Ryan Miller had a .923 save percentage in 40 games on the worst team in Buffalo Sabres franchise history.

It’s objectively easy to forget how quickly the “required suffering” came. In the first 20 games of the season, Ron Rolston coached the team to a 4-15-1 start, with only one of those wins coming in regulation. Because of the start, they went the full 82 game season without a positive expected goal differential.

Note for the rest of the post: The moneypuck data spasms with the January game against Carolina being postponed to later in the season due to weather. That will explain the weird jumps in the cumulative graphs to go with the long gap from the Olympic break.

Combined with the start of his tenure to close out the 2013 season, Rolston only managed 8 regulation wins in his first 41 games (through October 21). A team that was barely averaging over a goal a game to start the season also had a single first period goal in their first 10 games of the new season. Within the next 7 days, The Buffalo News would fully be checked out on Rolston having an NHL coaching job. Their 4 beat writers had come to the agreement throughout the month that Darcy should’ve also been long gone.

And then by the end of the night, Thomas Vanek was a New York Islander. And while the next night Matt Moulson channeled Steve Bernier and scored 2 goals in his Sabres debut, Lindy Ruff was victorious in his return to Buffalo, with his Stars winning 4-3 to drop the Sabres to 2-11-1.

Buffalo’s third win came in a shocker to open a west coast trip, with a shootout victory over the 10-1-3 Sharks. After getting shutout by the Kings and then shellacked 6-2 by the Ducks on back-to-back nights (during which Matt Moulson, Tyler Ennis, and Cody Hodgson were benched for the final 26 minutes of the game), they got even with the Kings in their return home for their first win at First Niagara Center, on November 12th, 3-2 in the shootout despite getting outshot 45-17.

And then the next day? WHAT?!

Pat LaFontaine arrived with the organizational paradigm shift from suffering to patience, a better way to discuss the famous “blueprint” focused rebuild. And as Ted Nolan took the helm behind the Sabres bench for the first time since 1997, the Sabres took the wake up call and at long last picked up their first regulation win of the season at home over the Leafs on the first night of a home-and-home. While they would then lose the next 5 games, they did lead after the first period for the first time on the year in the third of those 5 games.

At this point, it doesn’t change too much. In December, they won back-to-back regular season games for the first and only time on the season, with 4-2 home wins against Winnipeg and Boston. The only other time they won consecutive games for the rest of the season came at the end of February with three more home wins — 3-2 against Carolina, 5-4 in overtime against Boston, and 4-2 against the Sharks on the night of the Ryan Miller trade.

Sim to end, the final record was 21-51-10. 52 points. While the team improved under Ted Nolan, a 17-36-9 record was only marginally better than the albatross that was experienced under Rolston.

So what into this collection of hockey players becoming the worst in franchise history, the only team to have a worse points percentage than the 1971-72 Sabres, who went 16-43-19.

And the biggest reason? They. Could. Not. Score. Their 150 goals across an 82 game season (1.83) is the fewest goals per game in league history post not only post-1967, but even post-mid-1930s. The only other teams that have averaged less than 2 goals per game since 1940 are the 1997-98 Tampa Bay Lightning, the 1953-54 Chicago Blackhawks, and…the 2014-15 Sabres.

And frankly, this lack of production proved a reminder of how they got themselves into this jam.

Following the team’s loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on October 26, the day before Thomas Vanek was traded, Ron Rolston was frank in his conclusions:

Your best players have to be your best players. At the end of the day, that’s what’s got to happen.

-Ron Rolston (Buffalo News October 27, 2013)

Why did the suffering turn into an immediate abyss after the previous core was sent out? The next men up weren’t good enough.

The Remainders

To sustain success in the NHL, a team needs a smooth transition between one era to another, and when a core has their contracts all expiring at the same time, it creates even more pressure on the next men up to align their development with that transition.

While a team that spent game in and game out being hemorrhaged in their own zone would expect a drop in offensive production based on that fact alone, the goal-scorers were certainly not good enough to escape the doldrums of record-low poor results.

The Drew Stafford pre-and-post contract year had a lot of attention at the time, and the numbers to back up the before, during, and after. The 4x$16M deal to walk him to UFA status after the 2015 season certainly wasn’t breaking the bank for the then-24 year old, as the 6.22% of the cap at the time scales to just under $6M in 2025-26 money doesn’t show too much of a vote of confidence that they wanted the player to take over as a locked in first liner in the new era for the team, but as he went from his mid-20s to his late 20s, he stuck around in that 2nd-3rd line value ground and didn’t have the defensive strength to pair with the diminished offensive production.

While his Sabres story ended the next season, having his 6 year contract bought out before the start of the 2015-16 season, the continued drop off from Cody Hodgson, who led the team in points with 20 goals and 24 assists, also set a tone for the season, as the 23 year old was a common habitant of Ron Rolston’s doghouse right out of the gate on many nights. After being acquired by the Sabres with the eyes on him being molded into a potential #1 center, which also incentivized Darcy Regier into shipping Derek Roy to Dallas the season prior, it never ended up in the cards.

Tyler Ennis had a healthy 80 game season with 21 goals and 23 assists, but was another source of defensive struggles in the season top down from the top line. With that archetype for a top line, not even needing the hindsight of what carried into the next couple of seasons once the reinforcements did arrive, the marquee forwards of the 2013-14 Sabres simply weren’t up to par to be the next core of the team.

And of course, that doesn’t even get into the nightmare season that Ville Leino had, only furthering the justification that Darcy Regier probably should’ve been let go earlier than he was considering the 29 year old was also signed to be a major factor for years to come. While he actually ended up skewing positively as a defender in his three seasons with the Sabres, the lack of offense drastically differed from the role he was signed to play. After breaking a rib in the season opener, it took him another 6 games after returning from the injury to register his first shot on goal of the season, coming on the road in Los Angeles and then being scratched against the Ducks the next game. After the coaching change, he still experienced confusion in his role as the season went on. Demoted to fourth line minutes with Matt Ellis and John Scott in a handful of games in the spring, he finished his 58 game sample on the season with 32 different games in which he didn’t register a shot on goal. With one final moment to remember with the shootout-winning goal against the Devils in April, Leino would be a compliance buyout in the offseason and head to the KHL the next season.

Not to continue to harp on the failures from management in the early-2010s digging the abyss even more deeply, but the draft returns and free agents flops were also joined by nothing to ride home about in the Get Tougher summer of 2012 either.

John Vogl put the roster build bluntly in November before and after the regime change:

Matt Moulson did put together a pretty good year across his three teams, but we’ll talk more about him in future “episodes”.

Blue Line

A lack of clarity towards a plan plagued many of the defensemen too. Like Leino, Christian Ehrhoff would be waived after the season, but he did still have the bulk of TOI for Ted Nolan throughout the season (read this one for a very funny secondary headline about the team’s offense).

Ehrhoff was always good in Buffalo; his buyout became a product of the CBA reigning in on contracts like the one he signed in the summer of 2011. The 2013-14 team “only” fell to 25th in goals allowed, so it wasn’t production as historically bad as the offense, but it was obviously also not good enough to shield the brunt of how bad the worst team in Sabres history was. His playing time was split with many of the 12 defensemen that dressed for the 2014 Sabres, including Mark Pysyk for much of his 44 game sample with the big club while splitting his season in Buffalo and Rochester.

The “middle” pairing played fairly average hockey for most of the season too, as the most common pairing during 5-on-5 minutes this season was the reuniting of Tyler Myers and Henrik Tallinder in his final NHL season. While the pairing didn’t propel Myers back to the form he had in his Calder trophy winning season, playing close to average hockey on a historically bad team did help to stabilize his career a little bit. He had credited Nolan and LaFontaine with taking the chains off him and letting play the way he did when he was at his best.

Tallinder also offered about a consistent decades worth of foreshadowing early in the season, via Amy Moritz:

Where the struggles on the blue line did sit, however, was on the third most often deployed pairing at 5-on-5 that season at 378:51 (via Natural Stat Trick):

4 Teens (not facing off)

The Sabres opening lineup was the first NHL opening night lineup in 18 years to feature 4 teenagers, but after opening night, Mikhail Grigorenko, Zemgus Girgensons, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Nikita Zadorov’s seasons went in four very different directions.

Like in his first season, Grigorenko was a victim of the NHL-CHL rules, so it was once again the big show or juniors for him. Following an injury in November, the team attempted to send him on a conditioning stint in Rochester, but the league rejected it. At the start of December, he would head to Russia to prepare for the World Juniors championship, where he’d score 5 goals and was a +6 for the tournament. After the tournament, the Sabres would option him back to the Quebec Ramparts, and he would finish his season there.

During his Buffalo stint, his icetime was under 10 minutes 8 times and over 12 minutes twice in 5-on-5 minutes. Only 4 times was he on the ice for more shot attempts for than against at 5-on-5. Perhaps if he didn’t go through the previous season’s square peg fit first, he’d have started this season in Quebec, but the cards fell to get him into the opening lineup. Grigorenko was another victim of the aggressive benchings that led to his limited TOI, which only further had people wondering if it was worth him being in the NHL if there were games where he would end up sent to the fourth line etc.

• Quebec: 23 Regular Season GP, 15 G, 24 A. 5 Playoffs GP, 1 G, 8 A.
• Rochester: 9 Regular Season GP, 0 G, 4 A. 5 Playoffs GP, 0 PTS
• Buffalo: 18 Regular Season GP, 2 G, 1 A
  • Under The Hood at 5-on-5: 41.67 GF% 42.77 xGF%, 39.74 CF%

Nikita Zadorov also found his way back to juniors after a 7 game stint, scoring once. While his underlyings weren’t great in those 7 games, being outshot at even strength 63-93 (40.38%), his play was praised by his teammates during that first month despite the circumstances of the results. After returning to London, he had 11 goals and 19 assists in 36 games, as well as a point per game in the playoffs (4 goals, 5 assists).

Since he was able to play in the AHL, The Big Guy found himself in the lineup more than Zadorov and for longer stretches. His initial send down to the AHL came in mid-November, and then he was called back up for 15 games to end the season. Rasmus Ristolainen’s initial introduction to the NHL was one of being thrown to the fire immediately. In his first 4 games, the shot attempts when we was on the ice were 31-80. The second go-around was better and saw a little bit more ice time as well under Ted Nolan.

He finished the season with an equal 34 games played in both Buffalo and Rochester, scoring twice and adding two assists on the big club, while chipping in with 6 goals and 14 assists with the Amerks and then adding 2 assists in 5 playoff games. Of course, the most memorable moment of his season was his Golden Goal at the World Juniors.

Ristolainen and Zadorov only overlapped to play 3:45 together, with one shot attempt for and one against while they were on the ice.

Of the four teenagers, the consensus likely considered Zemgus Girgensons the least likely to play a full season in the NHL, but even without the irony of Ted Nolan taking over after already being committed to coach the Latvian national team at the 2014 Olympics, Girgensons found himself playing 70 games (8 G 14 A) with the Sabres and probably had the most solidified spot in the lineup with both trade candidates and bubble players being considered. It was even his highest Synthetic Goal season of his career per the latest HockeyViz model even if the next year would end up his career-high point season.

Deadline

As the premier seller of the deadline, obviously trades weren’t won and lost right away. Chris Stewart and Torrey Mitchell stuck around into 2014-15 but their post-deadline seasons were each limited to under 10 games each after coming to Buffalo.

If there is one deal to remember in drought context, it’s the prospect trade that Tim Murray made with the Los Angeles Kings, who saw Brayden McNabb as having Top 4 potential. Murray had targeted both Hudson Fascing and Nicolas Deslauriers, and the move was made. And, yeah

Rainbows, Jujubees, things of that nature.

Remembering The Waiver Dudes

Rapid Fire of The Other Things You Forgot

Not just the preseason line brawl with Toronto, but the 15 round shootout in Buffalo the night before.

After John Scott got suspended following the brawl, Patrick Kaleta was suspended for 10 games for a head hit on Jack Johnson early in the regular season, and after its end, he was waived to “change his game“, joining the Amerks for the first time since 2008. After 7 games, he unfortunately tore his ACL, not getting the chance to show that new game until next season.

On January 25, the Columbus Blue Jackets had an 8 game winning streak and the Sabres coming to down. At 5-on-5, the Blue Jackets outshot the Sabres 84-25. The Sabres won 5-2. Hockey.

GM Search:

• First candidate the Sabres got permission to interview? Jason Botterill
• They also reached out to Rick Dudley early in the process, but he opted to extend his contract with the Canadiens instead.
• First Murray report comes December 4
• Final Four, as of January 8: Murray, Brad Treveling, Jim Benning, Michael Futa
• Paul Fenton also was a candidate

Once Nolan and LaFontaine showed up, they did express interest in keeping Ryan Miller to build around him. It was, however, Miller’s choice to move on.

In February, we got the “Surprise! The Sabres and Bruins talked Vanek for Seguin during the draft” article from John Vogl.

Dysfunction Junction. More came out in the days after LaFontaine’s departure (it’s more than just the Miller trade).

Nolan did sign a 3-year contract extension towards the end of March.

Fin. Onto The T Word.

(Data Sources: Evolving-Hockey Player Cards, HockeyViz, MoneyPuck, Natural Stat Trick)

(Photo Credit: Sabres Twitter)