Thorner

Agree. They clearly don’t “elevate”. It’s not a good team that gosh darn it just won’t try. Other teams frustrate them because on balance we have an inferior roster (which can look like effort) and good teams plays down to bad PARTICULARLY when considering the sample size of an 82 game season and the randomness that entails Coaching is a factor but their record is reflective of their roster construction primarily.

Benson is probably paying more attention to the glaring holes throughout the roster and the fact the team needs to rely on him to the extent they do because of it

Well said.

Particularly when his first year as GM arguably should be included, too, for relevance: like this year the goal was playoffs and both of those times were seemingly KA’s worst rosters by result committed to record 54, 75, 91, 73 those are the point totals so far, with the last one obviously being a current pace 31st (last), 24th, 20th, 27th Those are the league standings placements it’s a bad collection of results

You white, you Ben Affleck You make a trade, you Tim Murray

The Sabres have been bad for 13 years relative to every single team in the NHL, teams that are operating under the exact same rules and regulations as the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres have been bad at making the playoffs relative to every team that has ever competed in the NHL, ever. Arguments like, “where are you even going to find these good players?” “It takes time” need not apply: they are objectively wrong. Sorry, it’s not an opinion: if you are using the arguments, you are incorrect. Because comparing the Sabres vs every other team in the league we have been the outlier of outliers on the bad end. It’s not an argument, it’s a fact. It’s literally a fact. The aptitude of the folks running the team has been indisputably putrid. They do not deserve patience. We all, of course, grant them it willingly every day by showing up to this board. Because the fans are pure where the team is disingenuous. The fans deserve so much more. The fact we have threads being started about how it’s really all ok, when it really couldn’t get worse, sports wise, shows there are some who are literally happy without expectation. That’s the kind of loyalty the team laughs at as they cash your cheque. It’s admirable, I’m envious of it, but it’s sad that they are so taken advantage of. The franchise is a joke. It’s performed worse than every other franchise for a very long time. When we eventually do make the playoffs, it can no longer be a mark of aptitude: no plan will have needed to take that long. Adams already has earmarked himself as a bad GM. We just have to hope he eventually gets lucky. In a league where half the teams make the playoffs, a pretty bad GM should be able to get in once in 5 years

Thread

What a sad state of affairs that’s all I’ll say

Canucks fans were crying for a long form rebuild in 2021 coming off a 24th place finish - especially after the fact they’d finished 23rd or worse in 5 of the last 6 seasons including that one. Including finishes of 29th, 28th, and 26th. They were bad. And got better without the mentioned long form build - I meant the strategy retained a competitiveness relative to the one we employed, that swore of winning for years in the name of evaluation years that ended up getting us lapped by teams going the quicker route. Not that the teams were competitive and remained competitive all along the way

Sorry - 15 year plan my mistake

It’s not effort. That we “try less” than other teams is a myth. A bandaid narrative. It could be system related partially but the good games against good teams are a function of the mathematical reality of an 82 game season and the fact good teams play down to lesser opponents

Only by choice.

Unfortunately there’s no isolated variable here, as he hasn’t been given a good nhl roster to work with from our GM…but something needs to change. It doesn’t need to be Granato but you can’t do nothing as another crucial season slides away yes, I know we’ll do nothing

The step back in production is in many ways tied to a supposed commitment to more defensive responsibility. It’s merely a shell game: I said this all offseason. You can not add in goal, not add enough on D, not add enough depth 2 way forwards, and find defensive improvement in current personnel: but there will be sacrifices its not a matter of these guys just getting it back, having our cake and eating it too. KA wanted to play the shell game, too. He got badly burned. No, we needed better goaltending. We needed better D. We needed better forwards and we needed a more proactive GM in supplementing the roster

Vancouver and Winnipeg are great examples of teams that declined the 10-year KA build plan and instead elected to use their resources to attempt to remain competitive: seems to have worked. And winnipeg faces the same FA issues we do

Pretty soon we won’t have any of these top prospects left to cycle in - the best ones (Benson, Quinn, Levi, Johnson) are already here and as we’ve seen, due to the over influx of youth and lack of a properly built roster, it’s made little difference. I’d expect less of an impact from the Savoie Kulich Rosen Östlund tier and we can’t add them all at once anyways - even if they were all ready, and they’re not. We aren’t going to get better just by cycling in young players: we wouldn’t be seeing the death-spiral we have been this season if that were possible and the young players coming aren’t better than the ones we’ve recently graduated. I thought maybe it would be possible, on my most positive days when particularly bullish on Levi, that we could join the rest of the league by simply cycling in prospects, in this manner: but it doesn’t work. At least, it appears unlikely to. It takes such a long time to improve in this way and the ground we make up is thus negated by the better teams who use the time to cycle in the far fewer young players than we need to. Other teams’ young players improve, too. We have plenty of ammo and workable base: no actual excuse to not be good - that’s the shining positive. We just need a GM to get to work.

“We have no room for Connor Hellebuyck” But don’t forget: his early numbers were comparable to Hasek

Some people just can’t grasp the concept

They’d need to win about 2 of every 3 games

Sabres will now need to play at a 108 point pace over their final 44 games to surpass their 91 point total from last year

Happy New Years!!

Yay!

As assembled by a general manager. Players play. Effort comp evens out based on law of averages league wide.

Resistance is futile. Assimilate to the Borgallo

Come on guys don’t let this get out of hand. We can skate with these dudes. I know Columbus is a tough challenge but we worked all summer for this