This can't be happening again.
The way last season ended, you wanted to believe General Manager Kevyn Adams and coach Don Granato were different. You wanted to believe that, finally, someone had an actual plan to lift the Buffalo Sabres out of their decade-long stay in the abyss of the NHL. The way this season started, your faith was reaffirmed.
Remember on Nov. 2 how old Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin & Co. looked trying to chase the Sabres around the ice in the third period at KeyBank Center?
But is that all we're going to get this year? One month of hope?
In a season that has badly boomeranged the wrong way, the Sabres are 7-11 and have dropped eight consecutive games – seven by multiple goals. They would have the longest losing streak in the NHL this season if they don't beat Montreal on Tuesday night in Bell Centre.
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There should not be must-win games on Nov. 22, but this one rates that way.
"I'm calm right now. And I think calm is very important in these type of things," Adams said before practice Monday morning. "But I'm not comfortable. You could check my sleep habits lately. I'm not comfortable at all. And I'm wanting to make sure that we have a calmness about this and know that these experiences are exactly what will help (the players) grow and learn and get better. But everything we do every day is talking about how you win hockey games, and how you develop your team and your players."
It's eight losses in a row for the Blue and Gold after the Toronto Maple Leafs scored three goals in a 5½-minute span of the opening period and never looked back.
St. Louis is here Wednesday and the Blues are on a seven-game winning streak following Monday's 3-1 win against awful Anaheim. New Jersey is here Friday and Lindy Ruff's crew has won 13 in a row – 13! – heading into Wednesday's home game against Toronto. Tampa Bay is here next Monday and the Lightning, of course, have only played in three straight Stanley Cup finals. Then the Sabres play Nov. 30 at Detroit and host defending Cup champion Colorado on Dec. 1.
If the Sabres don't win Tuesday, when is the win coming to snap this streak? What does it say about this development curve if this team drops 10, 11 or 12 games in a row?
Young or not, this is not a team that should be dealing with losing streaks of this magnitude. The goodwill built in the first 10 games is kaput. The return of the Goathead sweaters coming Wednesday night? The buzz is badly damaged and the night is just going to remind fans how most of those years were spent actually winning games and making the playoffs.
The Sabres finished last season 16-9-3. They started this season 7-3-0. That's a combined 23-12-3 in what is not a small sample size. It's a 106-point pace for an entire season. It's astonishing to see what's suddenly happened when you take a quick deep dive at the standings.
The Sabres went into Monday's play 29th in the NHL's overall standings -- and would be last in the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference if Ottawa wins its late-night game at San Jose.
It was just 18 days ago -- not 18 years ago -- when the Sabres were third in the East and fifth overall. This is a stunning collapse. For all the legitimate talk about how much injured captain Kyle Okposo is missed, the 34-year-old has one goal this season. Is this team really that mentally fragile that it just unravels when Okposo isn't around to help snap it from its funk?
Granato has seemed out of answers lately.
He's mentioned several times in recent days how we're around the one-year mark of Rasmus Dahlin's defensive disaster here last season against Seattle, the night the former No. 1 overall pick gave up two shorthanded goals in what might rate as the low point of his career. Dahlin has rebounded to become an all-star by February and a Norris Trophy candidate now in part because of the experience and the belief the Sabres maintained in him.
Granato says this is a similar moment for his club. We'll see.
"I watch our players, and I don't think they're less competent or capable," Granato insisted Monday. "They don't have experience, and they're getting it right now, and it's causing a lot of self-reflection. It's causing hesitation as a result, maybe overthinking things, but it's all dealing with pressure."
Getting players healthy will help, especially for the pathetic penalty-kill units that are running at an NHL-worst 60% during the losing streak. This team has gotten soft at 5-on-5 and super soft when it's a man down. The Toronto Maple Leafs had to feel Saturday night's game was their easiest win of the season by a mile.
Defenseman Mattias Samuelsson, who has missed the last 13 games, should be back Tuesday and Granato correctly termed Samuelsson's absence and that of Okposo as "enormous." Alternate captain Zemgus Girgensons, who took a high hit Wednesday in Ottawa and missed Saturday's game, should also be back.
"I think individually just raise the compete level, be harder around pucks, play a little bit more body," Girgensons said Monday when asked what's needed. "And I think that’s what we’re focusing on. I think our habits slipped a little bit, and sometimes when you go 7-3, we’re a young team and maybe you become a little too confident. So this streak definitely dials it back, and I think the guys are ready to turn it around."
They better be.
When injuries made the Sabres thin at forward, they called up Anders Bjork and Riley Sheahan from Rochester on the theory they have NHL experience and deserved the first look. Neither did anything, so that's one reason Adams claimed Tyson Jost on waivers from Minnesota on Sunday. It would have been nice to see more of a prospect-type callup from the Amerks to inject some spark along the likes of Linus Weissbach or Lukas Rousek, but the Sabres don't want to disrupt their younger players' paths for a few games.
They should have thought harder about it.
All the injuries on defense had Adams looking for help, but he opted against getting some because he knew Samuelsson, Henri Jokiharju and Ilya Lyubushkin were going to be back within a month. The GM was hoping to tread water, and it simply didn't happen.
And the Sabres are still trying to find success in net, where 41-year-old Craig Anderson has badly outplayed injured free-agent signee Eric Comrie (3.62/.887). Now we see if Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen can grab the net.
"What we're really working toward here is sustainable success, not just a flash of a week here, a month here," Adams said. "Sustainable success. And we all believe that the way we're going to have sustainable success is to have our young core go through these things."
They've gone through it now for nearly three weeks. It's time to get out of it.
