Not since the days of John Muckler have the Buffalo Sabres had a general manager who's played an integral part in winning the Stanley Cup.
The club's new GM, Jason Botterill, comes with a pair of rings, and he's widely considered to have been a key architect of both of the Pittsburgh Penguins' titles, in 2009 and 2016.
That championship experience, and more importantly, the significant role he played in constructing those teams, gives the Sabres something they've sorely lacked over the last two decades - a GM who knows how to mold a winner.
Tim Murray had plenty of hockey operations experience when he was hired by Buffalo in the winter of 2014, but capturing the Calder Cup as GM of the AHL's Binghamton Senators in 2011 was as close as he'd come to claiming the ultimate prize.
His predecessor, Darcy Regier, joined the New York Islanders in a subordinate role in 1984, but that was after their four straight championships from 1980-83.
The Sabres reached the Cup Final during Regier's tenure in 1999, but of course infamously fell short.
To find a previous Sabres GM with a Stanley Cup pedigree, you have to go back to Muckler, who occupied the role from 1993-1997.
The former Edmonton Oilers head coach didn't serve as an executive with that dynasty, but he was an assistant bench boss for four Cup victories and then head coach when the Oilers won their fifth championship in 1990.
Muckler didn't assemble those squads himself - that was Glen Sather's doing - but he did have an instrumental role when he won it all, and that's more than any recent Sabres GMs could say, until Botterill's arrival.
No Buffalo NHL club has ever hoisted Lord Stanley's mug, despite two appearances in the final (in 1975 and '99), and the Sabres have missed the playoffs in 11 of the last 15 seasons.
Even when the team was consistently competitive in the late '90s and then again in the mid-2000s, it's never been able to get over the hump.
Winning the Stanley Cup is hard. It isn't - and shouldn't be - a requirement for becoming an NHL GM, because of the difficulty of the accomplishment and the sheer rarity of the opportunity to build or guide a team to the top of the heap.
But while the Sabres have been guided by several qualified hockey personnel types over the years, it's been a long time since they landed someone like Botterill whose fingerprints were all over the Penguins' titles.
He was able to help assemble a deep, talented roster around a franchise cornerstone in Sidney Crosby, and that experience should come in handy as he attempts to do the same around Jack Eichel.
There's been a lot of losing in Buffalo lately, but finally getting a lead executive who knows what it takes to win bodes well for the Sabres' future.
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