BOSTON – The Buffalo Sabres started 2021 playing in front of no fans in the midst of a global pandemic after being off the ice for more than 10 months.
They ended 2021 still playing in a pandemic. But not much else stayed the same.
One of the worst – and one of the most bizarre – calendar years in franchise history is over. The Sabres start 2022 with a Saturday matinee against the Boston Bruins in TD Garden and have to be hoping the nadir of this latest round of, ahem, suffering has been reached.
The prevailing feeling in the organization is that much better times are ahead. Still, it was easy to feel the irony Friday about the site of 2021's final practice.
The Sabres worked out at Boston University's Walter Brown Arena, home of the BU women's team. It's a five-minute walk from Agganis Arena, where Jack Eichel became a one-year legend in 2015 and helped lead the BU men to the national championship game before becoming the Sabres' No. 2 overall pick that June.
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In 2021, the Sabres will most be remembered for the six-month "disconnect" with their captain that became a talking point across North America and ultimately led to his November trade to the Vegas Golden Knights and a new direction for the franchise.
"The year has been a roller coaster for sure. It's been challenging, but I know I've learned a lot and I've grown," defenseman Rasmus Dahlin admitted to The Buffalo News after practice. "This team is on the right direction now. You have pieces and you see you're getting a good culture in the locker room and everywhere else. It's great. I think we have something really good going on."
The brute numbers from 2021 are gruesome. When you combine the shortened '21 season with the first portion of the '21-22 campaign, the Sabres went 25-51-12 overall and, not counting Seattle, put up NHL lows in points (62) and points percentage (.352). They scored 2.48 goals per game, ahead of only Detroit, and gave up an NHL-worst 3.49.
Things are rough in the stands as well. The Sabres' season ticket base has fallen through the floor through a combination of fan discontent, Covid concerns and Canadian border issues. The average attendance of 8,669 would be the lowest in franchise history and is nearly 3,000 fans per game lower than any other team.
"You talk about things that build character, and I use the term of 'building calluses,' " said assistant coach Matt Ellis, who started the year as player development director and ended it as the acting head coach with Granato in Covid-19 protocol. "We're building calluses to all the outside noise and it's internal. It's about our group. It's about growth, about getting better and loving the game. We're taking steps, trying to find that daily execution at a high level. That's part of the growth that we're striving for every day."
(Another) changing of the guard
The Sabres tied the NHL record for the longest playoff drought in April when they missed for the 10th straight year and will set the mark this year at 11. It cost another coach his job as Ralph Krueger was put out of his misery March 12 with Buffalo on a 12-game winless streak.
Granato took over on an interim basis and was given the job for real in June. He's the sixth coach since Lindy Ruff was fired in 2013. He went 0-5-1 in his first six games as the winless streak hit a franchise-record 18 games, the longest in the NHL since 2004. It finally ended March 31 in a 6-1 win over Philadelphia.
Tower of Power
Perhaps the draft of 2021 will mark Kevyn Adams' seminal development moment as GM. He traded Sam Reinhart to Florida and got a first-round pick as well as goalie prospect Devon Levi, a Canadian who is absolutely blowing up at Northeastern. He traded Rasmus Ristolainen to Philadelphia and got a first-round pick that he turned into Swedish winger Isak Rosen as well as a serviceable NHL defenseman in Robert Hagg.
And, of course, Adams used his lottery good fortune to take Michigan defenseman Owen Power at No. 1 overall after Power had become the breakout player for Team Canada at the World Championships. The countdown is on to watch Michigan in the NCAA Tournament and see how fast Power can get to Buffalo after the tournament ends.
Adams had a new lieutenant at his side for the draft and free agency in assistant GM Jason Karmanos, who was brought on in April after a career that has included Stanley Cup wins in Carolina and Pittsburgh. Karmanos became the GM of the Rochester Amerks and the overseer for scouting, development and an analytics team that also made key hires, including the addition of Sam Ventura as VP of hockey strategy after he was running analytics for Pittsburgh.
Around the boards
Feel-good moments: Michael Houser, a career ECHL goalie, won back-to-back games against the Islanders in May for his first NHL wins. Defenseman Ethan Prow, who had gone to Germany last year after nearly 300 AHL games, made his NHL debut Wednesday night against New Jersey at age 29 and scored his first NHL goal.
Tough times: Casey Mittelstadt started this season as the club's unquestioned No. 1 center and has been limited by two major injuries to one goal and four games. Dahlin had an NHL-worst minus-36 rating last year and the two-goal club of 2021 was hard to fathom: Taylor Hall scored twice and was minus-21 before he was traded to Boston, Eichel had just two goals in 21 games before his Buffalo career ended with a March neck injury on Long Island and Kyle Okposo had two goals in 35 games before his season ended with a broken cheekbone.
They remember: Friday would have been Rene Robert's 73rd birthday. The right wing of the vaunted French Connection died on June 22, a few days after suffering a massive heart attack in Florida. Robert's death was the seventh of a player from the 1975 Stanley Cup final team and leaves only Gilbert Perreault, 71, as the lone survivor of the Connection. March 13 was the 10th anniversary of the death of left winger Rick Martin, who died at 59 in 2011 after he was stricken while driving in Clarence.
Among others the organization lost in 2021 were former coach and General Manager John Muckler on Jan. 4 at 86, original Channel 7 broadcast host Rick Azar on March 25 at 91, former defenseman Tom Kurvers on June 21 at 58, and 1975 team alum Fred Stanfield on Sept. 13 at 77.
Remembering René Robert on what would have been his 73rd birthday. 💙💛 pic.twitter.com/wXChBBN4ER
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) December 31, 2021
