Thorny

I agree. I think he likely has to get the team in this year

To be clear: I don’t use it as an excuse at all. I just point blame in a different direction: the players do not control whether they are young, or old. Inexperienced or experienced, or whether or not all the cap space has been spent. When we can demonstrably say teams “deficient” in these areas *supremely*, statistically struggle to even make the playoffs, what logic is there in saying you gotta go to war with who you’ve got when you are no longer asking them to be fare well by a 50/50, half-the-teams-make-it set of circumstances, but rather match the hurricanes and caps as the the only 2 playoffs teams out of the last 160 to spend in the range we did and make the playoffs, AND join the ranks of “youngest teams in hockey” who made the playoffs which is ALSO unlikely. They are willingly stacking the deck against themselves in their pursuit of fielding a playoff team, before they even play game 1/82. - - - As for expectations, Cup or playoffs, it’s not a matter of what, it’s a matter of when: if the expectation was Stanley cup, THIS year, the team wouldn’t look the way it does. By prioritizing future currency for so long the priority indeed seemed to be Stanley Cup: but one we’d have to wait for. Likewise: a team with the goal of making the playoffs, this season wouldn’t ordinarily be constructed in the way we are (youngest team, low cap), and would generally fare better *this* year than a team with future aspirations. Which, contrary to what they say, really seems to be more of what we are

DeLuca .500 has been muddled so much being asked to stand up as a tool to predict the playoffs: it’s real function was always about telling you if you truly are “good” or not: because, you are right, .500 in todays nhl no longer represents “average” / something to be using as any kind of benchmark

The difference? Depth. Playmaking. 05-06 was roll-4-lines era. Not to mention talent (see: actual current ability 2-ways at both ends of the ice) within other parts of the roster like the defensive unit and in net. But, you raise a lot of good points with your excellent post. I do think things like urgency and accountability are a factor at times, too. I posted just the other day that that’s a functional error of the GM: no one claims the drought. They’ve been, year after year, levied with almost no expectations for each season. Not until this year, apparently. I’m sure the players saw the lack of spending as evidence it really was about playoffs this year, right? Where I disagree is the idea a “leader” would have the ability to siphon that mindset out of the rest of the team through sheer force of will. The Peca teams and the Briere teams weren’t the “youngest team in hockey”, were they? Or even close to? You can’t just look at the leader; you have to look at who you are asking them to lead. We would benefit a lot from a more veteran captain mostly because that player would provide the right mindset within his minutes. We know the TALENT of a single player like Jack Eichel can’t elevate an entire team, there’s no reason to think the leadership quotient of one player could fare better. I don’t need to even argue that talent is more important than a sense of accountability: just that it’s as important. The youngest team in the league, statistically, doesn’t make the playoffs. Bottom 10 spenders almost never make the playoffs. (Side note: You *don’t* think spending less than everyone would bear out, in most cases, in having less talent? Adams is so good that he’s equaling the talent of others teams with less money? That doesn’t pass the smell test.) We are both. Low spending and too young. Those teams don’t make the playoffs. Every one of those teams had a poor leader? Classic correlation / causation disagreement

I think I’d feel pretty safe greenlighting Adams to make more prospects-for-players moves. A) McLeod trade looks swell and B) We don’t need prospects. Fledgling players aren’t going to help this franchise

It’s not that shocking when we consider it’s hard for a player to drop off from somewhere they never actually got on. Putting up good *metrics* in small sample sizes and then projecting that over a full 82 game season in *actual production* is a fools errand. It’s ok we do stuff like that on this website as fans: as a GM it’s abhorrent. i’m honestly more surprised people think stats work that way. It’s an entirely different animal when you expect projected results from a small sample to extrapolate over a much larger frame where much more is expected of the player. Call it the Comrie effect. A *frequent* misstep and characterization of Adams’ tenure is projecting out best case scenario development before it happens. His strategy essentially IS counting on maybes, for things to happen that we haven’t actually seen yet

Maybe because he’s lacking the greatest goalie of all time that Peca had, and the best overall roster I’ve ever seen the Sabres assemble, that Drury had. Maybe we should reckon with those (quite sizeable) variables in the equation before jumping to a mystic intangible? the closer one gets to pinning the issues on one player, they further they get from a salient reading of the situation. We’ve been there so many times recently with so many good players im surprised we still go there

This exactly

It’s been 13 years and Terry Pegula is STILL the viceroy of the Sabres federation

Why build a playoff team now when you can map out a championship team for in a few years, amirite? We are the Buffalo Sabres, we are above such trivial concerns: our sole purpose is to win the Stanley cup. Let the dregs of the league set goals as lowly and embarrassing as merely scratching out an honest playoff berth every two years and seeing what happens

I’d wager it’s far closer to “inconsequential” than “big”.

This just *feels* like a Kevyn Adams move

Salient, when it comes to how poor Byram has been at actually playing defence up until the last few games

My *sole* concern has always been this board…and its members. The culprit has been..identified? I presume?

A flat junior chicken with unsalted small fries and a coke with melted ice

Oh ffs

No I use “amendable to the results” all the time and it’s indeed wrong - thanks for letting me know I had something in my teeth. The word I was looking for is “Amenable”, as you point out. I don’t agree “amenable” would be wrong, though, the meaning I was going for was: formal : able to be controlled, organized, or affected by something —usually used with to “Affected by something” the noteworthy portion: ie what I’m always trying to communicate is that Adams himself, specifically our *evaluation of* his performance - is affected by the results. Ie the results are the determining factor. It’s a competing viewpoint to the “what could Kevyn Adams have even done?” line of thought you see creep up, that would find Adams evaluation NOT amendable (affected by) the results we see

Of course it can be done. We are looking at a 5 season period, here. All excuses wash away like beaded water on resistant material But not the same half, every year

I enjoyed that film too. I feel like not enough people saw it. Also, I saw HERETIC (2024) yesterday. What a delicious performance from Hugh Grant. Hilariously compelling film. See it!

Chicken parm you taste so good 🎵

I’d also rather have Mittelstadt and McLeod. McLeod was a sweet trade. The message here imo as many others have said is to trade prospects for current players. Which we’ve been harping on for a long time. People will talk about the risk of dealing prospects who may amount to something…IMO who cares. You are wagering future acumen. Aren’t we through with the “future” by now? Way riskier to trade on roster talent, as we see with Mitts/Byram. It feels good to be the team that pulls ahead in the now, (McLeod / Savoie) because if your eyes are on the now, the current, we really don’t need to give a sh*te about the future. You start to find you don’t need to look down the road to a vague future to find hope