Thorner

It doesn’t escape me that the biggest justification for why we couldn’t win with Eichel was a short Covid season where we…didn’t have Eichel

Agree with a lot in here but not really the semantics on Eichel - if Adams desire to rebuild was the “final straw” that means it was salvageable before that: I believe the evidence bears this out as well: we shouldn’t forget that Jack initially rescinded the trade request when Adams briefly committed to winning: and did so WHILE PLAYING HURT Dude was willing to put his body and career on the line during the shortened Covid year for the Buffalo Sabres. Shouldn’t be forgotten. He suited up, injured, for 21 games in 2021 because Adams said they’d commit to winning.

Absolutely not. I meant what I said, and I mean it in the the macro: what the heck are we even doing here talking hockey if everything we talk about ultimately ends up bullshite: why do we talk about picks and prospects as currency if the team literally most in position to utilize said strategy in history of the league won’t do it?

Appreciation for your ROR bit aside, I’ve always been an open book on this around here and indeed look to the board for help. I definitely find my love of the sport waning and have been wondering for a long time now how much I love hockey and the damn NHL, as opposed to the memories triggered amongst the companionship found when the team was decent. I need the Sabres to be good. I need to know what I have left

LMAO jets

Ah gaddamn I almost made it to the hypothetical returns before the subscribe noti popped up. I do like the first line results in second line minutes bit (maybe someone can help me out with what I couldn’t get to) people will look at him “only” having one year left on his deal as a bad thing (yes, I know, one year doesn’t have value as a human being. We get endless. It’s not like my entire fandom hangs on because of a solitary season in the last 20 years (2006)) but to me it’s a good thing that should facilitate a trade to a team willing to prioritize next year and worry about the rest later it won’t be us

I can assure you I am absolutely sleeping on him

Trade is the best route. If the Sabres aren’t the team in the spot to use future assets as currency, no team ever has been and the league isn’t worth following

If the list starts with: - be healthier ..the list has already failed. You are basically typing, “if the Sabres get better luck than the average team usually does…” Injuries are a reality. It’s like saying, “if we get a few unsustainable performances from select players, we’ll make it “. Sure. It’s not a strategy To score more we’ll simply need a better, more well rounded roster. Some of the improvement will come internally, hopefully, but some needs to come from the outside (deal picks and prospects), and not only do the additions add on their own, they help facilitate that improvement from within

Have the playoffs been really uninteresting or is it just me? Actually asking

Right, the tweet could have literally read 1) the cash

Ya that’s interesting, the Covid year was never that bad for me. It was short, it was weird, a bunch of teams were doing weird things, and my mind was more usually that normal occupied with things beyond sports. I also knew it didn’t represent much of a verdict on anything: like I said Jack barely played, and he was hurt for the games he did. Of course I’m arguing against the “extent of the rebuild” because that’s the topic at hand: we can’t just call any collection of fixes to the team a “rebuild”. Obviously we needed fixes. We can debate the connotation of rebuild but the topic at hand is whether a rebuild where winning wouldn’t be expected until year 4 needed to be put in place, Adams’ specific rebuild, and my answer to that is an easy, definitive “no.” I don’t think *any* team should institute a 4/5 year plan - making the playoffs is not hard, I’ve mentioned many times I find it to entirely be a lie sold to fans. So yes I of course also think it shouldn’t be applied in our situation where the fanbase was even more starving for a playoff berth than everyone other don’t call it a “quick fix”. Call it: fixing your team without setting aside 5 years to do it, wasting all of our time. The turnover from bad to playoffs is demonstrably significantly quicker on average than even just Adams’ term so far Quick fix has a poor connotation that I’m not putting my post behind Occam’s razor, please: Adams wanted the longer runway and the accompanying job security. Botterill did too “tear down to the studs”. It’s not a hot take, plenty of these guys prefer that situation - - - Going in circles a bit with the vet point: I entirely disagree. Eichel and Reinhart were done because Adams wanted to rebuild, we didn’t need to rebuild cause they were done. So I do not agree the veterans point stands .493 to .512 is 3 points. That’s not considerable. The irony is that the only considerably worse year, 17-18, was by way of this stupid “tear down to the studs and build up” mentality

This is part of why I scoff at the “Pegula is handcuffing him with spending” type stuff. Adams more less is Pegula: what qualifications did he have otherwise? He was appointed to “find out what was wrong” when (rather laughably) unqualified to do so and then charged with fixing it. His only qualification could have been utter trust from ownership and with no qualifications to inspire said trust the only thing it could have been is an agreement between the two of what they were after, Adams being lockstep with what Terry wanted: Adams put this plan in place because he believe in it. That’s up to and including the refusal to spend very much

To your ending question: I suppose we’ll never know, as apparently all Adams is next year, too, is a combination of Pegula’s budget constraints and Lindy Ruff’s reshaping of the roster I cannot agree with much of any of the framing of your post relative to the extent of the “rebuild” we needed to undertake. What we’ve gotten is so far off the map in terms of futility that I’ve only become more certain over time an attempt to turn over into a playoff contender with immediacy was the correct course of action to take. I absolutely do not agree we needed a “rebuild” in 2021 the way you use the term. Jack and Sam didn’t need to be traded (and you utter revisionism on Ullmark need not apply. We could have signed him) Jack was a Sabre. Adams said he wanted to rebuild. Jack said ok trade me. Team said ok we’ll give winning a shot. Team barely gave it the old college try over an anomalific 40 game COVID season and then threw their hands up on the air and said “we are inept and can’t do it, we are going back to the rebuild plan” and Eichel was gonzo behind the guise of the injury Adams Kruger and Pegula being terrible in 2021 didn’t prove to me I wanted Adams undertaking an even longer, riskier, rebuild encompassing more of my years on this earth. Absolutely the opposite lol. 2021 didn’t prove *anything*, I cannot stress this enough. We already knew the team needed to be fixed: it did not represent any sort of evidence that a quicker fix would not have been more apropos (like how the majority of the rest of the league does it), it just illustrated that those in charge failed, and that the season was ripe with Covid related anomalies the “long form” rebuild has failed significantly more throughly and for a much longer period of time and we are still going at it you said it yourself: Adams views this year as a “blip”. An 82 game failure. The covid season was much less convincing. Why couldn’t that be a blip? We know the answer, and it’s the initial instigating issue: we ALWAYS knew it - Adams bias is the long form build. It’s what he wanted when he first took over and he was always going to find a way to get it there So no, I know we agree on the timeline to success now, that last year was a failure on expectations and the deadline for playoffs is this coming season: but I can’t agree and will never agree the plan made sense upon conception. I’ve always stuck with my opinion that it’s been a failure of execution, yes, but also conception. I hated it from “go””, I thought it was an awful idea relative to where the franchise and fanbase was (this has borne out accurate) and, again speaking for myself, the last 4 years have have been orders of magnitude beyond the previous 3 before that in terms of a horrid product to follow - - - Kevyn Adams “go for it” try with Jack Eichel encompassed all of *21 games*. I think people forget this. That’s not a reasonable sample size. It’s not even a sample size. I do not believe there’s a more salient point to be made in this discussion Also, I don’t know what you are getting at with your “3 years of considerably worse hockey.” 19-20 our total was a prorated 81 points. So, we needed to undertake a 5 year plan to get to, checks notes…84 points. What are we even doing here

No I disagree. From what I’ve heard, Adams plan to rebuild was initially going to be put into place before Eichel ever made a request, it’s indeed what spawned the request - which led to the “college try”’ 2021. I absolutely disagree that Covid year ripe with anomalies (including a hurt Jack for most of it, and a bogus Hall, and a Krueger as a result of a duped Adams and Pegula), represents *CLOSE* to a reasonable sample size of evidence a massive rebuild was necessary - a rebuild that takes 5 years to make the playoffs is NEVER necessary - but even a long form rebuild - absolutely disagree it’s why I keep saying if Adams gets canned a new GM need not elect to institute a long form plan. I do not believe it was necessary when Adams took over. Reinhart specially said he was open to a contract - according to popular opinion we bridged him due to Covid, but that certainly was a choice and didn’t need to be the case - - - We are also taking the *actual GM* thing way too far. It’s ok to score an argument point on a message board and for us all to agree the true rebuild started a year later, but Adams WAS the actual GM in 2021 lol. We’ve cemented the narrative so hard it’s like we are literally saying we can’t analyze his work that year: which would be absurd. We can agree not to “count” it for the sake of arguments but I think you are conflating it with the reality: he was still partially responsible for the construction of that win now team as well: so some of its blame falls to him

Kane being the replacement seems less absurd if you think about how Adams was probably, in his mind, debating whether it was worth making a move sooner to replace Quinn to finish second in the Atlantic rather than third. He *can’t* be so utterly nonchalant about playoffs to the extent he’d pass on a replacement (YES he could have done something) if he thought we’d be hit-miss on WC2. I just can’t believe he would be. Adams definitely thought we’d be better off keeping whatever trade asset dry in the case the injury ended up more less irrelevant to our high powered offence to use on a deadline deal for a superfluous but beneficial add a costly mistake @DarthEbriate his overconfidence was his weakness

Live look at Kevyn Adams as fans watch on from a helicopter Or is THIS a live look? We’ll have to wait until next season to find out

Absolutely. One mulligan is fair its all about playoffs in ‘25 now

It’s pretty much like in that Big Bang Theory episode (or, see also: real life) where they are sitting around making fun of phantom menace and Penny chimes in and Raj says “we can make fun of it. You can’t”. WE aren’t really part of this. WE don’t really know what we’re talking about. It was just another sad indicator of the disconnect between this regime/its players and the fan base (and probably why hiring Lindy was so important) They have no interest in claiming actual Sabres identity. Maybe we don’t have one. But if we don’t, our identity is definitely failure to make the playoffs for 13 years: which is the exact identity Adams goes out of his way to distance himself from, like with Seravali recently Even the long form plan they took was with full knowledge of and I’d argue disregard for the position the fans are in, of no playoffs: there was zero urgency to claim that and fix that: they are doing their own thing it’s been hard for me. I see the crest, but since Adams took over the team has been unfamiliar. And they’ve done it by choice for the record, I get WHY. It is difficult though. Ideally you’d think there’d be a middle ground - we haven’t seen it but Ruff is a sign it might be now here

I don’t even think it’s some nefarious thing, liger is right they take on the mindset of the organization, but they more less imbibe it: the top-down refusal to measure results in the now becomes part of a fabric of their developing identity Some recognize it and ask out Don’t forget that Jack specifically said on record he asked to be dealt *because* Adams wanted to rebuild. We didn’t have to rebuild because Jack wanted out

Such an odd vibe. Not what I expected from the group at all honestly, and I’ve had my beefs obviously. So much we are hearing is just so weird. Tuch’s comments *during the season*/playoff push on a podcast that “we are young, we’ll eventually get there.” Why? Why throw the towel in verbally when you are still in it EDIT - just realized there’s a thread for this specific discussion already, my mistake

Big part of the reason season was so disappointing is again alluded to here by KO. The bit specifically about how they “knew” in *OCTOBER* things weren’t right. So if they knew so soon things weren’t right, and they knew the locker room was feeling entitled (KA’s press conference), how did it get to a situation it went south so fast? If it was imminently obvious that quickly, presumably it was discoverable or even obvious before the season started? Why did the GM allow the situation to exist, and the fester for so long? At this point the discussion on the failure of this season is sort of getting redundant, what matters now is the coming season: it’s just disheartening we keep getting forced to come back to the analysis cause we keep getting more hard-line confirmation they really were lost right out of the gate

Chara or Logan Stanley

It’s annoying when literally any of the teams left win