BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Alex Tuch was one of two Sabres to skate in all 82 games this season. He was Buffalo’s biggest plus mark on the scoresheet, matched a career-best in goals, and for a third year in a row fans bestowed Tuch with The Rick Memorial Award recognizing his on-ice excellence, resiliency and dedication to the community.
But after ending his fourth season in Buffalo well outside playoff contention, the alternate captain lamented yet another “failure in all of our minds,” during Friday’s exit interviews. A day later, general manager Kevyn Adams evoked Tuch’s sentiment.
“It’s not good enough,” Adams said Saturday at an almost hourlong news conference after the Sabres extended the longest postseason absence in NHL history to 14 seasons. “That would be the first thing I would say,” the fifth-year GM explained in a preview of his season-ending message to owner owner Terry Pegula. “I believe we should be a playoff team right now. And we failed.”
Ruff assessment
The Sabres’ playoff drought began with Lindy Ruff behind the bench. Reacquainting with Buffalo’s all-time winningest coach was supposed to instill the Sabres with the structure and belief needed to revive the franchise.
“I still remain very confident,” said Ruff, seated beside Adams on Saturday. “I’m angry at myself for not getting the job done.”
Buffalo’s losing record (36-39-7) was worse than each of the past two seasons under coach Don Granato. The Sabres made slight improvements in scoring and starting games, but were weak in many of the same areas. Still, finishing 12-7-1 with the league’s youngest lineup, Ruff saw signs of a team learning how to win consistently. “Early in the year, we had trouble with adversity,” Ruff said. “Later in the year, I think we dealt with high-pressure situations better.”
Changes to come?
Adams remains under contract as Buffalo’s general manager and spoke for the front office, but acknowledged he has yet to be assured of his job security.
“Those meetings come up, it’ll be very shortly, where we’ll sit down with Terry and talk about that,” Adams said. “And what I can tell you is I talk to Terry every day. He’s as frustrated as I am with the way the season went and where we are. And I’m certainly sure that he’ll be asking me a lot of hard questions and why we are where we and wh ere do we go from here. But that’s just kind of the normal process that we go through.”
Adams was asked about a report Saturday speculating that there would be management “changes around Adams,” and it’s unclear how that would affect alter his organizational position or authority.
“We want to get better,” Adams said. “We’ll look at everything. We’ll have meetings with Terry coming in the very near future we’re as we would typically do after a season review everything, talk about the roster. Talk about everything in the organization, hockey operations, where we can improve, what do we need to focus on? And we’ll make any decisions we need to make that we think’s going to help us get better.”
Owning failures
“We’ll take a look at everything,” Adams said about potential changes in to the hockey operations staff. “Obviously, we’re just getting through the season wrap and exit meetings with players. Lindy and I haven’t even had a chance to sit down yet together since talking to the players. But we’re willing to do whatever we think it takes to help our team get better. So we’ll definitely look at everything.”
How will Adams sell his vision to ownership after a fifth year of failure to ownership, the second lost season after declaring the Sabres had entered their window of contention?
“It’s owning that,” Adams said. “Taking my responsibility for that, and then moving past that and saying here’s how I see us improving and what we can do to fix it. So, as always, just being very honest in my conversations with Terry to say where I think that I made mistakes and I think we can fix certain things, and that’s what I’ll do.
“I believe that we’re closer than further, but the words are the words. We need to win hockey games, and I understand that.”
Matter to tend to
Couple with the 13-game winless streak that tanked Buffalo’s playoff hopes around the holidays, goaltending might have been the biggest reason the Sabres were not playoff caliber for much of the season.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, James Reimer and Devon Levi combined for an .879 save percentage that ranked second worse in the NHL. The trio was slightly better (.909 at 5-on-5, but still among the league’s bottom five.
Luukkonen and Reimer especially performed well over the final quarter of the season when the Sabres put together winning stretches. Ruff termed it “terrific goaltending. He and Adams both insisted the Sabres need to play better in front of the crease.
Reimer remains unsigned for next season and uncertain about his future, however, Levi still has not proven his standout out play in the AHL can translate to the big league, and rumors persist that the Sabres could listen to trade offers to Luukkonnen, who regressed after a strong season that earned him a long-term contract.
“I have a huge amount of faith in UPL,” Adams said. “Even my exit meeting today with him, I was
really impressed with his maturity and his diagnosis of his game and his season overall. I have a
ton of faith in him. I think with goaltenders, especially relatively young goaltenders, there is a lot
of variability year to year just in terms of ups and downs, and so I have a lot of faith he’s gonna
bounce back and have a really strong season next year.”
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Jonah Bronstein joined the WIVB squad in 2022 as a digital sports reporter. The Buffalonian has covered the Bills, Sabres, Bandits, Bisons, colleges, high schools and other notable sporting events in Western New York since 2005, for publications including The Associated Press, The Buffalo News, and Niagara Gazette. Read more of his work here.