At 7:00PM Friday night, the St Louis Blues announced via twitter what might be their biggest victory all season. At that point on that late week afternoon, the St Louis Blues and the lowly Buffalo Sabers pulled off one of the biggest trades in their history and frankly, one of the bigger trades of the past few years. At that point, they traded backup goalie Jaraslov Halack to the Buffalo Sabers in exchange for Ryan Miller and Steve Ott.
Many have said that this trade puts the Central Division leading Blues ahead of every other team in hockey thus making them a surefire Stanley Cup favorite. But just as the Blues rise even higher, this trade serves as proof that the year in and year out dominance of teams like Pittsburgh, Chicago, St Louis and even Boston has and will continue to obliterate the fan bases of teams like Buffalo, Miami, Calgary and Edmonton.
As great as these dynastic runs across all of these major sports many cities and teams have enjoyed, it has been a rough truth that those same strings of victorious seasons have incited other kinds dynasties in other, less fortunate teams. The Buffalo Sabers are one of those other teams and their dynasty is a dynasty of awful. It has lasted for 3 years, the last two of which being seasons that have been absolute train wrecks.
As we begin this story, one must look back to the 1999 season and the draft that followed it. In that draft, the Sabers who were then headed by newly appointed GM Darcy Regier spent their 5th round, 138th overall pick on a 6 foot tall, goaltender named Ryan Miller. Miller was going into Michigan State University that year and had already caught some eyes with his perfect senior season in East Lansing Michigan. More simply, he did not allow a goal that season.
But Reiger was not completely sold on Miller. He went off to Michigan but was watched closely by the Buffalo Sabers team. 4 years after the '99 draft, he was finally called up by the Sabers who were in desperate need of a goaltender following the retirement of Martan Biron and the recent departure of Dominik Hasek. In 2003, they saw the potential that Ryan Miller held. So, in the middle portion of the 2002-2003 they tested him out starting him in 15 games in which he assembled a 6-8-1 record with a GAA of 2.63. After logging just 3 starts in 2003-2004, Miller made great advances to his game during the '05 lockout and came back in 2006 as the face of the Buffalo Sabers. Over the next 3 years, Miller just continued to get better. He won a stunning 40 games in 2006. But even then, Ryan Miller was not yet a superstar.
That all changed however, in and around a competition that had nothing to do with the NHL.
On January 1st 2010, the USOC announced following that day's Winter Classic the 2010, US Olympic Men's Hockey team for the Vancouver Games. Of the three goaltenders sent to those games, Boston fans were focused mainly on their goalie, Tim Thomas. And yet, he was soon overshadowed by Miller himself who took over starting duties as the tournament raged into its thrilling Gold medal game.
After Miller assembled a GAA of 1.35 in those games, his following grew and for the first time in his career, this Buffalo starter was a household name. He recognized this and yet, as his game improved, that of his team worsened. The 2010-2011 Sabers just barely snuck into the playoffs as an 8th seed and 1 year later, they missed the playoffs altogether. In 2013-2014, things bottomed out in Buffalo. They fired Lindy Ruff and replaced him with Ted Nolan then fired the GM who initially drafted Miller, in Reiger.
The team however got no better. After years of mediocre regular seasons and an absence of Stanley Cup banners in their rafters, the Sabers are looking to rebuild their team via the draft. Unfortunately the only way to do that is to dump all the vets and go all out to hit rock bottom in the NHL standings. Friday afternoon, Ryan Miller and gritty, beat 'em up teammate Steve Ott were the last to go.
On this day, there are 5 NHL teams that have not made the playoffs in the past 4 seasons. 3 of those 5 have not made the playoffs in 5 years and one team, the Edmonton Oilers have not logged a playoff appearance in 8 seasons.
Runs of failure like those are never good for a team. When you do not make the playoffs for 8 years, when you are so consistently bad, younger fans give up on the team that never does anything exciting. Ticket sales falter and overall, the entire fan base simply begins to melt away. Years like these have killed franchises before, we look most recently to the small market Atlanta Trashers who never won a playoff series and folded in 2011. Additionally, runs like these turn into a vicious cycle for many teams. The Calgary Flames are an example of that. With just one playoff appearance in over a decade, they lost their most prized possession in Jarome Iginla last year solely because it is not morally fair to keep such a good player in a place that will not win a Stanley Cup before he retires. That was most likely the same frame of mind that the Sabers were in Friday afternoon when the 33 year old Miller was dealt to a cup favorite in the Blues. But the thing that bites these teams in these deals is the fact that in almost every case they are dumping their best player off to another team. So, their years of failure stretch on.
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