New York state of maligned: Who has it worse this year, the Sabres or Rangers?
Misery loves company in the Empire State these days, but who should claim bragging rights as the worst team in New York?
www.nytimes.com
It hasn’t been a great start to the season in the state of New York. How bad has it been? Bad enough that today’s post is a “Which team in the state has it worst?” and we’re not even including the one that’s only won 13 of their 35 games under the new coach who was supposed to turn things around. Sorry, Islanders fans, you get the bronze medal of misery. Stop being such overachievers if you want to be included next time.
Instead, today’s it’s Sabres vs. Rangers. The simple question: Whose season has been worse? The slightly less simple but more accurate question: Is it possible that anyone can compete with what’s going on in Buffalo right now?
I’m not sure it is, but the Rangers are our best contender, at least until Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller become the first teammates in NHL history to drop the gloves with each other off an opening faceoff. So we’re going to limit ourselves to these two teams and try to answer the question using a highly calibrated scientific method of me randomly coming up with an unlucky 13 categories and seeing where it leads us.
Sabres or Rangers, who you got? For your sake, let’s hope it’s neither, but let’s dive in.
The season so far
Let’s start simple. How’s the 2024-25 season going so far?Rangers: After a very solid 12-4-1 start, they’ve cratered down to below .500 and are sitting outside of a playoff spot. According to Dom’s model, their chances of making the playoffs are just 16 percent.
Sabres: They finally snapped a month-long losing streak, but are still dead last in the Eastern Conference. According to Dom’s model, their chances of making the playoffs are “Come on man, I might be a statistics-based data generation process that lives on a laptop but even I have enough empathy to not give you an honest answer to this question.”
Edge: This is an easy one. With all due respect to suffering Rangers fans, Buffalo has been far worse, which means for our purposes this category goes to the Sabres.
Preseason expectations
It’s one thing to be bad when you know you’re going to be bad, which is why teams like the Sharks aren’t getting openly laughed at these days. So how good did these teams really think they’d be?Rangers: After winning the Presidents’ Trophy last year, the Rangers viewed a conference final loss to the eventual champions as an unacceptable result. The message was clear: It’s Stanley Cup or bust.
Sabres: The goal was to make the playoffs, or (more reasonably) to at least hang around the race long enough to play meaningful hockey into the final months.
Edge: In a way, it’s tempting to give it to the Sabres here, if only because they set the bar nice and low and still tripped over it and face-planted. But yeah, when you’ve got a supposed Cup favorite struggling to make the postseason, this is a clear edge to the Rangers.
Recent history
In terms of a miserable fan base, some recent success can lighten the sting of a bad year.Rangers: They won the Presidents’ Trophy last year, have been to two conference finals in the last three years, and have won at least one round in seven of the last 13 seasons.
Sabres: They haven’t made the playoffs since 2011, the longest drought in the history of the NHL.
Edge: It’s close, but we’ll go with the Sabres.
Not-so-recent history
Some fans are old. Go find one and ask them how the last few decades have gone.Rangers: They won the Stanley Cup in 1994, which was three decades ago. I can’t remember when their last one before that was, maybe Islanders fans can help me out by chanting the year at me.
Sabres: They’ve never won a Cup in their 54 years of existence.
Edge: Oof. I’m not sure how to compare 0-for-54 with 1-for-84, other than that a stiff drink helps. I guess we have to give a slight edge to the Sabres.
Demoralizing soundbite
As someone who lived through “draft schmaft,” “an 18-wheeler going off a cliff,” “respect in the handshake line” and “shambles in our brain,” I know it’s not true misery unless you’ve got a pithy quote for the souvenir t-shirt.Rangers: “It’s a rite of passage to get fired from MSG.” – Jacob Trouba, upon his trade to Anaheim.
Sabres: “We don’t have palm trees.” – Kevyn Adams, explaining why it’s hard to acquire good players.
Edge: I actually think the Adams quote was a valid point that just came out wrong at a time when nobody wanted to hear anything resembling an excuse. I’ll give the edge here to the Rangers, if only because Trouba’s quote seemed to be hinting at something more sinister. (But Buffalo fans showing up with inflatable palm trees was legitimately funny.)
Coaching
Hey coach, what do you think of your team’s execution?Rangers: Peter Laviolette, who was hired to bring a Cup to New York after Gerard Gallant winning 112 games in two years wasn’t good enough.
Sabres: Lindy Ruff, who was hired because he’d remind Sabres fans of that time they got to be happy for a few weeks back in 1999.
Edge: OK, that was a cheap shot at Ruff, a good coach who was a Jack Adams finalist just two years ago. But with neither guy seeming to have much in the way of answers these days, I’m going to give the misery edge to the Sabres, if only because it would be easier for the Rangers to make a change because their guy has been around longer.
Lindy Ruff looks on during a 3-1 loss to Boston on Dec. 21. (Winslow Townson / Imagn Images)
Faith in ownership
It all starts at the top. Sometimes, it all ends there too.Rangers: James Dolan has had a reputation as one of the worst owners in pro sports for a while now, although the Knicks have been less of a mess lately. He’s constantly winding up in controversies, feuds with popular former players, and thinks he can sing. Honestly, that last one might be the worst of them all.
Sabres: Terry Pegula is a weird one, in that Sabres fans have completely lost all faith in him while Bills fans still have his back. As a Puck Soup listener pointed out this week, if Pegula only owned the football team, Buffalo fans would be begging him to buy the Sabres too. But as it stands now, the fan base seems to have zero faith in the guy.
Edge: I’m going to go with the Sabres because of a key difference we haven’t mentioned yet: For all his faults, Dolan is at least willing to spend to the cap.
Future potential
OK, maybe this year is bad, but there’s always next year, right? Right?Rangers: Corey Pronman says they have a middle-of-the-pack prospect pipeline, which is actually good news given where they’ve been drafting for the last decade or so. But they also have a veteran core with a lot of bad if not unmovable contracts, and Artemi Panarin can become a UFA after one more year.
Sabres: Corey says they have a middle-of-the-pack prospect pipeline, which is not great when you’re racking up a historical playoff drought. But their key players are younger, and their cap situation is cleaner. Could they be better than the Rangers in a year or two? It doesn’t feel impossible, but also, they’re the Sabres, so let’s pump the brakes.
Edge: Man, I’m not even sure which team that last sentence was more insulting to. I’m calling this one a draw.
Depressing headline from The Athletic
Nobody can twist the knife quite like an editor.Rangers: “Rangers hit rock bottom with no fight and no effort in New York”
Sabres: “How the Sabres hit new low in panic-filled, historic collapse against Avalanche”
Edge: Both are pretty bad, but the fact that that “new low” Sabres headline, which came after the team blew a four-goal lead at home and lost in regulation, was nine losses ago makes my head spin and my heart hurt. Edge to the Sabres.
Motivational ploy from the boss that didn’t work
“You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”– Wayne Gretzky” – Michael Scott
Rangers: It would have to be what’s now known simply as The Memo, a leaguewide note from Chris Drury that let his fellow GMs know that he was open to moving just about anyone, including Jacob Trouba and Chris Kreider. It was apparently meant at least in part to be a message meant to unite the room. And they sure seem united… in their disdain for their GM.
Sabres: Pegula flew into Montreal to address his team after 10 straight losses, and his message was clear and decisive: Everything’s fine and nothing needs to change. His players responded to this display of leadership by going out and getting scored on 19 seconds into a blowout loss to a last-place team.
Edge: The Memo probably did more long-term damage, but I can’t get over the image of an owner calling a meeting with his flatlining team just to specifically tell them he wasn’t going to do anything. Let’s give a slight edge to the Sabres.
Stat that feels fake but somehow isn’t
The numbers don’t lie.Rangers: Once-beloved fourth-liner Matt Rempe now has twice as many career ejections as points.
Matt Rempe heads to the penalty box after elbowing Dallas’ Miro Heiskanen. (Jerome Miron / Imagn Images)
Sabres: The Sabres have chased the other team’s goaltender due to poor performance on five separate occasions this year. They’ve lost four of those five games.
Edge: Sabres. I’ve seen that stat reference in multiple places and am still like 90 percent convinced it has to be fake.
Old friend who’s back and carrying a shovel
One of the nice parts about a miserable season is when the one-time media heavyweight you’d almost forgotten about reminds you that they haven’t lost their fastball.Rangers: Stan Fischler, the legendary writer and broadcaster, has carved out a niche at the age of 92 by relentlessly poking at Igor Shesterkin and his massive extension.
Sabres: Duane the angry Sabres fan, whose phone-in rant captured the misery of a fan base five long years ago, is back and still in fine form.
Edge: We love Duane, but I’m not sure anything could top Fischler and the ongoing ballad of “Piggy Iggy.” When nonagenarians are coming off the top rope, you know it’s bad. Edge to the Rangers.
Next shoe to drop
It can always get worse.Rangers: With apologies to Rangers players who are doing everything short of laying down to spell out “Fire Drury” on the ice, I think this would have to be the inevitable Kreider trade, especially after he was a healthy scratch on Monday. The longest-serving Ranger is enduring an awful season and already knows his GM wants him out, thanks to that memo. Now it sure seems like his 13-year stint in New York is about to end with another sell-low trade.
Sabres: Well you see, as a wise man once said, the answer is in the room. But failing that, it seems like Dylan Cozens could be the next to go.
Edge: Tough call. I’m not sure which is worse for a fan base: Seeing a beloved veteran’s tenure end, or seeing a young core piece shipped out because he’s not all that young anymore. I’ll go slight edge to the Rangers.
And the winner is…
The 30 other fan bases.But yeah, although it’s a bit tighter than I thought it would be, the Sabres take top spot here. Congratulations on your second win of the week, Buffalo fans. And Rangers fans, at least your team kept it close. For a change.