Jsixspd

So, the Sabres dropped the season series 3 losses to 2 wins against the Leafs? How did the Leafs get so clearly ahead of the Sabres so quickly? They have 93 pts and a .500 record with 4 games to play. The Sabres are now in a tie with Detroit for the BOTTOM of the Atlantic.... again... with only 76 pts and 3 games left! And are 15 games BELOW 0.500! Weren't we supposed to be ahead of them, and they had more pain and suffering ahead while we were on the fast track to playoff contention? 3rd season with Tim Murray at the helm (supposedly) and the team may have fewer points this season than last. This is really looking like a failed rebuild to me. Does Murray even care, what with his big contract now?

Thanks for the clarification - I didn't do enough research. I think I hate Boston more than the Leafs.

The season was lost when they dropped below 93 points maximum. Unfortunately they won a few games which really hurts the draft prospects. :( Was anyone thinking they were still in it at 88 pts max? LOL. That would be 5 fewer points than any team has ever qualified for the playoffs with. It's up to TEN teams now that have zero % chance of the playoffs. Sabres were lucky to get in on this EARLY, eh? ;)

Does this mean we can't make the playoffs this season? Oh, wait......

Yup, no Levy fan here. He took a team that should have steamrolled to a Superbowl win in 91, and managed to lose to a team that they'd beaten in the regular season, AND a team playing its backup QB. That 90-91 team was an amazing team - Levy got outcoached by the Tuna, plain and simple.

Looks like Risto sprung upwards with his legs to put a little extra ummph into that hit - that probably didn't help his case.

Boy, so much depends on the owner. Take a Bob Kraft for instance - who has put in place an effective team to run the Patriots, and lets his people do their jobs and has built a powerhouse championship football dynasty - well, there's not much of a demand to SPEAK to Bob Kraft. He's mostly hands off anyway. But when/if Kraft appears in front of the media, it's to adulation and love. He has little if any reason to avoid contact with the media. Pegula is a different animal, and vastly less effective in his style and technique. He and his wife clearly involve themselves in football and hockey operations and day to day decision making - Kim 'N Terry are like the Senior GMs of the Buffalo teams - even worse, as we have seen demonstrated so clearly with the Bills, they undercut and undermine the authority of their operations team, like the General Manager, even leaving the GM out of the conversation entirely regarding crucial operations decisions. So there's obviously more of a drumbeat to want to interview them or hear them discuss team operations since they're like the de facto Senior General Managers of the Bills and Sabres, and they're entwined in decision making far out of their area of competence/expertise. They've also clearly established something of a 'siege mentality' because the teams have wilted and declined under their ownership and management, and they know the fans and media have become/are becoming hostile towards them. I don't even know how to answer the original question - I guess the question should get narrowed down - how often do meddling/interfering owners grant interviews/pressers?

Hockey Reference now has seven teams with ZERO probability of making the playoffs. Understandably, Buffalo is among that worst 7 in the league with zero chance. And yet this is the 2nd year of a high dollar, high profile coach and a supposed 'rebuild' team, and only March 22, and out of it. Again. http://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/playoff_prob.cgi

Yeah, I can't believe they'd go 2-9. Probably 4-7 or 5-6. That would be a 76-78 pt season. Hard to believe if that happens no one gets fired, 3 years into Murray's so-called 'rebuild'

Yup. The 2009-10 season ended early April, 2010. Just 2, 3 weeks away from being 7 years. :(

I was looking back to the Sabres, Pre-Pegulas, and the final season was 100 points, 8 games above .500 and a division championship. When, realistically, will the Sabres even be back to THAT level? 73 months into Pegulas' era and counting. It's easy to forget - while the Sabres had issues, they were a decent team when Terrance Pegula bought them. Now? For all Pegula's lofty talk about the Stanley Cup being the driving 'goal' for the team - the Sabres now, 7 years later, will be lucky to hit 80 pts this season; and money is being wasted left and right. The Pegulas certainly aren't 'all that' as team owners. The Bills, similarly, have retrograded after 2 years+ of Pegula ownership.

Yeah, if I were motivated, I'd look at the remaining schedule of 11 games and guesstimate which games are likely wins, which are likely losses, etc. Hard to even care with such a dysfunctional organization.

Or how about Christian Bale? "I'm @#$%ing serious. You're a nice guy, You're a nice guy, but that don't @#$%ing cut it when you're bull@#$%ing and @#$%ing around like this on set."

Amazingly, I was optimistic. I should have known better. :(

Remember when we were HAPPY about this? I re-read the first 3 pages of the topic - I didn't see much 'back story' on the hire. Who first interviewed him? How did the hire go down? Was it Murray's decision? Pegulas'? Battista's?

Well, the count is now -3 pts. 90 is the best they could do if they ran the table and went 11 for 11 (a drug induced dream, frankly) If they lose 2 of their next 3 or 4 games in reg, I'd say the team is playing to get a new coach, as much as playing for draft picks.

No Fleury fan here, and totally misses the point - substitute any other big names from the 2009 roster or just leave it as Crosby alone. 'Nuff said. They won in spite of the coach, not because.

Look at the roster Bylsma had too. With Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, et al on the team, probably you or I could have coached a Cup win. I think of Bylsma as somewhat analogous to Barry Switzer and the Dallas Cowboys; Mediocre coach wins a Superbowl with a superstar roster.

Wow, this team is now 2-9 since the end of the Bye Week, and have captured only 6 out of 22 available points. Some "push for the playoffs" - I notice the Sabres aren't hyping that any more at their FB page. It may have started in the Chicago game before the Bye- other than some individual effort, the team overall seems to have given up on Dan Bylsma. If they finish the season at the same "pace" that they have the previous 11 games, they'll finish the season with 74 pts. So much for Murray's 'fast rebuild'.

That's pretty much it for any playoff hopes. But before last night's game, they were 2-7 since the Bye Week, and with last night's loss, now 2-8 and 14 games below .500. That's a team in serious decline, not one "going for" a playoff spot.

I think you might want to shave a couple years off the Chicago rebuild. The roster by 2008-09 was almost completely changed from 2004. Or even 2006 when Toews was drafted - that would be 4 years. They were the same old bottom feeding Chicago Blackhawks until the owner, William Wirtz, died, and the son, Rocky Wirtz, took over in 2007. Yes, he inherited a bunch of draft picks. The father was viewed as a cheapskate (Ralph Wilson Jr of hockey owners?) and sat on his chips. Rocky Wirtz changed MANY things starting in 2007, many policies. He didn't even onboard Stan Bowman until 2009. There's a huge difference between Wirtz and Pegula - Wirtz knows what he's doing - his father owned the Blackhawks, and he clearly knew the business, - and as soon as he took control he began to make many effective and efficient changes in the team, even before he hired Bowman, and Bowman promoted Quenneville to coach, and the team was QUICKLY on the upswing. Whereas Pegula diddled around and the team was like a rudderless ship for a good 3 years, until Murray was hired, 3 years and 2 months ago. The difference between competency, and incompetency. Pegula has good intentions, but has no clue. In Buffalo, the start of our rebuild seems to be viewed as was when Murray was hired. IF you used that formula for the Blackhawks, then we are downright PATHETIC. Bowman was hired in the summer of 2009 - 10 months later, the Hawks won a cup. Quenneville took over as HC just after the start of the 2009 season. IF you substitute WIrtz for Murray, then 3 years after Wirtz took over, the Hawks won a cup. That's STILL a lot better than us. IF you use Ristolainen as the watermark (almost 4 calendar years now since he was drafted) as you did Toews, Chicago's rebuild is STILL much better than ours efficiency. Can we even be CALLED a rebuild at this point? Rebuild implies continual improvement - and if you look at the season by season record at Chicago from when Toews started, the points and success increased every year. It's starting to look like this season may have trouble even hitting the 81 point total the Sabres achieved last season. That's not exactly what I'd call a 'rebuild'. We just LOVE to make excuses for Buffalo. Yeah, the Hawks had a lot of draft picks 'in hand' in 2006, 2007. But as I recall, Murray inherited a lot of draft picks from the stingy Regier. Using the way you calculated Chicago's rebuild start, you could probably add another 12-18 months onto the current rebuild. IF you go by the drafting of Risto, (as you did with Toews) then we're 4 years in. Heck, if you use Pegula's purchase, we're 6 years and 1 month in, and counting! And the Hawks radically improved under Rocky Wirtz, even with the previous GM and coach still on the payroll. How did the Sabres do with Pegula as boss of Regier and Ruff? The roster from the time of Toews draft at Chicago was almost entirely different 4 years later when they won the Cup. Kind of hard to use 2004 as a guideline in that case. And we are NOWHERE near as far along after 4 years as Chicago was, 4 years after drafting Toews. Or 3 years. Or almost any way you want to compare.

I just wonder if the team can get back to the 9-7 level it briefly enjoyed BEFORE Kim 'N Terry bought the Bills? So far... both teams they bought have significantly worsened under their ownership. Killing with 'kindness' and committee management?

I think it's bad PK strategy to have Gorges as the 4th guy out there. Period. Bylsma seems oblivious to reality. I found that Gorges goal equivalent to games in years past when Drew Stafford scored. You knew we weren't gonna win when it happened. And yeah, we SHOULD have won - surprising goals from Gorges and Rodriguez against a top tier goalie, and a goal by Risto - and NOTHING from Kane, Eichel or O'Reilly? No goals, no points? That was Buffalo's game for the winning - and there wasn't a response from the team leaders.

Not quite. One more regulation loss, and that maxes the season at 92 pts. The lowest qualifying points total to earn a WC berth to date has been 93. No guarantee that 13 regulation wins and 1 OTL, putting us at 93, earns a WC berth either. The mark might be 95 or 96 or higher. Meaning we're done already.

And Dreary Dan.... Oh wait.... LOL