Sports. Honestly. Since 2011

Tim Murray: Professionally Inadequate

If you decided to look up the definition of the word “Incompetence,” hockey fans would likely joke about Tim Murray‘s photo next to the word. In reality, you’d simply find the definition of the word.

A definition to a word that suits Tim Murray to a tee.

The Buffalo Sabres 2014-15 season was one to forget. 23 wins leading to a total of 54 points meant the Sabres not only finished last in the Eastern Conference, but dead last in the league. The Arizona Coyotes finished two points ahead and the unforgivably bad Edmonton Oilers even scratched their way to a 62 point finish. The Sabres were just an atrocity on the ice. A team that once, during the season, managed just ten shots on goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The worst team in terms of goals for per game, powerplay and penalty kill percentage, and second worst for goals against per game.

Nothing went right for the Sabres. They were the worst. Period.

It wasn’t hard to figure out that the Sabres were tanking. Not the players exactly, because there is a certain amount of pride involved and fact is they also want to have the best season possible in order to get a better contract once their current one runs up. Murray, the general manager, had a plan and it was evident with the product he iced every night. It wasn’t a winning organization, or a competitive one. The team that skated out there was one designed to lose. When there was a bright spot, take for example starting goaltender Jhonas Enroth, Murray made sure that the problem wouldn’t last too long. The pesky Swedish netminder was shipped to Dallas in exchange for Anders Lindback. Yes, THE Anders Lindback. The goaltender that tried his best to help Tampa Bay in the playoffs last year and could not save a beach ball. He’d fit in perfectly with the Sabres.

Michal Neuvirth was also swapped with Islanders back-up Chad Johnson. Johnson, 28 years of age, is a decent back-up with one year left on his contract, but along with Lindback the Sabres were without a starting goaltender. Perfect.

“I don’t want to have anything to do with it,” Murray said about tanking, after trading Neuvirth at the trade deadline. “I don’t even want to speak to it.”

Well, of course not, Mr. Murray. What general manager would come out of the woodshed and blatantly admit that they were sucking for the sake of getting better in the long-run? It’s not ethical, not to mention it wouldn’t be an intelligent thing to do. Fortunately enough, the average fan is able to decipher a situation and whether or not a team is bad on the ice for a reason. It’s not like the Sabres have a roster, from top to bottom, that is loaded with talent. It isn’t. So to intentionally create a bad team is sad enough, but even if what Murray said was true and he didn’t want anything to do with tanking, then tell me which of the two sounds worse to you?

So after a year of complete suckage, the Sabres finished dead last and were guaranteed the best odds in the draft lottery. This would make any fan base jump for joy, forgetting about the team being the laughing stock of the 2014-15 season, because having the best odds to draft a prospect like Connor McDavid is a dream. A player of McDavid’s caliber comes once every decade or so, maybe even longer. A prospect compared to Sidney Crosby, and for good reason, McDavid was going to look fantastic in Buffalo colors. It looks even more promising when you consider that the Sabres had traded to acquire Evander Kane, who would form a deadly 1-2 punch with McDavid.

Then the draft lottery happened. Edmonton won, Buffalo got pushed down to the second spot and ultimately lose out on the privilege of calling McDavid’s name at the draft.

Any other general manager would still remain ecstatic with the second pick. After all, Jack Eichel is also listed as a generational talent and in any other year, he would be the consensus first overall pick. Needless to say, Eichel is one hell of a player.

Unfortunately, Tim Murray is different.

Instead of smiling and talking about how excited he is to welcome Eichel into the Sabres organization and discuss the player they’ll be getting in the upcoming draft, Murray insisted he show how disappointed he was with the outcome of the lottery and act like a pre-teen child who was rejected by the girl he hoped to go with to the high school dance.

You poor, poor soul. Instead of drafting the kid that is compared to Sidney Crosby, you’re forced to settle with the other kid that is compared to Jonathan Toews (what a nightmare!) and through all the childish pandering, remained positive and looked forward to playing for the Buffalo Sabres, should they decide to draft him. You have to draft potential Superstar B over potential Superstar A and add him to an already impressive prospect pool. Meanwhile, the Arizona Coyotes miss out on both prospects and now have to decide between defenseman Noah Hanifin and forwards Mitch Marner and Dylan Strome. Well Jack, welcome to Buffalo! The fun doesn’t end there! After Mike Babcock was announced as the new head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, several sources came out that the Buffalo Sabres management were “livid” upon hearing the news.

So in breaking this down, the Buffalo Sabres had offered a similar deal to Babcock, rumored to even be up to nine years, and everything seemed to be going well in those talks. So much so that Sabres management felt the deal was likely done and the Sabres felt comfortable when Babcock did not make anymore demands.

So in those two days following to the announcement, the Sabres didn’t make any follow-up calls to maybe check in on Babcock, see how everything was going and go over the details one more time before requesting to put a seal of approval on the contract. Instead, we can picture Murray kicking his feet back on the desk, cigar in mouth, while Terry Pegula starts to do the cabbage patch dance around the office. Of course, this came before they prepared their big speech for the news conference to welcome Babcock to the team.

Oops. For the second straight time this off-season, the Buffalo Sabres had to settle. They got passed on by a Stanley Cup-winning coach and instead had to bring in the services of another Stanley Cup-winning coach. Dan Bylsma may be a good coach that can handle youth quite well, after all he did quite the job in Pittsburgh with a goaltender that was allergic to hockey pucks in the month of May, but since he isn’t Babcock this whole situation is awful. A failed tank. Public outcry for having to draft a prodigy instead of a prodigy and becoming outraged over a coach that made a decision, Tim Murray has shown time and time again that he has the managing skills of a gnat and the inability to keep his composure despite the situation he’s found himself in not looking all that bad.

Unfortunately, he made a blockbuster trade to bring in a skilled winger and a top-four defenseman, so I’m sure his fans can somewhat forgive his poor judgment, but how long until he says one thing too many and the players begin to question why they should continue to stay loyal to a team that is managed by an individual that would rather make regular appearances on the local radio station than run a team with competence?

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