Year in Review: Part 1

Year in Review

Part 1

                The first full year under the Terry Pegula regime is now in the books. After a slow first half to the season, the team put together a remarkable surge to end the year, falling just a couple points short of a post season berth.

Entering last season, the city of Buffalo was in a buzz. Their organization did what they believed necessary to win in the offseason, signing stud players to blockbuster deals by the names of Christian Ehrhoff, Robyn Regehr, and Ville Leino. For the first time in the franchises storied history, they spent up to the salary cap, and were committed to taking a run at the cup.

Early on in the season, the team did live up to the expectations. After the month of
October, the team seemed to be headed in the right direction. However, the teams true colors were exposed during a Saturday night brawl with their Northeastern division rivals, the Boston Bruins. After being physically dominated and pushed around the entire night, the team didn’t appear to have the tenacity to compete with the big dogs.  But it wasn’t until Bruins thug, Milan Lucic took a run at Sabres goaltender and knocked him out of the lineup for the next three months, that even the guys in the dressing room began to doubt themselves.  

With the Lucic incident weighing heavily on their minds, the team went into hibernation mode for the next two months. They were in and out of the eastern conference basement multiple times, and just didn’t have the same spunk to their game that we as fans know that they are capable of bringing. After a flat out embarrassing loss to St. Louis by a score of 4-2, the team concluded a miserable, spirit crushing road trip that saw the team go 0-5-0, earning zero points in the process. It was at this point that the leaders of the team held a players only meeting, where they took it upon themselves to stop the bleeding and turn their once promising season back around. And that’s just what they did.