Thorner

As of right now Mittelstadt for Byram is a significant loss. It’s really all I can evaluate on because, while I very much liked Savoie for McLeod, that was the second, complementary, “we have to see the rest of the Casey trade” component - presumably we’d have swapped Savoie for a McLeod-level defender instead, had we not switched from C to D in the Byram trade. The corresponding move would have been dependant. Would i rather, this moment in time, Casey on my team (and whoever we’d have gotten for Savoie) than Byram on my team, with McLeod? Yes. Casey is a lot better right now than Byram. The narrative can change: Byram can close that gap or even surpass Casey, or McLeod can turn out to be the type of steal that makes it unlikely that corresponding D asset I mentioned would have been equal. But right now: yep give me Casey. But it’s not really a situation we are backed into a corner on so it’s not the biggest concern in a vacuum Can’t vote B/c I’m between 2 and 3

I mean: not good enough, considering the context. But even though I selected that option, I don’t agree necessarily with the latter part of it that suggests we won’t be a playoff team The moves don’t rule out playoffs being possible: but the totality is along the lines of exactly that - keeping it possible - rather than a configured situation where playoffs are likely, in a year it’s the only acceptable outcome its not the “no stone unturned” option I’ve been opining for since the offseason started: but it’s the option that kept playoffs in range while it’s still clearly not the priority

You can bet on it, but it only matters if you are right THIS year Casey already is

There’s also a difference between whether you “can” contend and your liklihood of actually doing it. Your thoughts on the matter are part and parcel with the Adams mindset: “Look, it MIGHT work. I mean, you can’t rule it out”. The rub is that we are supposed to be miles past that being an acceptable line of thinking. Yes. Maybe we have enough to make the playoffs. The fact we are sitting on a “well, it’s feasible” going into year 5 is what’s absurd. You often fight the “it’s realistically possible” battle when we are 2/3 years passed that being a reasonable situation to enter into a season under. If playoffs don’t look a near certainty headed into a year 5, you are playing a risky, risky game of poker. The truth is that Adams can’t know either way whether his core is good enough. When you add a player like Necas, it’s another bite at the apple. (apple) Cores don’t get typed out and printed on Sabrespace at 5:08 on a Wednesday summer evening: they are ever changing and continuously evolving “Set core” jargon should head to the sabrespace meme thread tbh

This. He’s only on the radar if he gets back to his production from 2 years ago. He doesn’t have a body of work/history to rely on and these teams generally value that. Granted, I’m more familiar with the Canadian team perspective, which has always favoured veteran, proven talent when possible Agree with this, too

So the Blues gave away the third, they can’t sign Holloway then? nm they dealt Ottawa’s 3rd, I see now

“There’s no room on the Sabres for a 50 goal scorer”

A sure sign of looming quality

Quinn’s game isn’t about his shooting It’s merely one of his tools. His game isn’t centered around it

Absolutely. Addition by subtraction from this team is a laughable proposition said at the time: you can buy him out but it depends what you do with it

Also among the worst allocations is being 8 million under the cap of the last 20 teams to be 5 million or more under the cap, only 1 has made the playoffs If we leave that much cap space unutilised, we aren’t trying to make the playoffs. We are trying to make the playoffs while saving money. Very, very different things - - -

Poverty franchise. We love ‘em, but we’re a poverty franchise. We’ll need to get lucky. I direct a lot of ire at Adams (and stand by it) but realistically it alllll starts at the top and being that far under the cap in our position is an absurdity for sure, as you point out. We just deserve so much more as fans, sitting where we are on the precipice of 14. ah well. It’s summer

Calgary is in the bottom 10 for active playoff droughts they’ve missed 2 years in a row. a fellow bottom 10 league team has a drought 7 times smaller The bold is…That’s a heck of a point

No. It’s easy to make the playoffs. Listing drastic outliers that even then don’t compare to us doesn’t serve your case it belittles it aside from Ottawa and Detroit, no eastern team has a playoff drought of more than 4 years. There’s only 2 teams at that mark, the vast majority are less than the amount Adams has achieved in JUST his tenure. Washington made the playoffs last year with a -453 goal differential. No matter how low the benchmark is you constantly are strapped to it with all your weight pulling downward. if I’ve said this I’ve said it a million times: yes, Detroit and Ottawa are bad too and we are only like, twice as bad. write home about it - - - Your arguments on this particular topic constantly fail because you can’t artificially lower the bar, no matter how hard you try, low enough to make an argument that makes their failure acceptable by even a single iota more. There are no mitigating factors for 13 years. For a failure that extreme. Even 1 playoff appearance in 5 years, 2 in 6… light years from what we’re done its not hard to make the playoffs. It’s hard to miss as much as we have

Fair enough. You are saying missing again would be a fail but the issue of whether the GM should be replaced doesn’t hinge on that. Because you fear the alternative path should Pegula go in another direction. I can’t agree, I can’t see things as being any worse and I stringently believe that, from where we are NOW (let’s leave 2021 aside, you are correct we also don’t see eye to eye there), opting for a long form build with a new GM would be insane. We are a year-over-year team right now re: reasonable feasibility of finding success. the most salient distinction comes in your last line and it’s a very, very philosophical difference that we can probably draw a line to almost always when we disagree. We do have a different goal. When the goals are SO far apart as they are in this case (let’s be honest, making the playoffs is a 50/50 prop and winning the cup is unlikely straight up, there’s a chasm there) it’s somewhat surprising our stances aline as often as they do We are looking for different things; follow the team for different reasons

What do we do? cower in fear and count our prospects, presumably.

Great Yes, if your argument is the Sabres COULD do it better, like other teams, but just choose not to, that’s sort of what I’m saying. It doesn’t need to be that way: and it’s not, anywhere else. Just buffalo

This post really does do a good job highlighting how far apart we are, nowadays. And, to be honest: it’s not my stance that has shifted. You were preaching the time was now *LAST* year, and now a full year later have instead moved the opposite way, backing down from playoffs being the requirement. You underrate how easy it is to make the playoffs. It’s just buffalo that can’t. Saying the new regime couldn’t turn it around quickly doesn’t make sense when the turnover to playoff contention league wide is demonstrably shorter than your are portraying. Any 80 point team can feasibly make the playoffs after a single solid offseason, maybe 2. The variable is the competence of those executing the strategy. You’ve truly bought the narrative that playoff teams require 5 year plans. I admire the optimism, as you are a true optimist, it’s not virtue signaling clearly like we can sometimes see with other posts, but the performance of the team vs your expectations has cleary eroded your stance to that optimism and nothing more. You are equal but opposite to the pessimism of Perreault’s posts

The one thing that can’t/won’t happen is a full tear down and re-start. Attempting that after 9 years missing was already incredibly folly. If Adams gets canned they’ll need to be focusing on the candidates that preach turning the pieces we have into something viable rather than another “pressure’s off” approach where we slow play winning another several years. They truly cannot afford that

Colorado is an interesting one, their logo and branding has always been really popular esspecially among people my age..they are a team of the Millenials in a sense, and twitter discourse is often dominated by that demo Hawks were dynastic and have all the off ice stuff, that one is obvious

If we achieve any kind of lasting success we move to the other side of list. That’s how these things work. You want to be hated Right

There’s a nice reading balance when I watch you 2 go back and forth I mean it. Makes for a good thread read

I preferred when PGA was last For whatever reason it’s tough getting used to the Open being last and majors done at like the midway point of the summer

He doesn’t have memory loss, and I’m not saying this flippantly: he’s got an active bias against the fans. What I mean by “not flippantly” is he literally doesn’t post about the quality of the performance of the team, standards in that sense. You haven’t noticed that? The only framing he uses is how the fans are wrong relative to *whatever* happened. He hasn’t found a single situation the team has been wrong about in 13 years, and if they were, the fans were more wrong. i’m not exaggerating, the discussion is: “you fans are bad and whine and we are going to lose the team” He just wants the fanbase to be satisfied and is angry on a daily basis that we aren’t ok with endless losing

Eveything you post is revisionist. This bit here above is particularly off base: Levi was the starter heading into the season last year. Adams banked on it and it backfired.