Reality Bites

Can we all go back in time to the 2005-06 season?

Remember that one? The one that started this whole Sabres resurgence in Western New York? The one where nobody thought they could get to where they ended up? The team with no expectations?

It hasn’t really been the same since.

Now, that’s not sour grapes. We all enjoyed the season the Sabres gave us last year. I mean, winning the President’s Trophy means you get to see a lot of wins and a lot of exciting hockey. But the burdens – the expectations – that came with that team sucked some of the fun out of it. Where is our Stanley Cup? We deserve it! seemed to be the rallying cry for much of the fanbase. The last-second win over the Rangers almost had us believing that this team could do it, until Ottawa exposed them.

Follow that up with an ugly offseason that led to nastiness between many in the media and the Sabres front office, a nastiness that felt more personal than professional, and you had a season with tremendous pressure on everyone. The hockey team and it’s coach were the ones who had to bear all the pressure of a front office under siege, and they had to do it with both their captains playing elsewhere and their assistant felled with a heart ailment.

In the end, the very young Sabres team simply could not bear the burdens that were placed upon them. Now, that’s not a free pass, it’s just a statement of what I think was the biggest issue the Sabres faced this season. I know. When you’re pocketing $10 million for playing hockey, it shouldn’t matter. But these are people we’re dealing with here, as much as we hate to admit it. And when the “leaders” on your team are 22-25 years old, you don’t have a wealth of experince from which to draw when things get difficult. Even if you’re one of the people who thought the Sabres could overcome the organizational losses over the past offseason, I think the Sabres failure to address the leadership gap was their fatal flaw.

So now we endure what many Sabres fans have endured in past seasons. For some newer fans, this is their first time feeling the bitter sting of missing the playoffs. Welcome to the new and miserable world of watching some team you despise advance towards the Cup while you sit at home swearing, knowing we don’t even have a chance this year.

We also have to put our faith in Larry Quinn (crap) to allow his General Manager to sign one or two players that have been shaving for at least a decade and have endured the ups-and-downs of a long season.

There’s more to come from this end, for sure. But I thought it would be cathartic to start the grieving process now.