nfreeman

Well, I think there are only a handful of NFL coaches with as much authority as McD, and none with as much as the dark lord Belichick. However, I can't think of any NHL coaches who are similarly situated, so I agree that it would be pretty unusual if RK were to take on that kind of role.

I think this is in the ballpark with the Bills' model -- i.e. I think McD's role is pretty similar to this.

But if the 3-season period started in 17-18, didn’t that period just expire?

Hold the phone. It has been accepted SabreSpace canon for at least 6 months that TT has to clear waivers next year, and that accordingly he will almost certainly be in Buffalo and not Rochester. I have not learned the waiver rules and may never do so. If @Brawndo says it, I am inclined to believe it. Does anyone want to dispute his truth?

back bacon and toast, hold the toast, eh?

Yes, but Chad's point (which echoes what a number of posters here have said) is valid: JB didn't take over a terrible cap situation, and he hasn't created a great cap situation. He took over an OK cap situation, and he's managed it into...an OK cap situation. There is certainly nothing about the Sabres' cap situation, either when JB took over or now, that excuses the team's performance under JB.

I don’t see any possible way Pilut is top 4 on the Sabres next year.

I feel like the viral marketer’s evil doppelgänger has joined and is blasting away at the castles made of sand.

This raises an interesting (IMHO) question: how badly would the Sabres have to start next season for TP to pull the trigger? Darcy was fired in 2013 after 20 games (in which the Sabres were 4-15-1). I think it's pretty clear TP doesn't want to fire JB, and I think the main reason is that he wants the organization to be perceived as stable and professional. But if they get off to a terrible start, and the arena is empty, and whoever is there is booing -- it could easily happen again. And at that point, TP will richly deserve to be criticized for not having pulled the trigger now.

She could also be referring to TP influencing/demanding that Howie be the 1st coach, or that ROR be traded, or many other "meddling"-type moves that have been speculated about here many times. And as @Thorny points out, there's no reason to think the long-term prospects of the team will be made clear this year. If the team stinks again, JB will be fired, and, as before, everything will hinge on whether they find the right guy next time.

And the cold ring of truth tightens its grip on our collective guts. I might not get Center Ice next season.

Yuck.

So yesterday was a beautiful, sunny, breezy day around here. I took my daughter to an ice cream stand that is somewhat of a local institution (it's affiliated with a local dairy farm), has been closed for the past 2-3 years, and somehow reopened about a month ago in what I took as a sign that the people are resilient and are going to come back from this GD pandemic. It's the kind of place where you line up outside, order at the window, pick up your food (they also have burgers, fries and similar grub) at a different window and then sit at various picnic tables and benches that are scattered around the property. There is no indoor area that is accessible to the public. Yesterday, there were about 10 people in 2 different outdoor lines, with social distancing stickers on the pavement to keep everyone appropriately separated. In that situation, I would not generally wear a mask, as the risk of infecting anyone or getting infected while outdoors and socially distanced is, as I understand it, minute. Everyone there -- in line or waiting on the side for his/her food -- was wearing a mask. I wore mine so as not to cause anyone any agita, but it seemed kinda silly to me.

If this is true, it's another firing offense for JB. If Calgary was ready to go on that alleged deal, JB should've accepted immediately. IMHO -- and I say this not to express skepticism on your source -- by all means, please keep posting this kind of thing if you think it's credible -- it sounds way too Sabres-friendly to have been real. Here, too, JB should've sweetened the offer to get the deal closed.

This seems a bit overstated, innit?

I can't dispute that there is some wishful thinking in my conclusion. You are at least 49% likely to be right here, maybe closer to 79%, and I agree with most of your reasoning.

Moved some posts to the politics club.

I agree with much of @Weave's post above and would just add that I'm not sure when I will feel comfortable getting on a plane again (to say nothing of the NYC subway), or going to a movie theater, an indoor restaurant, an indoor sports event, etc. The answer really might be "not until there's a widely approved vaccine."

I'd like to revisit the key question of this thread. When the season was halted, the Sabres had 68 pts in 69 games, which extrapolates to under 81 pts. So that's essentially an 80-point season, in JB's 3rd season after taking over a 78-point team. The Sabres had also, before surprisingly winning their final game of the season vs Washington, lost 6 in a row to bang in the final nail in the coffin of their weak playoff hopes. I re-read a number of posts after that 6th loss and there was close to a consensus here that JB was gone and RK probably was too. In addition to the poor on-ice results for the 3rd year of of 3 during the JB era, the season saw a number of embarrassing moments for which JB is fairly accountable: glitches during the 50th anniversary celebrations, multiple players demanding to be traded, articles in national hockey media about organizational dysfunction, trading Scandella for a 4th and seeing him flipped for a 2nd and a 4th a few weeks later. And now another one: with the playoffs expanded to 24 teams, the Sabres still can't make it. In JB's 3rd year, they still aren't better than 3rd-worst in a 16-team conference. I have to think that once the NHL officially announces the end of the season and the playoff plan, TP is going to sit down, soberly evaluate the situation and cut him loose.

I'm not writing Mitts off. But I am disagreeing with you "writing him in," i.e. assuming he's going to be a decent-to-good NHL player by using phrases like "until Mitts is ready." I think Mitts has shown zero at the NHL level or, based on Sabrespace eyewitness reports, at the AHL level, to support that assumption.

Again: Miitlestadt doesn't belong on this list any more than @PASabreFan does.

So Japan, which did not impose a lockdown or undertake widespread testing, has evidently come through the worst of it without many casualties: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/did-japan-just-beat-the-virus-without-lockdowns-or-mass-testing?utm_source=url_link&fbclid=IwAR3KgVaweOFTLSYqWoovnHXDom1vRSrBGhM84y8Rfx79wn8OO4QsdLZwZnI

@dudacek -- I'm curious as to the sources regarding Monahan. It seems impossible that Calgary would trade him.

7-6, and it's not even close IMHO.

Not that it's a material difference, but didn't Mitts have 12-13-25 in 77 games in his D2 season? Am I missing something? More importantly, while I agree that TC was heavily criticized in his D4 season, and rightly so, he had still shown much more to that point in his career than Mitts has. IMHO, Mitts has not yet shown that he has the physical ability/timing/skill to play in the NHL. TC had clearly established that he had the chops, but needed to work on his determination and his 200-foot game. I'll agree that Briere is (hopefully!) a reasonable comparable.