nfreeman

I've read that if Schoen got the NYG job, he was likely to hire Daboll as HC. Either way this hiring is a statement about how far the Bills' organization has come under McD and BB.

I think @Brawndo has posted not too long ago -- maybe in response to Lehner's accusations about poor medical treatment here -- that the Sabres have made a number of changes in their medical staff (Brawndo, I apologize if I am mis-remembering here). Still: WTF? Something appears to be amiss here.

That's not what I'm doing. I said that based on the eye test, he was terrible for the bulk of his time as a Sabre -- and frankly I still don't see how this is even arguable. You insisted on using stats to evaluate whether he was terrible. So, notwithstanding the small sample size of his time, which I think you'll agree renders a stats-based analysis fairly unreliable, I gave you some stats that are consistent with my (correct and incontrovertible) eye-test-based judgment that he was terrible. I have no interest in arguing whether a 40-point guy typically has streaks of poor production in a given season -- of course he does (although a 40-point guy who is also a 7-goal guy is probably closer to "terrible" than most 40-point guys). But that truism doesn't matter in evaluating whether Hall's 37 games as a Sabre were terrible.

I agree with all this. My point was simply that Hall was terrible for the Sabres. But I was totally on board when they signed him.

@Thorny -- you did say Hall was "bad" for the 14 games after Eichel went down, right? So, in counting the number of angels on the head of this pin, we're just talking about a sufficient number of games in addition to those 14 as to constitute "the bulk of his time as a Sabre"? And if we add the 11 games in which he produced only 3 assists vs NJ, we get to 25 games, out of his 37, yes? Do you not think 25 out of 37 games is "the bulk of his time as a Sabre?" I will also add that you frequently -- and correctly, IMHO -- cite small sample size as an important factor in hockey analysis -- but you're pointing to a stretch of 2 goals (a 7-goal season!) and 12 assists in 23 games as evidence of someone's performance being "objectively" decent by NHL standards -- when anyone with eyes who watched him that year was ready to drive him to the airport. I'll also point out that he's been panned regularly by the Athletic's Bruins writers this year, FWIW. And now I think I've beaten this horse enough.

Well, eye test is always subjective, and I'm not sure the concept of "objectively [anything] statistically" has any meaning -- but in this case I think Hall was freaking terrible as an objective matter. Since you are relying on stats, though, here are a few: - during the portion of the season when he allegedly made magic with Eichel, he had an 11-game stretch where his production consisted of 3 assists, all against NJ, a terrible team against which his competitive fires, such as they are, were presumably running hot since they dumped him after he won the MVP for them. - A few games later, after Eichel was done for the year, he had a 9-game stretch in which his production consisted of 1 assist. That's a total of 4 pts, all assists, 3 of which were against a terrible team, in 2 stretches comprising 20 of his 37 games as a Sabre. YMMV, of course, but IMHO that is being "terrible for the bulk of his time as a Sabre." EDIT: also, valuing assists equally with goals is silly. There's a reason 2 assists are awarded (most of the time) for each goal.

What happened to Vinnie H.?

@Thorny -- despite numerous glitches in his Hall tirade, @GASabresIUFAN is again right on the core issue -- which is that Hall was freaking terrible for the bulk of his time as a Sabre. This is one of those times where the eye test needs to take precedence over the stats (especially where the main stat is assists). He was shockingly ineffective.

FWIW, Paul Hamilton was on WGR yesterday and said he doesn't think Sammy is going back to Rochester.

I hate to say it, but I'm glad VO has been dropped from PP1. Without his slapper, he's just not effective. That half-wall spot needs a better passer/playmaker than a slapper-less VO. I'll look forward to Mitts taking VO's spot on PP2 when he returns -- I like the idea of Mitts and Krebs on the 2 half-walls.

I agree that Hall was a waste and a huge disappointment (and he's landed on my "least favorite NHL players" list as a result), but the rest of this post is peppered with (bolded) dodgy assertions. We'll never know whether signing Hall prevented a Reino extension. IMHO it's pretty likely that KA decided that the Sabres' long-term cap situation could only hold a fat extension for one, but not both, of Hall or Reino (since Eichel and Skinner already had them and presumably Dahlin would get one), and decided to see how the season played out before deciding which of them to offer the big contract to. In fairness to GA, it's also possible that KA, who was already probably leaning toward a culture cleanse, wasn't entirely sold on Reino being part of the solution -- and if that was the reason for not offering him an extension that summer, then it wouldn't have been related to Hall.

I agree except that I would rather have traded Roy or Vanek than Max, who was one of the most electrifying players ever to play for the Sabres and who played harder than Roy or Vanek.

An awful precursor of OSP and LQ deciding not to keep Grier and McKee (and, to a lesser, extent, Dumont) in the summer of 2006. You just can't let that much heart walk out the door, especially when it wouldn't have cost that much to keep them.

And even though Rico was done at that point, having had his knee wrecked by Mike Freaking Palmateer of the Toronto Freaking Maple Leafs (after scoring 45 goals the previous season), and only played 4 games for LA after being traded, I never forgave Scotty.

It's not hard to understand -- I think those who are disagreeing with you simply don't believe you are correct that KA's mandate is to operate at the cap floor. If that assumption is wrong, the "Butcher-cost-us-a-better-player" theory falls apart. I will say though that the cap floor theory isn't from outer space. It's possible that KA got that kind of mandate. I just think it's much more likely that (i) one of KA's core team-building principles is not to have anyone on the roster who doesn't want to be here, (ii) that principle substantially limits the universe of players he can trade for, since the Sabres are such a poopshow and (iii) the poopshow factor also limits the FAs he can bring in, since any good FA will go elsewhere unless he is well overpaid in AAV and term to come here -- which is another kind of guy that KA wants to avoid. The bolded is just #hammymath. As @LGR4GM has already pointed out, Boychuk was acquired well after the point at which the cap space could've been used on other players.

IMHO it's all about finding the right guys. TP found them for the Bills and hasn't found them yet for the Sabres (and I think @dudacek's point was that the fact that Murray, Botteril, Krueger, PLF, DDB, etc. haven't gotten GM/HC jobs since leaving the Sabres indicates that they weren't the right guys for those jobs -- although to be fair it's also quite possible that they've been tainted with Sabres stink to the point where they are not viable candidates for those jobs). I'm not sure whether you're saying that TM and/or JB would've turned the Sabres into a good team with more time, but it's hard to be confident that this would've been the result. Is TP accountable for making bad choices on those hires? Yes, but he was certainly influenced by PLF in hiring TM and probably by others in the NHL in hiring JB, and TM and JB certainly had plenty of influence in their HC hires. The problem is that it takes a long time to evaluate a GM, and we just have to eat a poop sandwich every day in the meantime. Maybe this time it'll be different. I do take encouragement from the Bills' success that sooner or later the same is coming for the Sabres. KA seems more like McD/BB than any of KA's predecessors, IMHO.

There are a number of flaws in @GASabresIUFAN's post, some of which he's repeated from prior posts (e.g. blaming KA for giving Hall a NMC is silly and the linkage of the Butcher deals with the failure to bring in a goalie is baseless; also, failing to replace Hutton is a strange way to describe the real issue, which is the failure to bring in real NHL goaltending), but I think his overall point is fair and correct: the team is losing much more than is healthy for the development of the new generation, and it didn't need to be this way. As I've been saying for years: losing begets losing. This team looks like a bottom-5 team and perhaps worse than that. Does anyone think they will just flip a switch next year when Power and Quinn are here and delete the loser mindset from their operating system? KA is accountable for the failure to bring in a real goalie in either of his 2 offseasons, and for icing terrible teams that lost game after game. He's also accountable for hiring DM, whom I like but on whom the jury is very much still out. I'm looking forward to seeing what the new generation can do in the rest of this season and next, but I think KA has made it harder than it needed to be.

I wonder how DM and KA feel about Fitzie at this point. He only played 4 games (12/17, 12/29, 12/30 and 1/1). He got 16:42 and 18:04 in ice time in the 1st 2 games, but only about 12.5 min per game in the 2nd 2 games. The Sabres lost 2 of those games in OT and the other 2 in RT. He was a plus-1 in 1 game, minus-1 in 1 game and flat in the other 2 games. I doubt the new analytics group is impressed -- his Corsi and Fenwick percentages were terrible (38% CF, 40% FF%) despite getting over 59% offensive zone starts. Still, I liked some of what I saw from him. He can skate, has pretty decent puck skills and an edge. He did get in trouble in the D-zone a number of times though.

Even 2.5% would be $7.5MM. And more importantly: the Sabres wouldn't sell 2.5% to a fan group and the NHL wouldn't approve it.

The first one was terrible. I thought they played much better yesterday (and it sure helped to have Krebs and TT back -- it seemed like they had 3 credible forward lines) but fell apart down the stretch. If one were inclined towards pessimism with this franchise, one could say that the stink of losing has set in with the new group and the players now subconsciously expect to lose and thus don't have the mental toughness to close out a win.

Are fans allowed to attend in Ontario these days?

Jeez. Who invited Mr. Killjoy?

Well, if the Sabres are looking to sell, say, 25% of the team at a $300MM valuation, that's $75MM to be raised from a group of Sabres fans. There's also the fact that the NHL has to approve any new investor, and almost certainly wouldn't approve a group of 500 random fans. Sooooooo...

Does anyone know whether he is expected to play today?

Awesome.