Mango

This iteration of failure sucks because it really felt like we could have been close. Sure we had better players before, but Dahlin, Tuch, Thompson, Benson, and to an extent Peterka really felt like a unit. These guys had some talent, comraderie, and werent totally miserable to be here. We haven't had that in a decade. And at this point I'm not sure if Pegula is ever capable of putting it together. The best thing Pegula could do is reach out to Danny Wegman or the like and ask for his best and final to keep the team here. If Terry gives one flying fork about hockey in this town he'll find somebody to buy the team and keep it here, even if it's around 85% of market price.

It's hard to think anything other than this is not a serious organization. These aren't real professionals whose main priority is winning games. They're just not. We've all said it, it's been a joke where deep down you knew it was true but hoped. But after Adams publicly lister the reasons why it sucks to be here it, the Sabres needed to show the hockey world we won't be disrespected, at least from the inside of the org. They did nothing then continued to do nothing. The org had a gun to their head to change direction and instead of changing the direction Terrance Pegula pulled the trigger. Pegula is the worst thing to ever happen to Buffalo hockey.

Here's my thing with everything you mentioned. And I want to preface it with that I totally agree with you. But.. My hot take is that I think I might rather have a Peterka, a forward with a bad 200 foot game than a defenseman who can't play defend (cough* Power * cough). One seems way more egregious than the other. Anyways, can't wait for Dahlin to hoist the cup in a different sweater.

wE wAnT gUyS wHo WaNt To Be HeRe Wasn't this the whole point of tearing it down and trading away reql life NHL talent? Instead of earning the trust back of guys in the locker room, we started over with guys so PegAdams could start with a clean slate. Let's not forget we couldn't bring in veteran help because we would be blocking guys like...checks notes...JJ Peterka. Honestly, if I'm JJP and all I hear is I am one of THE GUYS on the market I tell my agent to get it done and get me to Edmonton, Dallas, Colorado, Florida, or Vegas. But there's no way I sign in Buffalo unless they're offering me nearly 2x. 5 x $6M at any of those orgs is way better than 8x$8M in Buffalo. Bet on yourself.

I'm glad that you're so adamant that Power is THE GUY. I am not. He's currently a smaller anchor of one of the worst defensive units in the league. Owen Power needs to take a life changing leap to be an anchor of any defensive unit in the league. At the moment hes part of the problem with th blue line. ATM I think he's a really nice player to have on an established unit. Expecting him to anchor anything is why the perception is that he's failing. Because he sucks anchoring anything (including himself). And when people rally around "power needs a partner", the undercurrent of that is that he isn't good enough. We need better defensemen who are better than OP. $8M defensemen shouldn't need somebody better than them to be good.

I would like to see them trade Byram for something reasonable. Otherwise the Mitts trade is just reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. I like Byram, but I wouldn't say it is super clear that the Sabres with Bo is remarkably better than the Sabres with Mitts. I think at some point this team is going to have to move on from one of its big pieces that will bring a big enough haul to revamp one of our units. If we can get Byram for cheaper than Power and Power brings back a couple of pieces up and down the line up, so be it. I am not sure Power is more valuable to this team than a top 4 RHD and a middle 6F with a strong 200 foot game. I am not saying he definitely brings that back either but that is the type of return I would be looking for and would be willing to pull the trigger on it.

This is where I am at. We can have Byram, but it means we have to trade Power. Or we can trade Power. But we cannot have both. That is outside of the fact that we have one of the most expensive blue lines in the entire NHL, and are arguably a bottom 5 group at actually playing defense. The reason is they both make the other one redundant. After that I eat Sammy's contract and rebuild the blue line from Dahlin out with guys who actually play defense.

I would have believed much more in this curse if Terry Pegula had bought the team in 1976. Honestly, I am not sure that there is any curse worse than one Terrance Pegula. In fact, if they reshot Angels in the Outfield but made it about the Pegula lead Sabres, we would STILL miss the playoffs and the angels would demand a trade.

Dave, Phish,moe., Umph, Mumford, Lumineers,Tedeschi Trucks, Gin Blossoms, Govt Mule, Blink 182. Hoping to squeeze in Weird Al.

Tim Horton, Team Bus Driver

In true Pegula fashion the new hire will likely be much worse. Like historically bad. Maybe even the very worst on ice reporter of all time. It's literally possible because that's literally the state of the franchise since the day he bought the team. But if this was a different franchise/owner I would likely agree with you

Right. That's why Rayzor is basically the sideline reporter and Marty is in the booth. My vote is for Pat LaFontaine. Or get Biz/Whitney and let those guys go to town on this franchise live. They're tools,for sure, but Pegula deserves the smoke so let's just bring it to him.

This is why I've turned so hard against the org. I gave them so many "well maybe...'s" I really thought they were on to something with this current group. But Pegula and Adams have only proven to me that they are without a doubt the dumbest guys in any professional sports room.

It was always clear as day. Spend on quality vets while we take advantage of guys on ELC'S. And as the ELC'S end sub in the home grown extensions and that's when Kulich, Savoie, and even Bensonetc will come to fill the bottom of the roster. We really botched this one. There was a wide open window for the Sabres to really do this right and be a challenger and they botched it as bad as they've ever botched anything in the Pegula era. I think that's why this one hurts a lot more and I hate Adams/Pegula about as much as I've hated any rivalry in Buffalo sports history. We were right there!

I think the short story long of the entire blue line is that you only get 2 $8M+ defensemen. I can be convinced on either Power or Byram in that role. Then we need waaaay more defensive production out of a $5M player that we are getting out of Mule. Somebody said to me earlier, and they're right. The blue line in particular is hurting this team due to compounding cap/production issues.

They 100% cannot and should not pay another hefty contract tona defenseman. At bare minimum you have to rid yourself of the Samuelson contract before giving Bryam 8x8. But even then we'd still be the most expensive blue line in the league. A stat that continues to blow my mind. We are soooo bad in our own end.

Good chance the problem is actually the local fauna and government duties. Tomato tomato really.

For most NGB'S the junior dev staff are so incredibly mediocre. The fact that guys like Carle keep getting the call up for the world champs and the US Dev guys just bumble around doesn't give me any confidence that USA Hockey is any different. That's the same model I'm familiar with. Keep some good vibes people on staff. Then bring in the HC or an assistant from Cal (or whatever( to run the show for the u19 or u23 world championships.

Kevyn Adams as General Manager. Maybe even a promotion to President of Hockey Operations at some point.

There's a non-zero chance that Terry and Shevyn has spoken to Beane about building and organjzadion and taken an inventory of everything he's done in Buffalo come away with 2 things. 1. Surround yourself with people you trust 2. Bring in people from Carolina. And then this the result of what these two dummies came away with.

Hey! It also sounds like the GM of our farm team is not coming back either. So maybe show a little bit of respect.

My knee jerk response for reason is that Lindy's big complaint is that this roster (see, org) is soft, does not how to win, and lacked leadership. So Shevyn went out and got a guy that won a bunch, wore the C/A often, and at the peak of his career was a tough a resilient player. But instead of getting somebody on the roster, he just got his buddy who will likely just show up to practice every once in a while and tell the guys that they are a bunch of p-words. Then we will get a presser about how we brought more toughness into the building so stop being critical of the roster he built. (A roster he continuously says is his fault is not good enough, but then always follows it up with being good enough)

Sheesh. That blurb sounds like he's leaving on great terms. LoL No exit interview or EOY recap? Sheesh. Either Pegula was like "nah we don't need to hear from you". Or Karmanos was like "fork that, what's the point. I'm out". Neither are good looks for the franchise.

Agreed. This isn't the PIP. He was already on a PIP, and his presentation about the results. He passed. He's off of it now.

This is wildly infuriating for a million reasons. I'm so sick of these USA hockey guys. As a guy who was on the senior team for team USA and lived at the Olympic training center for my sport, these u19 coaches or whatever are not any good. They aren't winning national championships. They aren't good enough to be assistants at the collegiate level. No way they ever coach a u23 national team. They're only there for feels. They're there to run programs that generate revenue not actually develope athletes/win meaningful games. You'll notice often in a lot of sports that the governing body has these full time junior coaches but when it comes time to send a junior team to a world championship the NGB selects totally different coaches. The full time junior coaches are tier 3 or 4. But on the other hand this could be good. Could it be a transition from coaching to scouting? Pro scout is likely a better role and career path for somebody like that.