Thorny

You are a baseball guy, right? I know it’s not the same situation as they had more actual turnover, but the Jays worked themselves into a shoot to improve their D this past offseason, and certainly did so. It just happened to neuter their offence to the tune of actually committing a slightly worse record to paper this season you can tinker, you can tailor, but if they don’t have the right soldiers for the game plan, we might be spying the standings early on

And Savoie isn’t Gretzky I read on this forum that’s Benson

That’s fair, but I don’t believe any of these options has bearing on whether the trade was a good one or not. That’s measured based on the results. Is there a “why” here that shifts the results to, “oh ok that was a better alternative”? I don’t think so. It didn’t work out in the moment, which was presumably the aim as the time to win was then, and it didn’t work out in the “future” re: Botterill’s plan as he got fired and we started over the aim of the trade wasn’t to punt on the next 5 years and in turn allow the next GM, whoever that ended up being, to ice a 1C by way of a prospect who was a long shot to reach that ceiling in the first place the main thing is still, for me, the logic. Even the argument where it’s claimed the trade “worked out” isn’t the same as it being a good trade. Again, if literally the same logic can be applied to dealing Tage for a draft pick, right now, that luckily turns out even better in a few years, it’s exposed as faulty logic - - - regardless, and perhaps more importantly, the Sabres need to start salvaging these relationships rather than conceding to issues being “beyond repair” and creating “beyond repair” fallouts in the first place.

It’s a race, and it’s an interesting calculation, I think, as well: how quickly can they sort out the D to a reasonable level, and, particularly given the fact the roster hasn’t changed: how much offence relative to last year ends up getting sacrificed in pursuit of said D. Particularly relative to all the career years we saw last year. And when comparing and contrasting the two, is it a zero sum game, or does it allow for a net gain to the tune of bridging the gap we needed to, to make the playoffs? pretty fascinating

The wafer is better than the icing

This was always the issue with attempting to replace Quinn with the Next Quinn. The BEST case scenario was realistically another very good rookie season. But with increased expectations, we didn’t need another good rookie season, we needed a good veteran level season that CURRENT Quinn was penciled in to provide. They didn’t replace Quinn, it was so weird

Cinematography looking a bit equal

You are a better fan than me, my guy and there is not one iota of snark in that you are the epitome of loyalty where the Sabres are concerned, and when they eventually win the cup, the team should be sending folks like you, who buoy this team up beyond what they probably even realize, one of those miniature Stanley cups You got the reference and that’s all that matters

At the end of the day, we are 1-3 out of 82. There’s a ton of runway and the story for this season is still obviously being written. Maybe it’d take a twist worthy of Shyamalan for the looming story take such a turn from the previous 12 chapters…but there have been Signs

No one. No one in the last 4 years. And overpaying Ullmark would have been a mistake because, while winning much more, our cap sheet, online GM mode, top of the line prospects, “we have no room for anyone at forward”, “hockey news ranks our prospect pool at the top” online Simulator set-up wouldn’t look as clean some people are happier just not having expectations merely the promise of

And fart around and make the playoffs? Don’t want to get crazy here

If in his 4th season as GM Adams iced a team that can’t reasonably be expected to make the playoffs, that really would start and end the argument, no?

If true, that there was literally no option available (which I don’t believe can possibly have been true, especially because other teams have addressed GT) then it merely seeks to illustrate how poor of a decision KA made on Ullmark, when there was apparently no viable backup plan available. If the market was truly as bad as you are seeing, *ANYONE* could have seen it coming

My sabrespace persona switches from “beating dead horse narrative guy” in the offseason to “really? You still think they have a chance this season?” guy DURING the season, and I don’t actually change anything at all lol this place goes way up, and it goes way down

We need to trade for O’Reilly!

It’s always been about delivering a product worthy of the consumer. This is the final acknowledgement of the Fan. It’s on the team to create something for sale that people have an interest in buying: so it’s not surprising that when you make the purchase based on faith rather than results and actual output, that they’ll “get ya”. And thus the cursing It took a long time for the MCU’s box office to start to drop off, faith was strong for a long time

You should see the twitter convo I just completed wherein I was called a “bitch” and a “clown” for merely suggesting Adams *could* have meaningfully addressed the position in 4 seasons. Seriously, go read it lol

Didn’t you already pay for seasons?

Build it, and they will come

I swear to god if the “why make a change? we aren’t going to win the cup this year, anyways” talk starts I’ll poke my eyes out lol I don’t have any faith it won’t, but luckily I actually still have faith we turn this around in season. But who knows, I’m generally very hopeful at this time of year after worrying all offseason we’ll see how the first 20 or so go. US thanksgiving is usually a good barometer they need to do something about the 3 headed “monster” in net, Levi will probably need a break if he doesn’t already

Probably. 4 goals allowed from Levi on 4 “expected”, if you care about that stuff. So, an average performance. That’s all well and good, but clearly the team is constructed in such a way that we are counting on “good” output from our elected starting goalie, and not just “break even”. That was what Levi was supposed to represent, and that was baked into roster construction we have to assume, given lack of activity at position

Ya

It’s not relevant regarding the expectation of making the playoffs, so it’s just interesting fodder

Eh, Botterill had an expansive body of work to the tune of suggesting we need not dig deeply for a “why” beyond “he was a poor GM who made a lot of poor moves”. Moves that were bad for roster construction need not have a defensible “why” attached. Wasn’t even consciously aware that after all this time we were still looking for a “why”. We do know Botterill was interested in bringing it “down to the studs” and Dahlin would help with that. There were those rumours: those would still fall under aims of roster construction I can vaguely sense where this is headed, not in your estimation I don’t think but for the thread at large, I’d hazard a guess. Perhaps this will save time: Eichel made the chemistry bad, Eichel demanded ROR be traded, Eichel demanded MOJO be the 2C behind him to make himself look better