Sean McDermott's Encouraging Words to Buffalo Sabres
The man who delivered the Buffalo Bills from a playoff drought of nearly 20 years to the brink of a Super Bowl was asked on Thursday to speak to a team that's experienced eerily similar recent futility, the Buffalo Sabres.
Sean McDermott's pregame message?
"I see what's going on here," the Bills coach told the team. "And it reminds me of 2017 when I got to Buffalo and worked with the Bills. We totally changed the culture, and that's what's going on here. I saw some of you guys playing soccer in the hallway. That's how a team comes together, that's how a team loves one another.
"And I would just challenge you guys tonight. Like love one another by the way you play."
McDermott would go on to hang with second-year Sabres coach Don Granato during warmups before the Sabres would lose, 6-2, at home to the St. Louis Blues.
Granato was elevated to head coach when Ralph Krueger was fired late last season and hasn't been able to get the Sabres back to the playoffs, for which they last qualified more than a decade ago, in 2011.
McDermott in 2017 guided a franchise that hadn't been to the playoffs since the 1999 season to the postseason in his first year on the job. The Bills made it back again two seasons later and haven't missed since.
They advanced to the AFC Championship Game two seasons ago and are coming off a divisional-round exit in January.
The Sabres are hoping that Granato, a former AHL Coach of the Year, can work the same kind of magic. But they'll have to wait until next season, at the earliest, for that to happen. The Sabres are buried in the Atlantic Division with a 27-38-11 record and just 65 points. They have been eliminated from the playoffs this season.
Their 11 straight seasons out of the playoffs is an NHL record.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
