It was a few minutes before the warmups Friday night in KeyBank Center when the latest nightly house band offering cranked up the 1978 Gloria Gaynor classic, "I Will Survive."
Pretty appropriate for how things are lately for the Buffalo Sabres.
The New York Rangers held off a furious final push by the Buffalo Sabres to secure a 2-1 win. The Sabres (8-15-3) are winless in 10 of their last 11 games.
It's been easy to be afraid and even petrified to watch them play on too many nights. You assume they're not going to crumble or lay down and die under Don Granato's watch, and the third period of Friday's 2-1 gut-punch against the New York Rangers proved that.
We started the week talking about how this club was averaging more goals than any Buffalo team since 2010-11. Two home games later, they had a scoreless streak that stretched more than 135 minutes before Brett Murray finally scored late in the third period.
Things went from bad to worse Friday morning when Granato revealed that Casey Mittelstadt had successful surgery and is out indefinitely. The team's No. 1 center should be back this season, but this undisclosed injury, which sounds an awful lot like a sport hernia, has essentially rendered a key year of his development moot.
Mittelstadt, a 23-year-old center, underwent "successful" surgery on an undisclosed, upper-body injury Friday morning and faces an uncertain timeline to return, coach Don Granato told reporters.
What do the Sabres do now? The lineup they're putting on the ice is wafer thin. There's no need for general manager Kevyn Adams to go bargain bin shopping for some journeyman to fill a hole. He just needs to look from within.
The Sabres' development model is a sound one. Let the top prospects percolate in Rochester, perhaps all season, and they'll be fully brewed to be in the NHL next year. There's no hope and no thought of a Stanley Cup. There's plenty of thoughts about a Calder Cup.
That said, development can happen in the NHL, too, and Adams needs to make a move. The thing to do right now is put in a call for Peyton Krebs to get some time at center in Buffalo.
Krebs was the prime prospect piece acquired for Jack Eichel. He's been tearing it up of late in Rochester, with seven points in a three-game stretch heading into Friday that included the overtime winner Wednesday against AHL-leading Utica.
You would prefer to keep Krebs in the AHL, but the reality is you have no choice but to bring up one of your three notables in Rochester (Krebs, Jack Quinn or JJ Peterka). Quinn really isn't an option right now because he's missed three games with a non-Covid-19 illness.
Krebs is a center. You've got a big hole down the middle. Get him up here and see what you have. The Amerks don't play again until next week at Charlotte. Doubt the Sabres throw Krebs in Saturday against Washington without any practice time, but he should be here for Monday's practice and in the lineup Tuesday in Winnipeg for the opener of a three-game road trip.
"It was 50 years ago Thursday – Dec. 9, 1971 vs. the Chicago Black Hawks, as they spelled it back then – that I attended my first Sabres game in Memorial Auditorium," Mike Harrington writes.
The Sabres' have an actual development plan going these days. It's not slipshod. as it was under Tim Murray or Jason Botterill. But circumstances dictate they call an audible here.
Following the morning skate Friday, legendary Rangers play-by-play announcer Sam Rosen asked Granato what the difference has been in his team in the last month, given the fact it was a 7-7-2 when it appeared in Madison Square Garden for that excruciating last-second loss on Nov. 22.
Since then, Buffalo is 1-8-1. That Ryan Lindgren goal with four-tenths of a second before overtime seems to have snuffed a lot of life out of the Sabres' season.
Granato didn't want to go there with Rosen's question, pointing out that any factors he cites would come off as excuses. He compared the Sabres' situation to where the Rangers were at two years ago, looking to forge a new identity around their young players.
Did you have any idea the Sabres entered the game on pace to average more goals this year than any season since 2010-11?
Granato liked the passion he continues to see. The Sabres played hard right to the end of Friday's game and even after the buzzer, when Dylan Cozens took a cheap slew-foot from Barclay Goodrow and had to be restrained.
They outshot the Rangers 37-31, and the count was 18-7 in the third period. That's impressive.
"We're building confidence, we're building our skill, we're building our structure," said Brett Murray, who scored the lone Buffalo goal. "Eventually it's going to start going our way."
The Rangers went through a lot of this a couple years ago, when they flat-out told their customers they were rebuilding. Obviously, with old friend Chris Drury in the GM chair after Jeff Gorton was let go, things haven't taken 10 years to come together. That's a Buffalo thing.
But you can still learn a lot from what's going on at the other end of the state. The Rangers made a fast move. The Sabres feel they can do likewise in the next year or two.
"We feel the same about our organization. It can advance immensely in the next month to month, in the next series of months because of the players we have," Granato said. "Young guys evolving their game really fast."
We're already seeing that in goal with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. You would assume he's going to go back to Rochester when Dustin Tokarski comes off the Covid-19 list, but this has been a nice taste of the NHL. There's no potential tying goal in the final minute Friday – before it was wiped out on an offside – without a bunch of Luukkonen saves before it.
"He is in the developmental phase of his career and Rochester is a great spot for a guy to develop, but we have an opportunity here, so we’re going to throw him in here," Granato said earlier this week. "We don’t want him to lose perspective that he’s in a developmental situation and this is a bonus that he gets to play an NHL game, so let’s use it as a positive and make sure it doesn’t stunt any growth or development."
Sound theory. It's time for the Sabres to apply it to Krebs too.
