his season, the Buffalo Sabres are going with a marketing slogan of "Sharpen Your Swords" as a way of hyping the 2017-18 season to its fan base.
While it does have a nice ring to it, the residents of SabreNation are tired of words and promises. They want results. They want a winner. And they want it now.
New general manager Jason Botterill knows this and he hasn’t been shy about moving bodies and bringing in new faces in an effort to get the Sabres back into contention.
Trading longtime Sabres Tyler Ennis and Marcus Foligno (Buffalo, N.Y.) to Minnesota was a sign of that there were going to be some changes. The team got top-tier defenseman Marco Scandella and veteran winger and former Sabres captain Jason Pominville in return. Dealing Foligno and Ennis was a simple case of you have to give talent to get talent. It also was a sign that Botterill is trying to put his stamp on this team and find a way to change the culture. Not that Ennis and Foligno were the problem — if anything, they were two of the most accountable, hardest-working guys in the room.