some great talent. First step (as always), will be the NHL Entry Draft this summer. I’m certain Roberto will not be quiet when draft day rolls around.