Thorner

They aren’t spoiled: they are conditioned They’ve played under the banners of low expectations, and low expecations disguised as lip service to making the playoffs but nonetheless still low as evidenced by lack of spending.

Darcy Regier was the last GM to get this team to the playoffs. It sort of gets written out of history, but he even did it with Pegula as the owner (I know, not for the whole season - but the portion of the season that actually earned the berth was played under his watch). Darcy was an experienced GM when he managed the feat. He managed a playoff team multiple times. Darcy had been a general manager (on an interim basis, sure, but he still performed the role) when we hired him. He was a qualified candidate beyond that. Botterill comes the closest in resume before taking the job, so three types of candidates don’t always work out to Darcy’s level, but you have a far better shot at it than hiring a guy with Adams’ essentially non-existent credentials. Of course, imo, the veteran, experienced Darcy of his later years (mistakes and all, we don’t need to ask for the moon, I think we’ve seen how much of an improvement even basic competence would be at this point) is what would serve us best in steering this into a playoff team with Pegula around, so the experienced candidate is still the ideal choice. Again, something we haven’t had since Darcy. It’s all about finding (allowing) an experienced candidate

Every asset is on the table for the right price, up to and including the pick itself

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Room

The solution in the room:

Wow

Sabres are officially last overall in the league

My f*cking god lol

Thanks but no thanks Kevyn

After all the crap we’ve seen for so long, we are probably underplaying the fact no one predicted THIS. 31st? 12 straight losses? It’s sort of mind-boggling even for us, and that’s probably saying something

Exception to the bpa rule clearly. It would be unfathomable to pick a lhd

Lmao sure, Kevyn

Why aren’t we on Christmas break yet? Urgh

The majority of the board called bs on the search, even if they liked the hire

This is the way

Honestly, if anyone in the org that actually mattered took a look at the insightful, thoughtful, and nowadays rather pained conversation happening around here, it would say so much more than any petition ever could

I don’t begrudge him at all. Don’t hate the player, hate the game

and the “hope” that tomorrow’s sun promises never seems to properly arrive. It’s always seemingly just out of reach. But we know it exists, we can SEE the potential! It’s just out of reach! But maybe one day. bane’s prison, essentially

Was a fascinating read specifically because of the author A portrait of a soul before Joining Up

Agree totally. We have to try. Terry stays - fine. He needs to keep throwing darts at the GM dartboard at the very least, if he won’t contemplate changing and hiring an experienced candidate

Ya thinks like that are so damn stupid and ruin it

The fear of change. The fear of having expectations because you might fail. We can’t change the owner. The owner won’t change. It just can’t happen. Firing the GM is pointless, it won’t happen. Quickest pathway to achieving your dreams is to just torpedo your belief in the dreams themselves Aim lower and expect less. Be happy, and keep your head down

In trying to find the quote (I’ve come close: “He was very hard on himself,” said Buffalo general manager Darcy Regier. “He put a lot of pressure on himself, and that's what we were concerned about when he got that deal.”) I did find a nice article by our own Brian Duff (while working for Hockey news) talking about how the deal set Thomas up for failure: https://thehockeynews.com/news/brian-duffs-blog-thomas-vanek-set-up-for-failure Probably wasn’t cackling as he wrote that one.

Yes we can