Now, where were we?

The journey through 2013-14 was more theme based than chronological, but with the sheer amount that happened in the next 12 months of Sabres hockey, the timeline is a bit more important.

After bottoming out, and since (spoilers) they did have a better point total the next season, they did, indeed, bottom out, the salary cap floor was a big talking point in Tim Murray’s first offseason as the GM of the Buffalo Sabres. Even after a Ville Leino buyout, they were still about $16M under the $52M cap floor. It was part of their goal to move back into the first round for a third Day 1 selection by taking on some salary to get there. While none of those trades did come to fruition, and they were limited to just selecting Sam Reinhart in round 1 on draft day, the contracts that followed had that floor aspiration stench around them.

But before July 1, the organization used their other compliance buyout on Christian Ehrhoff, who was referred to in the News as “virtually untradeable” because of the potential cap recapture penalties that would’ve come along if he retired before the 10 year deal ended in 2021 (which, yeah). There are a lot of Tim Murray quotes coming up in this retrospective. This one might have been the most harshly honest of them all:

Since I got here we’ve talked about this [buyout], we’ve talked about his contract…[and] the repercussions of the contract with the penalties that the league has put on it. The fact that he quite frankly doesn’t want to be here makes it easy. I’ve said at the start that if you don’t want to be here we’ll make it happen. He’s made, I believe, $22 million in three years and feels lthat we’re not going in the right direction, but he really hasn’t had much part in the direction the team has gone. So time to move on.”

–Tim Murray

GMTM also knew how important these next drafts were going to be:

You have to continuously stock your system. You can’t miss in drafts…You have to hit. That’s your job.

–Tim Murray

He was right. The stockpiling of assets allowed them more chances to hit, and while Brendan Lemieux and Jonas Johansson made it to the NHL in their careers, none of their extra picks in those rounds played a single NHL game in Eric Cornel (44th overall from the Capitals via a trade back from 39th), Vaclav Karabacek (49th overall from Minnesota via the Pominville trade), and Brycen Martin (74th overall via Washington, also from the Capitals trade back). Victor Olofsson hitting in the 7th round saved this draft from Reinhart being the only guy to play for the organization more than a handful of games.

Returning to the cap floor, the money did fill up quickly, starting with the returns of Matt Moulson (5 years) and Cody McCormick (3 years) after their cups of coffee with the Minnesota Wild after the 2014 trade deadline. Moulson returning was one thing that impressed Brian Gionta enough for him to want to sign (three years) with the organization too. With the trio, $10.75M of that race to the floor was taken care of. The first 48 hours of July saw the rest of the gap taken care of with the 1 / $4.12M signing of a 29 year old Andrej Meszaros and a trade for Josh Gorges, who came with 4 years at $3.9M per remaining on his contract. The fact that Gorges was willing to waive his NTC was a big reason that Murray was interested in getting the trade done, sending a 2016 second round pick to the Habs.

Behind the bench, Ted Nolan was able to tinker with his staff. Teppo Numminen and Jim Corsi were out, and the other two assistants were re-assigned to the scouting department. While the first of those two, Joe Sacco, left later in July to become an assistant with the Bruins, the other assistant spent the 2014-15 season as an amateur scout and working his way up the scouting ranks to became the same Jerry Forton we know today. Bryan Trottier was the exciting name for the bench, joined later by Danny Flynn, Tom Coolen, and Arturs Irbe. The group was met with rave reviews from the locker room from the get go, with Nolan being very excited about the group at season’s start.

Moving on to the ice, even with the arrival of Sam Reinhart, Mikhail Grigorenko was under the microscope the most from the media, understanding there was as big of a make-or-break demarcation for his career trajectory upcoming as anyone on the roster. However, amidst the fresh attitude and focus on improving speed and strength, Sam Reinhart was given his 9 game tryout to start the year, forcing Grigorenko to Rochester to start the season.

If there was a second make-or-break player on the roster heading into the new season, it was another center who arrived with the organization in 2012: Cody Hodgson. After a good world championship that saw him on the wing, he was penciled into the wing again to start the new year. With Moulson back and Tyler Ennis extended over the summer, the same guys were being expected to lead an offense that struggled a lot the year prior, so Hodgson was going to have to have a big role in that even with being on the wing while Ennis would be the number one center for the season.

But it started the same.

After an opening night loss to Columbus that saw Cam Atkinson score the go-ahead goal (wait that sounds familiar), the team slowly began to look exactly as they did the year before. Five days after the opener, the head coach was already comparing them to a peewee team following a 5-1 loss to Anaheim. A week later, at 1-5, they were taking bad form on both sides of the ice.

The first victim of the Ted Nolan doghouse became Andre Benoit, who was the team’s other defensive signing ahead of the season’s start, and the oldest blue liner entering training camp at 30. Next to him, things didn’t start too hot for Andrej Meszaros either, as a -6 in their 0-3 start.

Didn’t start too great up front either. Fast forward to 10 games in at 2-8, they had scored 10 goals, tied for the 4th fewest to start a season all time, only beaten by the 1928-29 Pittsburgh Pirates (6), 1935-36 Boston Bruins (9), and 1927-28 Pittsburgh Pirates (9), and tied with the 1936-37 Chicago Blackhawks and 1930-31 New York Americans. They were shutout 5 times in the span of 8 games from October 17 to November 1. After their second win of the season in San Jose (would you believe that they won beat the Sharks all 4 times they played them between 2013-14 and 2014-15?), they followed it up with being outshot 37-10 in Toronto in a 4-0 loss.

The responsibility for the lack of goals started at the top. After bringing back Matt Moulson and signing Brian Gionta, the former didn’t score his first goal of the year until November 7, while the latter had one point going into that November 7 game before assisting on the Moulson goal and didn’t score his first goal of the season until November 18 against the Sharks when he ended up scoring 2. Of their first 45 powerplay attempts on the year, they scored twice. Even John Scott had more goals (1) than them in October, and he only played 5 games.

The move to the wing for Cody Hodgson didn’t last permanently. In fact, by the start of November he already began what became a theme of the season in shifting back to center and back to the wing. After his first goal of the season on October 25, he didn’t get another point until December 6 and another goal until December 13. Hodgson’s struggles didn’t go away the rest of the season. After 20 goals in 2013-14, the 24 year old finished 2014-15 with 6 goals and 7 assists in 13 games. After a season of frequent conversations about confidence, scratchings, multiple benchings, it became clear that his future with the organization could be in limbo. Which we now know, partially for reasons out of his control. it was.

While guys like Tyler Ennis and Zemgus Girgensons paced well throughout the season on their way to 20 and 15 goal seasons, expected secondary scoring sources heading into the season struggled as well. While still chipping in for 11 goals in 61 games before a deadline trade, Chris Stewart was striving to return from last year’s season-ending injury and back to the form that saw him score 28 goals in 2009-10 and 2010-11 and a pace near that in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, where he had 18 goals in 48 games. Marcus Foligno was another year removed from his 14 point in 13 game NHL debut and finished with 8 goals in 57 games. Drew Stafford was stuck at 9 goals in 50 games before being traded. The only other player not yet mentioned to match Foligno’s 8 goal mark was Rasmus Ristolainen.

Another trend from the season prior that Ted Nolan noticed carrying over was the dejection midgame from trailing.

On the bench when it’s 1-0, everybody puts their head down and looks for something else to do. To be accountable, you have to stand up. If we win a game, they’re all in there and they want to talk. But when you lose, they want to hide. It’s the one thing where no one is going to come in and help us. The only way to get through tough times is you’ve got to be tough.

–Ted Nolan

As they prepared to host the Toronto Maple Leafs on November 15, The Buffalo News ran a story about the stretch of 100 games that began at the start of the 2013-14 season. Frankly, let’s just paste that bad boy in here so nothing gets omitted:

They beat the Leafs that night 6-2 for the most goals they scored in a game since January 31, 2013 and the largest goal differential in a win since March 27, 2012. As always, hockey has a sense of humor sometimes.

It was looking like another lost year. But then December came, and all of a sudden, the Buffalo Sabres looked like a hockey team again.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

(Photo Credit: Buffalo Sabres Facebook)