PerreaultForever

They are messing with a 21 year old's head. I don't like this approach. He will either over try now and thus make mistakes or he will quit (unlikely but possible). I don't see this working at this stage of his career. The veterans have to step up. Oh wait, that's right, we don't have veteran leaders. They seemed to be able to beat Ottawa last year. Maybe this year too. Notice we are already getting the back up goalie against us benefit and it's only October. Must win. 🙂

Another thing I don't understand is this statement that Kulich "might get scratched" and he has to be better. He's a 21 year old kid. Why is he being publicly shamed? Ya, he has not been good, but he's a 21 year old kid. They never did this to Quinn or Peterka or Cozens. Not this early. Not like this. You really think that's how you build a culture where players want to be here? If I'm Kulich I'm heading the Peterka route first chance I get. and just to be clear, I'm not saying that he shouldn't be scratched, just that they shouldn't have announced it as he might be.

Well that's just it though isn't it? On other teams players are held accountable. There are veterans that set the level of expectation for the new players and players have to buy in. Cultures live and die with their veteran leadership. The Adams idea of "growing together" is like putting everybody on a ship and saying "Okay guys, figure out how to sail it". How can a captain be expected to know how to navigate these things when he came in here from a foreign country at the age of 18 and has never experienced winning in the NHL? That's not to say it's his fault in any way, but there simply is little to no veteran leadership on this team and hasn't been for a really long time. People talk about Tage's comments and again, it's not all on him, but the comment is flawed and wrong. It's so called positivity and "I don't want to dwell on the past" and "it's only 3 games" and that's just loser talk. The comments should all be we sucked, I sucked, we have to work harder and be better. The so called leaders have to lead on the ice and drag others into the fight, but there's literally no fight in this team. Ruff has no answers because they simply aren't doing what he tells them to do. He can't coach these players as a group. I don't think anyone can. They've assembled a bunch of guys who just play for their money and don't care. The standard should be about winning but in Buffalo it's "who cares, I can just get traded away and then care if I have to".

You like that for memories go back a little further and remember this:

Cozens is 3C in Ottawa. He might bump up with Tkachuk injured but before that he was bumped down below Pinto. Honestly though I don't think Ottawa cares all that much. From their perspective they managed to dump a gimpy player on a big contract. If they end up trading Cozens away at some point it's still a win for them. That second might even be a big deal the way we are going. It's weird to see the Sabres being talked about this much from the usual hockey talkers this early. They are usually ignored or get minimal coverage. It just all feels so much worse than it usually does and this stuff doesn't help ease that.

That would be my fear. Adams gets moved into some sort of advisory label and Jarmo becomes interim GM and that's the public optic, but in reality it'll still be the same people in committee style meetings with Terry still voicing opinions. As far as the bills goes I don't follow them closely enough but I doubt they fire anybody. Not yet anyway.

We have 2 top 6 forwards. Tage and Tuch. Two young potential top 6 forwards but in over their heads at this stage of their career in Benson and Kulich. Zucker and McLeod are third liners playing above their place. Occasionally they play like top line players but really should be on a third line. Norris I guess is a top 6 forward but he's broken. Thus he's useless and nothing but a big piece of the cap wasted. The rest of the forwards are a big pile of whatever. Maybe Doan can still be something but that's just a maybe. That's cold reality.

Some enterprising Sabres fan needs to make a version of this Bears shirt

Yup, that's it. Pegula has to step away fully and give it to someone. He won't, but he has to. This is why I assume it'll be Jarmo. He's already here. You can argue that he didn't get it done in Columbus, but at least he's an experienced GM and hopefully learned from the mistakes he made there. But if they don't fix the culture nothing will change. The lack of effort and the lazy plays resulting in giveaways show you that the culture is totally broken. There is no excuse for that and those people need to go. The standard has to change and the bar of acceptability has to be raised. Not having a competitive camp started this. Merit didn't earn you a job on this team. All jobs were predetermined. That sends a bad message. Now you see Ruff will bench Kulich because he's not performed to last year's level. Oh my, what a shock, a young kid given too much too soon having a drop off. That never happens. So sure, Kulich should be down the line up but he's a kid. Admit you put him in a bad spot. It's your fault not his. Meanwhile Quinn, who has performed even worse still plays and he's older and has had more time to figure it out. So what does that say to them? It's all broken.

They do, and in this case you'd be bad, but it's the only way to reset the culture. You'd have a bunch of AHL vets and hacks to start but you could build the hard to play against lunch bucket type thing and then begin inserting young talent to that base, It would take years but how else are you getting out of it? EVERYTHING has to change. Bandaids and one guy here or there won't get it done. All the guys stuck in this and all the slackers have to go to make it different.

I hear you but since he's here I see that as the obvious hire for Terry. What other experienced hockey guy would take the job? Cliff Fletcher? Brian Burke? Hextall? Nobody out there on the unemployment line I'd hire as GM. But this is why I said in the other thread Give it over to Jarmo and let him hire Torts as coach (just like Columbus). This is not because I think Torts can take us to the promised land but I think maybe, just maybe, he could change the culture and do the "subtraction" phase. EVERYTHING needs to change and that's the sort of shock to the system it might require. and it is correct.

and The Hockey Guy ranked them 32nd in his early season power rankings 🙂 32 Thoughts today led off with Buffalo talk and the suggestion even Ruff has checked out already. Season is over. The one thing TP did do was set himself up for an easy hire upon firing. Jarmo would take the GM job and he's already on the payroll. You know it's coming, it's just when and how. Will it matter? who knows. can't be much worse.

There is nothing to indicate it could be anything in even 3-4 years. It needs a complete reset, like an expansion team. Every single person here gone and a full reset with a new philosophy that will then take several years to build.