Where do I start? I’m sure there will be readers out there that believe I’m crazy to have this opinion since the Bills have become so successful. For me it’s the old “every blind squirrel finds a nut” syndrome. Let’s look at Pegula and his ownership of the Bills and Sabres.
Bills: In September of 2014 Pegula bought the Buffalo Bills. At the time of his purchase he had Doug Whaley as GM and Doug Marrone as head coach. Marrone decided to leave a year after the team’s purchase and after Terry decided his wife, a former bartender with no college degree or sports experience was hired as President of the team. Whaley was kept on as GM in spite of the fact that his tenure as GM prior to the purchase was a 6-10 record. Whaley was kept on after the purchase and after Marrone resigned with a year left on his contract (something that is pretty much unheard of in professional football history), the Pegulas hired Rex Ryan as head coach. Ryan and Whaley were abject failures. The Bills then hired Sean McDermott as Head Coach. McDermott effectively hired Brandon Beane as GM. We all know how successful the Bills have been with the McDermott/Beane team in charge.
Sabres: in 2011 the Pegulas purchased the Sabres. I remember the press conference as if it were yesterday. Pegula in tears after meeting his heroes, the French Connection. The pronouncement of Buffalo as Hockey Heaven. The promise of “we will give you the tools to finish this job”. That multiple Stanley Cups were in the team’s future. Buffalo was awash with hope. After the Golisano/Quinn years of fiscal conservatism and refusal to spend to the cap, the Sabres had their “sugar daddy”, a guy with billions of dollars to spend. A guy who loved the Sabres like family. What could go wrong?
In spite of the Sabres having been fairly successful prior to his purchase (average of 45.5 wins and 100 points per year the prior six seasons), Pegula has yet to have a single season since his purchase where the team has reached the playoffs or had more than 42 wins. In the 11 non-shortened seasons (strike and COVID years excluded), the Sabres have averaged 32 wins/season and 78 points. One single year with 40+ wins. No playoffs in 13 seasons, an NHL record. Let’s look at his decisions as owner and how those decisions have caused his team to be the laughing stock of the league:
Season 1: Upon purchasing the team he kept then GM Darcy Regier and then coach Lindy Ruff intact. They had been fairly successful previously, having lost a close playoff series to the Flyers the prior year (4-3). The following year (year 1 of Pegula), the Sabres missed the playoffs by 3 points.
Season 2: Lockout season- after starting out 6-10 the Sabres fired Lindy Ruff and hired Ron Rolston. Rolston, who had no prior professional head coaching experience, was hired as interim coach. Regier was retained and the Sabres finished at 21-21-6 and missed the playoffs for the second consecutive year and Rolston was retained as head coach.
Season 3: By November, the Sabres were in a tailspin. They fired both Regier and Rolston and hired Pat LaFontaine as President of Hockey Operations and Tim Murray as GM. Neither LaFontaine nor Murray had ever held these positions. Within weeks of his hire, LaFontaine quit in an apparent disagreement with Murray and the Pegulas over the direction of the franchise. Murray wanted to tank and rebuild from scratch while LaFontaine wanted to retain some vets (Miller was one) and rebuild around them. Prior to hiring Murray/Lafontaine, however, Pegula hired Ted Nolan as head coach. The Sabres season was eventful only for the reason that they were the first team since 1996 to have four teenagers in their lineup (Girgenson, Grigorenko, Zadorov and Ristolainen). Predictably, after Murray’s hire, the sabres gutted their team by trading Miller, Captain Steve Ott, goalie Jaroslav Halak, Matt Moulson and others. In what may have been the worst trade in the Sabres history, Murray traded young defenseman Braydon McNabb (yes, the same McNabb who still plays for the Vegas Golden Knights and won a Stanley Cup ring) ALONG WITH TWO SECOND ROUND PICKS, for Nick Deslauriers and Hudson Fasching. The Sabres finished 16th in the Conference (last place).
Season 4: After drafting Sam Reinhart with the second pick of the draft, the Sabres again finished dead last in the Conference. In what was clearly a tank season, Murray again gutted the team. In February of 2015 he traded Tyler Myers, Drew Stafford, Brendon Lemieux, Joel Armia and a 1st round pick for Evander Kane and Zack Bogosian. He then traded goalie Jonas Enroth for Anders Lindback. Next to go were Brian Flynn, Michael Neuvirth, Torrey Mitchell and Chris Stewart for draft picks. By season end they’d fired Ted Nolan and lost the Conor McDavid lottery. They reached out to Mike Babcock to coach the team and in spite of offering more money to him, Babcock instead went to the Maple Leafs.
Season 5: After drafting Jack Eichel with the second pick in the draft, Murray, clearly trying to rush the rebuild, then traded one of his first round picks for goalie Robin Lehner. He then traded Zadorv, Grigorenko, JT Compfer and a second round pick for Ryan O’Reilly. The Sabres then fired team president Ted Black and replaced him with Russ Brandon who was also the President of the Buffalo Bills. Brandon had absolutely no prior hockey experience. They hired Dan Bylsma as head coach. Bylsma, who had previously led the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup in 2009, was a veteran head coach who looked to turn the team around. With Reinhart and Eichel as two budding super stars along with Evander Kane and a ton of draft capital from the prior two season’s tanks, the Sabres looked to be on the rebuild. The Sabres improved slightly and finished 14th in the Conference and again out of the playoffs.
Season 6: The Sabres regressed slightly in the 2016-17 season again finishing 14th in the conference. Eichel led the team in scoring and O’Reilly was second. At the end of the season both Murray and Bylsma were fired. The team then hired Jason Botterill as GM and Phil Housley as head Coach. Neither had NHL experience in those positions. The results showed as they again finished last in the conference. With the first pick in the NHL draft they selected Rasmus Dahlin. In July they traded Ryan O’Reilly after O’Reilly admitted losing his love for the game playing with the hapless Sabres.
Season 7: Some sight improvement but again no playoffs. 13th in the conference. Jeff Skinner led the team with 40 goals playing on a line with Jack Eichel who had a then career high 82 points. Bylsma was fired and the Sabres hired Ralph Krueger, an individual with one season of NHL coaching experience (Edmonton Oilers where he finished 12th in the conference). Kreuger, who had minimal professional coaching experience, had been Chairman of the Southampton Soccer Club prior to his hire.In the off season they signed Jeff Skinner to a 8 year, $72 Million deal. Former Sabre Ryan O’ Reilly led the St. Louis Blues to the Stanley Cup.
Season 8: Same old same old… 6th in Division and 13th in the conference. Maybe the epitome of the season and the Ralph Kreuger experiment was taking Jeff Skinner, who had just scored 40 goals playing with Eichel, off Eichel’s line and putting him with lesser players on the second line. While Eichel still had a good season (78 points in 69 games), Skinner went from 40 goals to 14. It wasn’t until the second last game of the COVID shortened season that the two of them were reunited. Predictably, Jason Botterill was fired and the Sabres hired Kevyn Adams as their GM. Prior to his hire, Adams was running the Harbor Center Ice complex and the Buffalo Junior Sabres. With absolutely no prior experience we could easily predict how this would end.
Season 9: COVID caused the start of the season to be delayed. Season started in January and Kreuger was fired on St. Patrick’s day 2021. Team hired Don Granato, another coach without NHL head coaching experience as interim coach. Finished 15-34-7 and in last place in the East which again got them the #1 pick in the NHL draft. This season was marred by a neck injury to Eichel which would lead to him leaving the Sabres the next season. Acquisitions like Taylor Hall, Eric Stahl and others did nothing. In fact, the Sabres set an NHL record losing 18 straight games during the season. The off season was marred by the Eichel neck issue. Eichel wanted to have disc replacement surgery performed on his herniated disc in his neck. He also wanted out of Buffalo due to, among other things, the fact that the team was terrible every year that he’d been there. Pegula stubbornly refused to allow this surgery, instead insisting on a fusion surgery.
Season 10: The off season was another shit show. Sabres traded Sam Reinhart and Rasmus Ristolainen, both former 1st round picks. Eichel was traded in November to the Golden Nights where he had the surgery of his choice and came back as strong as before. Granato was retained as full time coach. In spite of not making the playoffs for the 10th straight year under Pegula ownership, the Sabres saw some of their young talent improve. Tage Thompson, acquired by Botterill the prior season in the O’Reilly trade had 38 goals. Rasmus Dahlin, a former #1 pick in the draft contributed 40 assists.
Season 11: While the Sabres didn’t make the playoffs, again, they did show signs of improvement. They had a winning record for the first time in the Pegula era and narrowly missed the playoffs by a single point. Thompson scored 47 goals and had 94 points. Dahlin was evolving into a great NHL defenseman and had 58 assists. Newly acquired Alex Tuch and Jeff Skinner each had 35+ goals. second year center Dylan Cousins had 31 goals. Casey Mittelstadt contributed 59 points. Rookies Jack Quinn and Owen Power (another #1 pick in the draft) showed promise. With all of this young talent on offense, the sabres did nothing to help their inexperienced young goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Starting 33 games, Luukkonen had a 3.61 goals against average and an .892 save %. Backing him up were retread goaltenders Eric Comrie and Craig Anderson. While Anderson played well in his 26 starts (3.06/.908), Comrie was ineffective if not downright brutal (3.67/.886). Had the Sabres done something to shore up their goaltending earlier in the season it is very likely that the playoff drought would have ended. Inexperience at the GM level is to blame here. Please note that Former Sabre Eichel led his Vegas team to the Stanley Cup.
Season 12: With a young group of talented forwards on the roster as well as two former #1 drafted young defensemen, the Sabres looked to be on the rise. The draft saw the team select three centers in the first round (yes that is correct. Three first round picks, three centers, all under 6’ and all under 180 lbs-do you detect a trend here?). The Sabres clearly tried to focus more on the defensive side of the game after the prior year’s run-and-gun style. Offensive numbers dropped bigly while goaltending improved dramatically. Luukkonen was terrific with a .910 save % and 2.51 GA. Devon Levi, a rookie, contributed at 3.10/.899, both respectable numbers for his experience. Former second round pick JJ Peterka broke through with 28 goals. Injuries, however, caused significant issues on offense with Thompson, Quinn, and others missing significant time. In addition, Tuch, Cousins, Skinner and Dahlin’s offensive production decreased. It was a tale of two seasons: Season 11-great offense and no defense; Season 12-Great defense and little offense. The Sabres missed the playoffs for the 13th straight year, thus setting an NHL record for consecutive seasons missing the payoffs. Please note that former Sabre Reinhart led his Florida team to the stanley Cup.
Season 13: Sabres fire Granato, hire Lindy Ruff and are currently under .500 and on a five game losing streak. They just blew a 4-0 lead at home to the Avalanche and lost 5-4 in regulation. The young players like Cousins, Quinn, Power, Dahlin, Tuch, Benson and others have all regressed over the past three years. The five first round centers drafted over the past three years have done nothing. Faced with a team that lacked grit and the ability to score, Adams focused on grit in the offseason by picking up a number of bottom six forwards. The problem is that they now were forced to move bottom six guys to top six positions. It hasn’t worked. They got rid of Skinner in the offseason which freed up $$$ on the salary cap. They are $7M under the cap. Another fiasco.
CONCLUSION: I’ve tried to go year by year but the issue in my mind is the fact that one guy, Terry Pegula, is the constant here. 13 straight years with no playoffs since he purchased the team. Year after year they are well under the salary cap. They have hired inexperienced coaches and GMs since his tenure started. Murray, Botterill and Adams had no GM experience and it showed. Rolston, Housley, Granato and Kreuger had no NHL head coaching experience. They got rid of guys like O’Reilly, Reinhart and Eichel who subsequently led their teams to the Stanley Cup. Year after year the team is out of playoff contention by January. Who would want to come here.
My point in this matter is that Pegula got lucky when he hired McDermott for the Bills but his incompetence shows in how he’s run the Sabres. They need an overhaul which won’t come with Terry owning this team. So sad.