Forgive me for getting a little sentimental. When it comes to the Sabres, there's a lot more on my mind right now than Saturday's snoozer against Pittsburgh that extended their winless streak to 10 games.
The story doesn't need repeating. Too many of these players have checked out. The coach should have been fired two weeks ago but the owners don't want to pay him to go away and they don't have anyone else to hire anyway.
Another season is lost. The tradition of this franchise as a whole is lost. It didn't used to be like this, but 10 years of nothing makes it feel like it was always this way.
When you look in the KeyBank Center rafters and you see the retired numbers, you remember the roars. Hard not to give a quick double-take Saturday when you saw No. 7.
It was a significant day for those of us who lived the good times. It was the 10-year anniversary of the death of French Connection left winger Rick Martin, gone far too soon at 59. Martin had a heart attack on a Sunday morning while driving and crashed his car into a utility pole on Main Street in Clarence on March 13, 2011, a few hours prior to a late-afternoon home game against the Ottawa Senators.
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Known as "Rico" to everyone in the organization, Martin was a ball of life to the team and its alumni. The stories of him on the golf course with his omnipresent cigar are legendary. The stories of him on the ice are, too. That wicked slapshot that whizzed by goalies throughout the 1970s took out more than a few defensemen -- and sometimes as a bit of retribution if the case called for it.
Martin scored the only goal in the first Sabres game I ever went to in the Aud, a 3-1 loss to Chicago on Dec. 9, 1971. I was in the Reds for his 50th of the season against Boston in 1975.
One of the highest privileges in this job is getting to meet many of this club's venerable alumni. It's been a pleasure to get to know Danny Gare and Mike Robitaille, Rob Ray, Brad May and Matthew Barnaby. Rene Robert has been a prince to chat with the last two years during Road Crew events in Las Vegas. Gilbert Perreault, too.
About the best moment you'll ever have in this gig was the NHL100 ceremony in Los Angeles in 2017 featuring Perreault, Dominik Hasek and Pat LaFontaine, who could have done great things here as team president but never got a real chance and is now, sadly, an outcast of the Pegulas.
In 2010, after The News published a centerspread of the top 40 players in franchise history to honor the 40th anniversary season, I was sitting in the arena press room the day before the season opener and Martin walked in. You see alumni every so often, especially at the start of a season (before many of them head to Florida). He headed right toward me. We had never met.
"Hi Mike, I'm Rick Martin," he said. "How's it going?"
Yeah, I know. No intro needed (I didn't say that, but that's what I was thinking). And it was going great.
He said he just wanted to thank me and, by extension, the paper for the time spent honoring alumni. We talked a little about the season -- the team was actual thinking Stanley Cup after winning its division the previous spring -- and then Martin went on his way. Great stuff.
It was the only time we ever talked. I won't forget it.
Remembering Rico. 💙 pic.twitter.com/4nFUSrTROh
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) March 14, 2021
Martin, you might remember, was a centerpiece of Terry Pegula's 2011 introduction when he and Perreault and Robert skated out to surprise the owner on the ice prior to his first game in charge.
Three weeks later, Martin was gone. When the Sabres won their game later that day, they gathered at center ice to salute the fans and, led by Ryan Miller, pointed their sticks high to the rafters in the direction of Martin's number.
My sense the last couple of years with this current club is the history of this franchise doesn't resonate. There are no Stanley Cups here, but there were a lot of good times. When this era of players is gone, will anyone care to see most of them come back in 10 years? Or 20 years? Who are you going to cheer for?
That's what the daily calamity of losing hockey does. Saturday was yet another downer with the news that Jack Eichel is going to be out a while. Although the hope is his upper-body injury believed to be related to his neck is not season ending, what if it is? What if they trade him this summer and we never see him on the ice again here? Everything around this organization is broken.
What fans would buy tickets -- and pay for Covid tests -- to see this kind of hockey? The passion is gone. How do they get it back? Another coach? Is Toe Blake walking through the door? Another day in an empty arena. Covid times are tough. Even if it's only a few hundred of you, it will be good to hear people in here next week.
I will never get used to walking through an arena concourse 90 minutes before a game and not seeing a soul or hearing a sound. No workers, no fans, nothing. Nothing open. Nothing lit up. It’s just been surreal. #Sabres pic.twitter.com/YU7TaRgV1j
— Mike Harrington (@ByMHarrington) March 13, 2021
Now, there are some built-in excuses for this season and I almost get it. Take away the No. 1 goalie (Linus Ullmark), No. 1 center (Jack Eichel) and the No. 2 defenseman (Jake McCabe) from any team and see where they are.
And who got a worse shake in realignment than the Sabres? Seriously. Let's replace the Canadiens, Senators and Red Wings with a steady diet of the Islanders, Penguins and Capitals. See how your team would do. Throw in a Covid outbreak that was the worst in the league and you have another season down the drain.
But what's this going to be like in five years? Or 10 years? Or 15? Who is anybody going to cheer for at the 60th anniversary?
Just sad times Saturday. What in the world has happened to this franchise?
