The Buffalo Sabres ECHL affiliate will not play this season
The Cincinnati Cyclones have decided to opt-out of the 2020-2021 ECHL season. What does this mean for them and the Buffalo Sabres?
The ECHL affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres, the Cincinnati Cyclones, has decided not to play in the upcoming season. The Cyclones released a statement citing the reason for deciding against playing this year is due to the limit of people they can have in their arena at this time. With a team that is so reliant on ticket sales and money fans bring in, it is very understandable why they have decided against playing this year.
Cincinnati is not the only ECHL team to choose not to play their season this year. There have been nine teams, including the Cyclones, that have decided to not play this upcoming season. The other teams are the Idaho Steelheads, Kalamazoo Wings, Adirondack Thunder, Brampton Beast, Maine Mariners, Newfoundland Growlers, Reading Royals, and Worcester Railers.
Under the ECHL’s COVID-19 policy, all players that are from teams that opted out are free agents immediately. But all these teams fully expect to be back and ready to play for the 2021-2022 season.
Now how does this affect the Sabres for this upcoming season? It looked likely that none of the players that the Sabres had under contract for this year were going to play with the Cyclones during this upcoming season. So, it does not look like the Sabres will lose anyone they would have signed to free agency.
A potential disadvantage that could have an immediate impact on the Sabres organization this season is that players from Cincinnati would regularly join the Rochester Americans, the AHL affiliate of the Sabres, throughout the AHL season. If the Sabres run into injury issues this season and have to bring up multiple members of the Americans, Rochester could be hurting for players. The AHL season is still in jeopardy but they have announced a tentative start date of February 4th.
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The entire structure of professional hockey will look different for this upcoming season, and it is understandable why that is. With public safety at the top of everyone’s mind, it should not come as a surprise when we see some of these lower developmental league teams choose to sit out this season.