Fewest wins after 41 games since...

It's me, Negative Nancy. You know who I am, dammit! What was I thinking after asking a similar question at the 10-game mark? This. This is what I was thinking.

 

10 wins at midseason. Quite incredible.

 

To find fewer wins at this point in Sabres history, you have to go back to the first two seasons of the franchise, when Punch Imlach had Gil Perreault and 19 guys named Skip. The inaugural team won 9 of its first 41 games and the second edition won just 8. You wonder how many of the 7 and 10 ties, respectively, those teams had would have been turned into overtime/shootout wins.

 

2002-03, with the owner charged with fraud and the team bankrupt and for sale and the team missing payroll IIRC: 11 wins.

 

The first tank team: 11. The second: 14!

 

06/07, in its first 10 games: 10.

 

Meanwhile, the Sabres are seventh in the league in terms of their cap hit. (And the percentage of that cap hit that they spend on defense is well above the league average: only a handful of teams spend significantly more.)

 

Was this in any sense predictable? Is someone going to pay?

 

For me, the really interesting question is how Russ Brandon interjects himself into this and gets into Jason Botterill's business. If the second half plays out like the first, Russ knows that the gravy train of season ticket holders could finally be wrecked. What is there to sell now except hope, and you need some splashy trades to offer hope. Or a sacrifice.

 

Unless an organeyezational decision was made to screw the bottom line and fan sentiment and do whatever is right for the future of the team, and then maybe Botterill has the luxury of doing less than what the fans want, because it's right. You kind of root for that scenario, but it's surely La La Land, even with Terry's Sabres.