Thorny

Kulich isn’t the improvement droid we are looking for but sure, try it

I agree with you but he isn’t going to do that. There’s what we would do, and the timeline for success we believe to be fair, and then the other side of the equation is KA’s plan and the timeline he has been granted from on high I’ll evaluate based on my criteria ie We need to make the playoffs this season and within that context I agree, the time to be proactive is now But I’m beginning to think KA’s plan is exceptionally rigid in that the now won’t ever be prioritized before the long term. I think the job is his as long as we wants it and maintains the budgetary constraints Pegula wants. The attendance has been the attendance and it hasn’t made any difference in the urgency we’ve seen so I believe the proof is in the pudding

They are exceptions that prove the rule not the other way around. For every Tage there are 10 who don’t randomly explode It’s not a good defence for keeping a player. In the end you have to evaluate and project each individually too many “ifs” here. Subservient, supposedly, this season to actual results. what Krebs MIGHT become should be secondary this season to what he is actually providing. Can we ever prioritize the now? Like ever?

12 years into a playoff drought lol. For the love of god can we aim higher than slightly below average Yes he could have Just like Hasek would still be really good here. Any time these guys are brought in for an extreme example it falls flat

Ah, of course. My mistake

Pacing for 0 goals, 5 assists over a season. This isn’t a substantive disagreement with your post I just couldn’t figure out how you came up with those figures

Bah

True lol

Laine is terrible imo

Could have addressed Quinn before the season if they felt it was an issue. We aren’t very banged up, we’ve got 1 F down relative to the team KA willingly iced to enter the season Par for the course injury wise - again, yet another area where hindsight need not apply: said all last year we were suffering well above average injury luck last season and couldn’t assume that coming into this one

All off-season and entering into the season itself we heard about how there’s “no room” in the forward ranks, and now there are multiple spots where..players go to die? None of it jives. We are clearly still lacking NHL forward depth and Krebs is a part of that issue if the expectations aren’t more less what we are seeing the team amount to currently I’m not comfortable saying Krebs would be adequate if we simply didn’t play him with KO. There’s A) a reason that’s where he’s lined up and B) we haven’t seen anything to suggest otherwise when he’s been with other players this season

I just mean that I can’t pass judgment on it (as if my judgment matters one iota) until I see the result. If they are kinda disappointing all year but go on a run in the last few weeks and make it: that’s a success for me. I’ve been pretty consistent that playoffs are THE line

Honestly? We won’t know till the playoffs lines are drawn

Krebs is like Johan Larsson but with significantly weaker defensive abilities, but also a Johan Larsson we acquired for our franchise C, which changes his internal positioning

I think they prefer it

Ya, he’s not the type of player that can be the best player on a line. He’s the guy who can fit in as the least effective player on a line in a pinch, and not actively torpedo said line

Lots of factors we can point to to attempt to alleviate the blame from Krebs himself. He’s likely just not very good. He seems the type of player than can provide the bare minimum useful role if every effort is made to accommodate his success. Not the type of player you want on a good team, but fits ok on a team lacking expectations

I don’t even need the “window to be open”. I just want to have a window to look through, at all, in this dreary never ending basement

Why such a quick 180?

Nah, having lived through it, nothing is close to as bad as this. I’ll take heroic runs for 8th thank you very much

Considering they are on a back to back, hopefully Chicago lets up in the third and we can bring it home looks like we need a bit of help

Ya I saw the score just noticed we’re getting outshot by a bad team. How’s the balance of play?

Watching the Grey Cup. Sabres hanging in there?

Yes I think just making the playoffs would be very successful. At least from the perspective of the fan experience. Certainly from the team’s as well given their inability to do so in 12 years. Clearly they’ve proven it to be a hurdle worth striving for. Probably best to stabilize that level of success before aiming higher. Maybe final 4 is the only success worth living if you are the Vegas Golden Knights and a fan of that club, but the Sabres have proven that success for them necessarily, for now, would be represented by a much more modest achievement It’s not inability to win the cup that is breaking fans’ resolve, it’s the utter lack of competitiveness. If you need a cup to justify the existence of a being a fan, you have picked the wrong hobby as it very well may never happen. A team that makes the playoffs every year and at least gives themselves, and the fans, the feeling of having a chance every year is really all I ask for. The Tank didn’t just fail, it definitively brought home the idea that “we aren’t going to win the cup this year anyways” was always a bankrupt and poisonous line of thought. Just be a reasonable hockey team. Everything beyond that is gravy.