It's summer... there's not much to talk about... why not a topic for the hell of it?
Each team listed finished 30th in the league in their respective season. I eliminated some obvious "no" options such as the '07-'08 Tampa Bay Lightning who finished 30th but had 31 wins and 71 points... WAY ahead of some of the others.
Interestingly as bad as the Maple Leafs were this season they got hot down the stretch and finished with 69 points so I didn't list them either.
I think it has to be the recent Buffalo Sabres. That was a BRUTAL team to watch. So many injuries and call ups, it really was the AHL out there. Our own Blues from 05-06 weren't a whole lot better though.
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Easily the '05-06 Blues. There was no effort to be competitive that year. Pronger was traded and we didn't even try to get a free agent during the biggest year for UFAs in history. Our big addition was Dean McAmmond. Lalime got hurt and we had Curtis Sanford win us a few games. The arena was so empty at some games, you could arrange the fans such that nobody was sitting to the left, right, in front of, or behind any other fan.
They overspent on guys like Gionta and Moulson just to get to the salary cap floor. They had fewer "actual" NHL players on their team than the '05-'06 Blues had. For sure.
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There are some familiar names on the '13-'14 Sabres roster. Only 4 players on the roster scored more than 10 goals. Only two reached 20 - Tyler Ennis (21) and Cody Hodgson (20).
Meanwhile, the 05-06 Blues had 8 players reach double digits in goals. Only Matt Sillinger (22) passed the 20 goal mark, though.
Sabres were worse in goal scoring.
Let's look at total points next:
'13-'14 Sabres - 8 players reached the 20 point plateau, 4 reached 30, while 2 reached 40.
'05-'06 Blues - 11 players reached the 20 point plateau, 6 reached 30, while 4 reached 40.
So just looking at overall scoring alone, the Sabres sucked worse than the '05-'06 Blues.
Scoring from Defense - Sabres are worse again.
Buffalo - 3 guys with double digit points. Only Christian Ehroff (27) broke 20.
STL - 5 guys with double digit points. Only one also broke 20 - Dennis Wideman (24).
Man, both these defensive corps really sucked in terms of offense, but the Sabres were slightly worse.
Goaltending - yes, the Sabres had better goaltending. Miller/Enroth were better than Sanford/Lalime.
So - final judgement - '13-'14 Sabres were worse.
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I'm still salty about that Sillinger for Shishkanov trade. You can't tell me we couldn't have got a draft pick out of a team somewhere.
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WaukeeBlues wrote:I'm still salty about that Sillinger for Shishkanov trade. You can't tell me we couldn't have got a draft pick out of a team somewhere.
It's impossible to like that trade in hindsight but at the time, Shishkanov was 22, just a few years removed from being a high second-rounder and had been effective in the AHL whereas Sillinger was enjoying his career year at age 34 and was a pending UFA. Oh, and his production fell off after the trade. Easy come, easy go.
