from Adam Proteau of The Hockey News,

It’s nearly August, for hockey gods’ sake. Does anyone want to tell Sabres GM Darcy Regier and his Capitals counterpart George McPhee? Both are doing their best statue impersonations at a time in each team’s history that cries out for at least a modicum of change. Yet with their near-total absence of action, both are making the case that the rosters that failed so spectacularly somehow deserve another chance.

Sorry, but I’m not buying, leasing, renting or timesharing that argument, not for a single second. It’s one thing to dance with them what brung you; it’s something else entirely when them what brung you are insisting on dancing like nobody’s watching and/or paying them to dance. Loyalty is admirable to a degree, but eventually that attitude turns into organizational inertia and that’s what puts teams in a competitive death spiral.

I’m not advocating for a massive turnover of talent in Buffalo and Washington. There are players in the Caps and Sabres’ systems worth hanging onto. But even teams that suffered significant disappointment in previous years knew the status quo wasn’t an option:

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