(Ed. Note: There’s entirely too much sunshine in the summer. So your friends at Puck Daddy are offering a month of thrown shade and perpetual gloom. Behold, our Summer of Disappointment series, in which we ask fans of all 30 teams to recall the biggest bummer moments, teams and players in franchise history! Please wade into their misery like a freezing resort pool, and add your own choices in the comments!)

Written by Eric Schmitz of 3rd Man In

Most Disappointing Team: 2006-2007 Buffalo Sabres



This was going to be the year. The 2005-06 Sabres came out of nowhere, capturing hearts and making a valiant run to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final, despite the wheels falling off in just about every sense along the way. They were so close, but they were young, and with the exception of a few roster moves, they were back.



The Sabres started the 2006-07 season with a record of 10-0-0, a league record. They were destroying teams. Coming back and winning games they had no business winning. They embarrassed the Flyers to the point where they fired their coach. The team was good. Real good. They went wire-to-wire with the NHL's best record, from opening night to the final day, winning the first Presidents' Trophy in franchise history.





This was the year. Forget the Bills, man, the Sabres are finally going to lead us to glory!



They brushed off the Islanders in the first round. Then the Rangers gave them a tough time, but the Sabres got past them in six. Now, it was Ottawa. A rematch of last year. And before you knew it, Ottawa was up 3 games to none.





The series was over in five. And the team's best players were set to become unrestricted free agents.



Buffalo has a long history of scrappy teams that overachieve. That team was insanely talented and didn't get it done.





Most Disappointing Sabre: Tim Connolly



When the Sabres finally traded captain Michael Peca after a year-long holdout in the summer of 2001, hopes were high because of the haul that GM Darcy Regier got in return: former top-10 picks Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt.



Connolly was an immense talent. His problem was between the ears. Not so much character-wise, mostly because of a rough hit he took in a preseason game against Chicago in 2003, which cost him an entire season. With a year lost to injury and another lost to the Great Lockout of 2004-05, he returned in 2005 and promptly had a fantastic year, registering 55 points in 63 games. In the playoffs, he was even better. Tim was becoming a star.





Then Ottawa's Peter Schaefer leveled him in the 2006 playoffs. And he was out for another season, returning for the final two games in 2006-07. He spent the following years as a pariah, becoming a scapegoat for the team's failures, thanks to his newfound tentative style and despite his obvious talent and fairly consistent production.



In the 2011 playoffs, he got drilled from behind by mass murderer Mike Richards of Philadelphia in a tied Game 6, knocking him out for the series. His absence was the beginning of the end, as Buffalo's special teams struggled and they lost in 7. He left as an unrestricted free agent after a decade with the team.



Concussions suck.









Most Disappointing Moment in Sabres History: Darius Kasparaitis' overtime winner in Game 7 versus Pittsburgh in 2001

Asking about the "Most Disappointing Moment" to a Buffalo sports fan is akin to asking someone what the worst thing about Winnipeg is.

Where do you even start? There's so many ways to answer the question.



It'd be easy to say Brett Hull's foot-in-the-crease/shouldn't-have-counted/NHL-coverup Stanley Cup winner in 1999. It'd be alright to say everything that happened after Brian Campbell put the puck over the glass in Game 7 against Carolina. But I'm gonna go with another Game 7 nut-punch: Darius Kasparaitis' overtime winner in Game 7 of the 2001 Eastern Conference semifinals.



That may have been the Sabres' best chance to win a Stanley Cup with Dominik Hasek. While he was showing signs of age, he was still a Vezina trophy winner. The team was stacked with veteran talent left from the 1999 Finals team, picked up Doug Gilmour, Chris Gratton and Dave Andreychuk before the season, and loaded up at the deadline.



And on a weak wrist shot from the circle, with the game on the line, Hasek, the greatest talent to ever wear the uniform, got beat, glove side. Doug Gilmour, the gritty veteran? He was coasting behind him.



The Sabres were a combined 5-0 against the teams they would've faced in the conference finals (New Jersey) and Stanley Cup (Colorado) that season. Hasek skated right off the ice, in what was his last game as a Sabre. The team wouldn't make the playoffs again for five years.













