jad1

Yeah, Krueger should have paired them up for at least a few games this season. Goes back to roster and cap management. Pairing a 9 million dollar guy with a converted winger at center doesn't do much to maximize that investment.

Agree. Who does more with less?

Without Eichel, you would have to be borderline blackout drunk to watch this team. Botterill picked him up for his penalty-killing skill....So check that box.

For the love of god, get Jack some help...this is a recording.

If you looked close enough, you could see it. This team is built to fail. - A team that invested heavily in defensive resources, but plays mediocre team defense - A lack of investment in secondary scoring - Bottom-half-of-the-league goaltending - A head coach who has been out of the league for 6 seasons, who hasn't been able to get the team to play 'out of character' - No experienced veterens on the team to help young players deal with challenges that occur during the season It' a team with poor talent, poorly constructed, and poorly coached.

They've had 3 months to figure something out, and haven't done so. You'ld thing the coaching staff could come up with something.

When the Sabres have an NHL-quality coach, we can stop using the excuse.

Krueger's comments also apply to the coaching staff.

Two different sports, requiring different skill sets. An NFL GM builds his team mainly through the draft and free agency. A GM with good scouting skills makes a good GM. Because the NHL draft is riskier than the NFL draft (drafting 18 year olds vs 20 year olds), and the NHL free agency pool is much shallower than the NFL pool, NHL GMs need to use the trade market much more than NFL GMs do. And experience is an asset when evaluating the trade market. When reviewing Botterill's record, he's done okay in the draft; he's okay when it comes to free agency; but he's been terrible when it comes to the trade market. He got too little in return from the Kane and O'Reilly trades. He made targets of mediocre players like Sobotka, Sheary, and Sobotka. He's been unable use the trade market to resolve the glut at defensemen, which calls into question his ability to manage the salary cap. (If Krueger scratches Bogosian and Miller, that's close to $8 million sitting in the press box. That money could pay for a 2nd center.) So having a GM that has better experience in the trade market would help the Sabres, where it really isn't needed by the Bills.

The Sabres need to be concerned about their own roster. If a team has players available that the Sabres believe can improve their roster, and the deal is fair, they should make the deal, regardless if the team is in their division or not.

Well the locker room has obviously improved since O'Reilly's and Kane's departures ?. The Sabres have really vaulted to the top of the league with their improved locker room morale. This is why people want the Sabres to hire a hockey czar, because when the owner comes up with an idiotic idea, the czar talks him back to sanity. Since the Sabres don't have a czar, Botterill should have explained the math of removing O'Reilly after trading Kane (losing 60 goals from the worst offense in the league), and fought Pegula's desire to trade O'Reilly, if that's how it actually went down. Hiring a coach with a strong locker room presence should have been a high priority for Botterill, considering the rumored issues in the locker room. A coach with experience working with NHL egos would have done a better job than Housley.

You have to admire the Sabres powerplay strategy of having 4 guys stand around and watch Eichel. Outstanding coaching there.

Kind of feels like now, doesn't it?

As long as the NHL continues to draft 18 year olds, this will be the case. A top ten pick is not a guaranteed contributor. This is why good GMs don't solely rely on the draft to build a team. They also use trades and, to a lesser extent, free agency. Sitting on your hands waiting for 18 and 19 year olds to figure things out is an good way for an NHL GM to get himself fired.

Fitzmagic beats the Patriots, NE has to play next week.

High hopes for Curtis Lazar.

Coaches and GMs are cheap, talent is not. Sticking with the wrong guy for too long is worse than dumping a bad guy every year, because that bad guy can decimate the entire organization. There's nothing in Pegula's history with the Bills or Sabres to suggest that he's going to give a GM or coach time to grow into his role if he's not getting results.

Yeah, and the Amerks making the playoffs would make him a happy man.

Except both Kane and O'Reilly contributed to deep playoff pushes by their new teams. So it seems weird to justify their exit by saying they're not leaders or set a poor example for the rest of the team. If a guy you claim is a locker room cancer turns out to be the Conn Smythe winner, maybe he's not the cancer you claim he was. The problem with this franchise under Pegula is that they don't value a player's on-ice contribution highly enough. They accept excuses to run good players out of town (Kane, O'Reilly, even Lehner). They don't hire GMs who know how to build an NHL roster (good drafting AND good trades). They hire coaches who are weak on fundamentals (physical and mental -- Remember Ruff getting his players to play 'out of character'). As for needing to trade talent for talent, take a look at the best trades in the team's recent history. Briere, Drury, Dumont, Hasek, and even Skinner were all acquired without breaking the bank. You can make good trades that ADD to the core, instead of replacing the core.

It's probably the best this roster can hope for against the better teams.

Reinhart has talent. He's a 60-65 point player with consistency issues. Put him on a team with three NHL quality lines, where players could be better mixed and matched during slumps, and he could be an 80 point player. Dumping Reinhart won't help the culture, just like dumping Kane and O'Reilly didn't improve the culture. It just led to less-talented players losing more hockey games. Losing more hockey games is a good way to kill culture.

That's basically the narrative that led to Kane's and O'Reilly's exit from the team, and getting rid of them helped nothing. How about giving the players with some actual talent a break while the idiot GM continues to load up the roster with trash. Dump the GM before dumping anymore talent, and try to find an actual GM who can build around guys who have actually showed the ability to score.

Team is hopeless. Fundamentally flawed.

Nice clear Vesey.

Meh, the penalty kill is terrible. Another goal allowed in the last minute of the period.