Mango

Sorry, I was just getting out of a late night shift. My bad.

You might be right. I read/posted after getting out of a late night at work.

Jerry Forton has known Terry Pegula since well before he owned the Sabres. He is a family friend and has been for decades. Terry doesn’t hold Jerry back. He’s hired to be lock step. The dude was hired to be a yes man from day 1. A lot to pick apart here, but your take on Jerry Forton is so far off the mark from any inside information (EEE coming off the books this year?) there clearly isn’t any actual connection to the Pegulas.

Solid and fair take and seems probable. That said, I think it’s best for the org long term that Lindy be the man at the top and not Adams. I am just not sold on the guy. I have a lot more questions about the vision for this team now than I did 18 months ago. I don’t get it. I am rooting for the Sabres success sooner rather than later. I think a 96 point season, first round loss, and moving Adams to POHO has the potential to be terrible long term.

I have been pumped to go see moe. at Pier 17 in NYC. Very cool rooftop venue under the Brooklyn. But the bass players son just died and they cancelled their next couple of festivals already. If they cancel I will be bummed in a very minor way and if they play it will also be sad.

Right, but the team doesn't just need a buffer, that person needs to be capable of running a real life NHL front office as well. As of today Adams is both the buffer and the hockey ops guy and I absolutely do not believe that Pegula is holding Adams back, I think they are both aligned. If others think highly enough of Adams to give him a go under a POHO, I won't kick and scream, but as of now he has not done anywhere near enough to prove he deserves a promotion. I will flip it. If Adams were let go tomorrow, would he get another GM job? Not scout, not player personnel role, not assistant GM, but full on, head of the org, General Manager. I don't think he does and I don't think it is close. Promoting that person to POHO makes no sense no matter who the owner is.

This. At the moment I don’t see any reason to promote Kevyn Adams. And frankly, even if this team gets to 100+ points next year, promoting Adams to POHO would be a tough pill for me to swallow. For me he needs some sustained success. Because right now he’s only sustained bad to mediocre.

I thought this person could be Ruff. But after seeing us bring in exactly ZERO people from the outside to fill the staff I’m fairly confident that this will never ever happen under Terry.

Meh. For me KO's legacy in Buffalo will be remembered as the dude who got all ornery with fans because they boo'ed at their low effort play. For a guy who was brought in to "lead" the locker room all he seemed to lead was snarkiness to the fanbase and bad efforts. I don't hate the guy, but I no longer really care about his opinion and I don't see any reason to every bring him back into the fold in a FO or coaching role.

This is strange. He was bottom rung with the US Dev Camp. He was TERRIBLE at RPI. Rochester has been meh. So it seems odd to phrase this as "why he chose...." He is underqualified for his last two roles now has the chance to stand behind an NHL bench. Of course he takes it. It isn't like he had to choose between being the assistant here or in Boston.

And hockey makes it harder. At least during the Bills drought you commit a couple of Sundays. It was 16 days per year. Trying to be a fan of a bad hockey team for nearly a generation is 8 months of inconstancy: Monday: 7pm Tuesday : 10pm (WC) Thursday: 9pm (WC) Saturday: 1pm Tuesday: 7pm Then try and have kids or other hobbies or whatever. Sometimes after 13 years of this it is like "why bother" I would rather go on an extra couple of dates per month with my partner.

I agree with you about the down staff thoughts. The Appert promotion rubs me the wrong way. There were rumors swirling before the team hired Lindy. Then basically the same day Lindy was hired there were multiple reports that Appert would take over. I sort of dismissed it because I thought Lindy had enough NHL and Buffalo cache to slow down Pegula/Adams. But now I don't know and I dislike that this feels like a forced decision. I also don't get the hype around Appert? I have been critical about roster construction, and it is certainly flawed. But when I catch the occasional Amerks game I just don't see what is so exciting about the guy. Appert has been a tier 2 or 3 coach every level he has coached. Just a guy at best. He was never on a junior worlds staff. Only on the Hlinka Gretzky staff, which a tournament that USA hockey no longer considers an official part of their development. He stunk at RPI. Rochester is just fine. And now he is the heir apparent to take over an NHL team? Granato IMO was a much more exciting coaching prospect.

I meant future coaching candidates. In a system where the HC isn't given the autonomy to bring in a single outside assistant the likely outcome is failure. And when that happens it will be 2x more difficult to find a worthy replacement. But to your point about UFA's I think you are focusing on the symptom not the disease. The selection of the staff is the symptom and not a reason why a UFA would or would not choose a team. But the disease is that ownership either does not provide enough bandwidth to let professional hockey people do their jobs, or they are too cheap to allow professional hockey people bring in the proper support to win games. Either of which would be an excellent reason for any free agent to look elsewhere.

Not just that. This org has been very open about how difficult it has become for them to get talent to come to Buffalo. Lindy may not be a world beater, but he is a well respected hockey man across the league. Forcing an assistant staff on any coach, but particularly on a coach like Lindy, will only make it more difficult for this team to climb out of the hole Terry Pegula has dug for them.

I thought the biggest positive of the Ruff hire was pulling the franchise from the grips of Terry and Kevy. But this assistant line up makes it clear that Lindy doesn’t even have enough say to hire his own assistants.

Unsure of the numbers post covid, but pre-covid the vast majority of players who saw arbitration cut ties with their teams afterwards. So if you want the odds of UPL only being a rental for a year arbitration is the right path. I would rather overpay a half mil per year over 4 years than to lose another goaltender. We would just be repeating the Ullmark situation. We let him walk, forced UPL into action too early, struggled through it for a season, now possibly refuse to pay him and give Levi the starting role too early.

Sorry about that. Brain is faster than my fingers.

2018-19 they were 14th. 2019-20 they were 9th.

I think similar to Levi, UPL would be a bit further in his development if he wasn't yoinked around the AHL and NHL. A fully committed season or two as an AHL starter would have gone a long way. Being better than a bad goal NHL goaltender isn't a great reason to force a kid into playing full time in the NHL. Part of having proper development is having a quality onboarding plan into the NHL. "We don't have anybody better' isn't a plan.

I think this is Adams speak. Kind of like when he says "We have enough resources to win" when asked about whether or not Terry will spend The fact of the matter is that this franchise has been bottom half of the league in spending 7 of the last 9 years. At this point I think that the "developing youth" is a convenient answer rather than a design. I am tempted to think it is the reverse and that the design is low spend and the result is a young team.

This is true of every team in each of the big 4 leagues in the United States. It is so generic you could put it on a Hallmark card.

Adams stuck with Ralph until he couldn’t. He had a faux coach search and kept Donnie. Then for no reason extended him. We just saw Adams plan as intended. This isn’t it. I fully believe Lindy was brought in to babysit and in 2 years Lindy will either still be coaching or working as an exec. Will it work? I don’t know. Adams has a new boss whether he remains employed through it is a different conversation. But he isn’t the captain anymore. Between Lindy and Adams the next person to leave the org is Adams.

Here’s the crazy part. They have been trying really really hard.

No we do not. We have some kids who might be good top 6 forwards in 3-6 years. At some point the Sabres need to field a capable roster today. Not a roster full of kids who might be more capable tomorrow. Edit: I will add that I think Sabres only had above average top 6 play from Tage, Mitts, and JJP this season. The rest were middling middle 6 at best this past season. I think we need help at the top of the roster too.

I think the "Move that defines Adams" will be compounding decisions not just a trade. It will be the allocation of resources to Tage, Cozens, Power at the expense of somebody like Mitts. Even if Byram works out and we want to extend him we are looking at it possibly costing a Quinn, Peterka, etc. I don't think any of this has to do with Byram and it has everything to do with the contracts he has recently given out and whether they outperform the guys we have to let walk because of it. Before the Mitts trade there were thoughts thrown out there that we could afford to let Mitts walk because of Cozens and Cozens "could" fill that role down the line because he is younger. Then we traded Mitts. Now I feel like I am starting to get the same vibe around some of the talk around JJP. "Well we have Savoie and Kulich who can fill in and they are young they could be better someday". I am hoping Lindy stops the bleeding of real life NHL players in exchange for "could be good someday".