Weave

This is how we know you are truly back.

Are there more than a small handful of AHL cities big enough to attract an owner that has the ability (and desire) to compete with NHL owners?

I think thats it for me. I have real cognitive dissonance over fighting in the pros. It certainly entertains me, but the CTE and concussion issues are real, and should make us all feel icky for enjoying those fights. You are entertaining yourself watching men do lasting harm to each other. but I have no dissonance regarding junior players fighting. There is nothing entertaining about kids fighting.

I was responding to “the old days” and the idea that the aud sold out every game for years. It did that when the team was good, and entertaining. But there were significant stretches where the team was mediocre to bad, and there were plenty if seats available for walk up sales during those times. Today, the difference isnt the fans. Its that the significant stretch is old enough to be entering high school.

You guys are forgetting basically 0 for the 80s (I know Taro, its not quite that, but 0 for the 80s is easier to type out), and the Aud was puny. There were stretches of half filled seats between games against Adams division foes and games against Pittsburgh. Darth Sator, anyone? You always needed to provide base level entertainment to get the fans to come.

Clearly, if we are 7th in fighting majors they aren’t related in the way most folks would relate them. To me, it seems like our fighting majors are a reaction to teams taking advantage of our soft play. Its a poorly developed line if thought on my part, but I suspect we’d have fewer fighting majors if we were harder to play against. We play soft, some opponent takes advantage of it, then someone ill-equipped for fighting drops the gloves as a reaction. Ultimately, it is our soft play that drives it, I think. Or maybe its just the jade colored glasses I see this team through.

Can I keep Kulich and add something else to make it happen? No? I guess OK then.

The team having noone to make up for it might be the anomaly though. I don’t know the rosters around the league well, but it sure feels like everyone has someone thats better than Gilbert at it, and we don’t even have him anymore.

Entertainment matters. Winning matters too, but alot of that is in the context of entertainment. The Bills lost era had big crowds because the overall experience was always entertaining. When the Sabres are not a good team there is nothing in the arena experience to make up for it. The Sabres need to be a good team to have the overall experience be entertaining enough to justify the effort and expense to attend a game.

If he were good enough we wouldn’t have to imagine…..

Maybe Tage is the problem.

I’m not surprised at all. No way any of those guys come here if they are offered market rate.

The premise of the post started with competent ownership and management. Its a faulty premise. Or maybe better stated as a fairy tale premise. Thats Ok. I’m not terribly invested in continuing anyway, so feel free to carry on without me.

I think you are missing the point of my post. The assumption that we had competent ownership means the decision to tear down to nothing doesn’t get made and likely a team like Arizona finishes dead last instead, and oor rebuild core does not contain Sam or Jack.

Competence would have prevented us from being near enough to the bottom to ever have a sniff at Dahlin.

Competent ownership means “the extent of the rebuild” would not have been a tear it down to nothing effort. Who knows if we even draft Sam and Eichel at that point? The team wouldn’t look like you think it would. Everything would be very different.

1 season, maybe 2. Maybe 2. That’s how much more losing Tage will take before he asks to be traded.

12 years. But otherwise, yeah

No option for us pessimists?

On the first day he dons a new sweater.

Clearly you’ve forgotten the game day threads before The Troubles.

They also need to trade rostered players to make room for the guys coming in through the trades you are suggesting.

Most of “we” anyway.

The sound of truthi-ness. Helenius seems like he might be our top prospect right now. But he’s still a big unknown. There is value in moving an unknown for a known quantity, especially when success has been so hard to find. It would have to be for a substantial player, but moving even our top prospects needs to be on the table right now.