Stoner

I was gonna go with... The End of Suffering thought seems to have survived the night. I'm feeling OK about things. This is based on RaKru largely grabbing the wheel, while handing a toy steering wheel to Terry to go zzzoooom zzzzoooom with, and Adams being competent — and the general vibe around the team is that they have to fire up the fans next season and make the playoffs. Trade picks for a 2C? Absolutely.

Adams was talking about those difficult calls to Roch and said the fired parties understood the situation and seemed to take the news OK.

Get it while it's hot. I just had a thought I wouldn't have necessarily agreed with earlier today and might not agree with at 10 minutes to 11 tonight. KA said something on the Instigators about how the Sabres need to be connected to the community again, as he harkened back to sitting in the oranges at the Aud, riding the train downtown, scalping tickets as a teen and watching the hardest working team in hockey as a young adult starting his career. He posed the question of how fans should feel leaving the arena, whether the team has won or lost. Did they find value in their two and a half hours? Did they have fun? Did they feel connected to the team? The end of Suffering? Maybe, maybe not. But another dubious idea from that infamous Darcy presser is surely out the window, and that could at least signal the start of Happiness. Remember when he said, "It's not about making the playoffs..." — he had misspoken — "It's not about just making the playoffs." The Sabres would not lower themselves to what other teams had to do in a grubby quest for postseason cash. They would build the right way! Win a Cup and then win another one. I don't think those ideas have survived. Adams has to put fannies in the seats (once the fannies can meet seats again). The team has to be fun to watch, and the cupboard is certainly not bare in that regard — Eichel, Dahlin, Olofsson, Skinner and others. If this offseason is all about doing whatever the hell it takes to push this team over the top and into the playoffs, sacrificing some of the glorious future, those 150 minutes at KBC could be worth something real again. Adams might even realize how terrible the in-game presentation has been and fix that at the same time, which would actually be huge. They just can't let the fans continue to walk out onto Perry Street with indigestion from arena pizza and dreams of 2024-25.

Maybe they have their leader of men, and Kevyn just has to get the metrorail to run on time.

I laughed.

Kevyn said on one of the shows this AM that Krueger is someone he can "learn from." The perfect setup would be RaKru as hockey president, Kevyn as his right hand man GM and a top notch coach. If Ralph had better assistants, we'd virtually be there already. It doesn't explain the vote of confidence three weeks ago. I think something truly weird happened yesterday morning. Maybe Botterill pulled a George Costanza and tried to get his butt fired. There's a bit of info. somewhere around here that Jason was still negotiating with Chris Taylor as of yesterday. The Pegulas get wind of it, and Botterill and his scooter are out the door. "We weren't being heard."

You weren't wrong.

They (Terry) never delegated. If you listen to this podcast you'll hear one of them recount hearing Darcy say he'd never encountered so much interference from an owner in his career.

And how does winning fit into their plans? And how does this new plan differ from their plan in 2011? Not buying it. Maybe Harrington can get all the former staff together so they can trade stories. The common refrain would be: "These people are control freaks in a business they know nothing about."

But how many Norri for the Rasmi during that span? I'm thinking three for Ras the former and four for Ras the latter.

Sorry if it has already been mentioned, but along these lines, Adams said he has gotten to know the analytics guy (Nightengale?) well the past couple of years.

It's funny that Adams said Rochester needs to be about preparing players to come to Buffalo, then said something like, "Not that they did a bad job doing that." I think he was just trying to dance around the idea that it was nothing more than being told to fire everyone.

I'm not insinuating that. But you went with "wife" in your scenario, not brother or teammate. The instinct to protect a woman is not a bad thing, but it didn't need to pop up in that setting. Maybe something about how Mike spoke to her triggered some "real life" situations, I don't know.

May I curb your enthusiasm? Because that's what I specialize in. Hopefully it was just happy PR talk on the radio, but I cringed at Kevyn talking about growing up in the area and knowing the "DNA of the town." He recalled how the team used to be built to reflect the community. Blue collar, lunch bucket and all that. He said it after saying he wanted the Sabres to be hard to play against. Terry once said he likes hard-working, gritty players. Again, hopefully the notion that tens of thousands of men still trudge into Bethlehem Steel every day won't affect how Adams builds the team, because, as you know, it won't do one thing for those underlying offensive analytics you rightfully focus on.

If he asked my dad that question, I'd bop him on the nose!

A million times no. Not if you're interested in winning. This is Terry's Achilles Heel. He'd rather meddle and never win than watch a Cup season without being involved, I am convinced of that. Truly a toxic fan. Kim didn't get mad. Nor did Terry. It's not an issue if Mike asks that question of Terry. True. She did answer two of the three, sort of. The first-time GM trend question was not answered. Too bad, as it's very much the crux of the problem.

I'm pretty sure Adams and others know this. I understand — some of those others were not able to fix it. But I'm pretty sure everyone everywhere knows the Sabres need to get more, and bury more, chances.

Questions like that have the highest chance of receiving an answer (Mike's the only reason we got confirmation of how OSP ran the Sabres). Look at how the oatmeal questions get answered. They don't. I don't know why Vogl bothers to attend these things. The affiliate guys are the worst. It's like their bosses say, "Don't rock the boat, we need that B-roll for 11 o'clock." They all come off as intimidated to be speaking to such power. Except Mike. I want to be him when I grow up.

I can't find the posts that talked about Mike raising his voice and gave the impression he cursed. That was the worst of the Harrington criticism. The posts above run the gamut. Here's what Mike said in a forceful way without shouting: "Ultimately why should anyone have faith in you as the team president given the way virtually every former employee whether it's a coach, GM, executive or other worker points to your scattershot leadership as the number one problem in this organization?" You would think he called her an ignorant slut or the c-word. Bunch of patronizing men trying to defend the little lady from Mean Old Mike. Ridiculous. This is the big league. Kim can fire with the best of them, dubbing herself the Black Widow. She can handle Harrington.

Groundbreaking stuff. Maybe Y was the one doing the consulting work on the organization.

Were the positions purged to save money or were the people purged for poor performance or a little of both? If people come back to fill the positions, will they make less money? Will they thus be lesser in some ways — less experienced, less talented, etc.?

Hire that man! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53072756

This podcast was great. Juicy stuff we never hear from the local media. Brawndo presents more inside info. on the Sabres than the Buffalo media does. I'm serious. The lasting image I have from the podcast was one of them envisioning a Pegula bubble, the owners with both hands on the wheel, them and Kevyn and Ralph, untraditional hires, against the world.

Yep. And the word he attributed to Darcy was interference from ownership. Not input.

Can someone do the math on how they'd go from a modest amount of operating income (per Forbes, before taxes, amortization, depreciation and something else) to that much in losses? I did find it interesting that the Sabres' debt to value ratio is 20%. The Sabres owe someone $80 million?