LTS

How much of it is him trying to force his way off this roster? I'm beginning to wonder how much of it is for quite a few of them.

I don't blame any player with a choice for not wanting to be here. How could I?

The Bills D has been their weakness all season. It has not been able to stop the run and they've struggled against the pass. It's been said they've been built to allow yards but stop opponents from scoring when they get to the red zone. It makes sense given how many yards they give up but generally rank well in points allowed. That said, it's a crap strategy and it showed. They currently play to outscore the other team and any team with good offensive talent can beat them. And to think, but for the blocked punt for a TD they actually did execute on the outscore the opponent strategy. But, they need to get better on defense and they need a front 4 that can shutdown a running game and coverage personnel that can cover.

Here's what I know. The Sabres have not made the playoffs since Pegula took over. Anything they try to do, fire Adams, hire a POHO, change coaches, trade players.. anything, I am going to welcome it because the current path does not put this team in the playoffs. That said, changes, while welcomed, will not be met with any level of hope or positivity on my part while this owner has control of the team. I've seen nothing from Pegula that says he knows what it takes to operate a successful NHL franchise. He's had multiple iterations and failed every time. I don't care about the Bills and their success. That's the NFL and it's a different situation. The point is, the NHL team has not been successful. He's not gotten it right and I'm past the point of putting faith in him to get it right. So, change away, I hope it works, but I won't be surprised if it does not.

Yep.. about how I feel.

Yep. They only way forward for them is own the situation that they have created. Pawning it off to taxes and insulting the city itself is not an appropriate answer at all. It's 100% not the city. It's 100% the franchise in the city. But for them to say that acknowledged that they've done a poor job creating an environment that professional hockey players with a choice want to play. As far as the taxes and palm trees, he should have let the media ask that specific question and then responded with "It's not my position to guess what motivates players with regards to those items. I can't control NYS taxes or the location of the city. Buffalo isn't as big as other cities but it has a lot of great things to offer players. You'd have to ask players what motivates them." In the end, 14 years of losing and 5 straight under the GM only paints one picture. They've not created a winning team that would interest players who are looking to win a championship. Bottom line.

So, his name is Power, not Powers and he's 22. Why do I bring this up? Try learning who the players on the team you are blindly supporting are. So we should be grateful that someone has owned the Buffalo Sabres and made them the laughing stock of the NHL? I guess I set my standards a bit higher than setting the record for futility. It seems that is your goal. Also, the Bills can't get a Super Bowl, but clearly you haven't read enough to know why they cannot. I'm missing some of those NHL main events. As far as I know the only thing in Buffalo is the combine. The Sabres were in the inaugural WInter Classic, but that predates Pregula. SInce then, under Pegula the Sabres have been in two additional outdoor games where they were considered the home team, neither of those games were in Buffalo. This is a forum. A blog is something completely different. I figured I should point that out since you wanted to point out how someone spelled defence. Which, of course was ignorant in its own right since defence is a perfectly good spelling of the word just not commonly used in the US variant of English. Defence however is specifically how Canada spells it when referring to their Department of National Defence and it's origination from the UK who spells it that way. Curious how you missed that information in your READING. Ahhh, the fans chased Eichel away. That's rich and spoken as someone who is truly a sycophant for the wealthy and famous. But, unfortunately, the fans did not chase Jack Eichel away. That's been covered ad nauseum and I won't go into it. You can try that READING thing you love so much. One final note, see how I included all of your inane responses into a single response? You can do it too, it's called multi-quoting. You simply hit the plus sign next to the quote and it queues all of the posts you want to respond to into a single response. It's an amazing technology that you should use.

Are you secretly Rob Ray? 😉

I like Barzal, but he seems to be injured quite often.

whoa..... about the only thing I like with the Sabres these days is Sabretooth. And yes.. the PA announcer.. awwwwful. Another no energy component to the game day experience.

Nah, I want them to win. I just don't expect them to win.

I think the sentiment is that if Pegula continues to own this team and they continue to be the joke of an NHL franchise that they have been then who cares if they leave? I want a quality NHL franchise in the city I was raised. The fans deserve it and the city does. If Pegula cannot make that happen he should sell the team. Now, what happens if no one wants to buy the team and keep it in Buffalo? Logically the only option is to sell the team and move it. At least it would hopefully become a quality NHL franchise again. Right now all we have is to hope against thirteen years of evidence that Pegula does something to make this a quality franchise. Soon we'll hope against 14 years. The Pegula era of Buffalo Sabres ownership has been nothing but a joke with the team managing to match the all-time consecutive winless streak at 18 games as well as setting the record for most consecutive seasons not making the playoffs. In league where every team has a 50/50 shot, that's pathetic. It can always get worse. It doesn't mean they aren't at the bottom now. It just means they've managed to dig the hole deeper and established a brand new bottom.

Yeah, nothing like saving money to pay players who cannot help you win and show no sign of being able to do so. Not even remotely upset that I didn't see any of this.

If you wear ankle socks sure, but what if you wear a sock that goes up over the knee? 🙂 BOHICA!

He got a 1 game suspension as well right?

Just remember, you are asking this on the same forum that debated shirtless pictures of Sabres players. Tonight is tonight, it's Thursday. Sadly I have a West Coast hockey start for my beer league team.. I love hockey, but starting at game at 10:30pm is getting tougher every year. Go Sabres! I reserve to define where they should go until after the game.

Tomorrow is fantastic Friday... this media availability will NOT meet the criteria to be mentioned in that thread. Now, if they had had media availability today it would have perfectly fit on Complaint Thursday. I guess we'll just need a separate thread to discuss everything that isn't said tomorrow.

That makes perfect sense and way more than just guaranteeing Buffalo was in a playoff position.

According to the NHL site, Owen Power is 6'6, 226lbs.

What I've come up with is: Dan Dunleavy is a commentator and what we need is a play by play person. If you've ever tried to experience a Sabres game on radio it'll become painfully clear what the difference is. Sadly, today's sports seems to be 100% geared towards the fan watching and understanding what's happening while two people tell stories. I've no doubt it's why the ManningCast was even attempted and certainly why it's become incredibly popular (although, to be honest, I prefer the ManningCast as well).

I dunno, that doesn't get him on the ice. Now, driving the zamboni or repainting the lines would at least get him on the ice.

See below. Yeah.. I was going to say this. Having a close friend who was at a Hunter's Hope golf event at a table with Jim Kelly and experienced first hand what a ***** Kelly was. Kent Hull verbally slapped Kelly at that table basically saying all of these people are here supporting you and Hunter and you don't get to act like an ***** to them. You need to appreciate each and every one of them. From that point on I had a good understanding of who Jim Kelly was. I could respect his play on the field, but not as a person. I still don't care to see or listen to him. Somehow I think that they had some agreement that said Hyde can go anywhere, but if he's available and the Bills are guaranteed in the playoffs that he would sign on for a playoff run. It's the only reason I can think of them signing him now versus over the bye.

I don't really have a problem with this move. As much as I have a side of me that wants to skate them until there's no ice left to skate on I don't think it makes a difference. Let them watch video and truly tear them down. Point out every damn mistake and lack of effort. See how they respond. Unfortunately this roster is what it is right now and despite all of our desires to make meaningful changes to it right now it's not going to happen. The NHL doesn't work that way and even if it did at least 50% of the posters here aren't sure Adams could get it done properly. I mean, practice hasn't helped them one bit. Talking to the media won't do anything for the team. It will be the same questions as last night with a few new one's thrown in that will elicit the exact same, watered down, boring responses. It wouldn't matter if the media asked REALLY hard questions, the answers would still be the same. The team knows they were crap last night. I'm not going to believe they don't care. I am going to believe that until the care ENOUGH about being crap things won't change. I do believe this team can play hockey. I believe this team can play with a chip on their shoulder. What I don't understand is why they don't. I don't understand how any athlete can play a sport at that level without having had to play with that chip on their shoulder at one point. We've seen this team have brief moments of success, so it's not like they haven't proven they can. It's psychological at this point. They need to hit "F it". And Ruff needs to start stapling ***** to the bench or scratching them. Do whatever he can with what he has to get them to turn it around. Scratch the assistant captains, the captain, who cares. Send a message that hard work will be rewarded and playing soft and lazy will not.

Yes, I did do all that research. Not just to defend Benson but also to help support what my eyes tell me. I am sure there are teams in the NHL where Benson would not be on the roster. As was discussed with Benson when drafted, he was good enough to be in the NHL last season (30 points) and he could not play in the AHL because of rules. Yeah, he's on pace for 20 points this season, but until the end of the season it's hard to really know where he will end up. I look at his assist last night on the Peterka goal. He takes a solid hit, bounces up, gets the puck and makes a great pass. I don't see other Sabres doing that. I think on this team, if the top 6 were actually playing as hard as Benson, you wouldn't even question it. But they aren't and so you try and compare him to a first overall pick on a bad team but it's not the same. He's playing way above his position and we should be happy about that. Also, this team went out and got the veterans it could get. They had to give Zucker $5M just to come here. Let's not pretend that there are a line of veterans the Sabres could bring in that would do more than Benson is doing right now.

Too much credit. This is why. You can't give Adams credit for anything, including this. All he's done is maintain the status quo. Which isn't totally fair, he's done things as the GM. However, he's as effective as the guy shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. So.. that's that. The Sabres hit the iceberg when Pegula bought the team. The boat has been sinking ever since.