MONTREAL — Those were the words you couldn’t ignore, uttered by an angry coach after his team lost its tenth straight game after leading 3-1.
This is not only because this sentence is shocking, but also because this sentence comes from Lindy Ruff.
He is in his 24th season on the bench for an NHL team, and his 1,805th game came as his Buffalo Sabers lost 5-3 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday night, so listen To the point where he called the team’s situation “the toughest” as a coach, the problems he faced were impossible to ignore.
Love was asked: “How shocking is this team with some of the guys you have?”
His response began: “Obviously, I’m almost speechless.”
“It’s my responsibility to fix this problem,” Love continued. “This is the toughest resolution I’ve ever been in, but it’s my responsibility to put these guys in the right position to win a hockey game. No one else but me.”
That last part is admirable.
The Sabers have spent 13 years in purgatory, mired in a seemingly endless rebuild since their last playoff appearance in 2011, and as they sink further into the abyss, their coach is trying to pass the transfer Player pressure to stabilize the situation. And wear it on yourself.
While this is noble, we know Rafe can’t do this alone.
Apparently, so did the Sabers, who held a full-team meeting — with owner Terry Pegula on hand and injured captain Rasmus Dahlin, per our Elliotte Friedman Also on hand — instead of Monday’s practice at the Bell Center.
The message, sources said, is to come together and work together as one to solve problems. We’re inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt because of how comfortable the players came out of that session before starting to prepare for off-ice practices.
But you can’t help but wonder if the Sabers have the ability to fix this internally.
That’s not to say they can’t reverse their current slide by beating the Montreal Canadiens, who are one point behind them in the standings, on Tuesday. This seems achievable.
But can the Sabers reverse that decline and suddenly start surging to the level their roster suggests they should be capable of? That seems debatable despite how much quality production they have at each position.
Even with Dahlin out, the Sabers still have former No. 1 overall pick Irving Ball and former No. 4 overall pick Bowen Byram to sustain the defense. Behind them, Uko-Pekka Lukonen and Devon Levy are a capable goaltending duo, while in front of them the roster is loaded with offensive talent, from Tachi Thompson to Alex · Tuch to JJ Peterka to Dylan Cozens to Zach Benson and Peyton Krebs and Jack Quinn.
Why do so many – especially the last four – get stuck?
Why did so many who came before them kill Sabres instantly wherever they went next?
Ryan O’Reilly, Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Evan Rodriguez, and Brandon Montour have all had a Stanley Cup after leaving Buffalo. Former Sabers goaltender Linus Ullmark immediately found another level elsewhere, first winning the Vezina Trophy with the Boston Bruins and now acting like a Vezina contender with the Ottawa Senators Same.
It feels like the well beneath KeyBank Center is poisonous.
Whether true or not, that’s how people feel about the team once again, which has tanked after an 11-9-1 start and seems to be trending toward a different outcome this season.
You try to separate this current period from all the ugliness that came before it by reminding yourself that this is still the youngest team in the NHL.
But this is impossible.
The Sabers are stuck in a familiar pattern again, and just like Love’s words on Sunday night, make you feel like the team is damned no matter what they choose to do next.
Firing Love after rehiring him eight months ago to replace Don Granato is ridiculous.
Not after replacing Jason Botterill, who replaced Tim Murray, who in turn replaced Darcy Regier, who ultimately led the Sabers to the playoffs. By four years, will firing general manager Kevin Adams change that? We don’t believe Pegula would think so.
Is the problem above Adams? That’s hard to believe considering the Buffalo Bills are thriving under Pegula.
As for players, Adams will have to be careful about selling some — like Cozens, who has regressed over the past two seasons but showed plenty of potential in 2022-23 with 31 goals and 68 points — —He must think about buying something.
Byram and Nicolas Aub-Kubel both have experience winning Cups, but this team could benefit from adding some more proven veterans around its young core.
If the Sabers want to avoid a trade mistake, they’ll have to get out of this predicament first because they don’t have any leverage.
Love’s inability to do that for them is part of the reason why the situations he’s faced as an NHL head coach have been more difficult than anything he’s faced.
If the team can’t find a way to completely turn this around, it’ll be difficult to determine where to go from here.
After everything the Sabers have been through over the past decade-plus, it’s painful to think that direction could slip even further. The thought that this might be the direction they need to go before their eventual revival must be downright frustrating for their long-suffering – and notoriously supportive – fans.
They may not have been surprised by the outcome of Sunday’s game, but Love’s postgame press conference and news of Pegula’s impromptu trip north on Monday must have made them uncomfortable.
The reason for this for us is that we didn’t think at the start of the season that the Sabres’ situation would be as dire as it turned out to be on Sunday.
