PerreaultForever

By contrast, this is our current leadership. Rasmus Dahlin postgame: "I think we were doing some good stuff and then bad stuff and we got scored on. I think it was bad puck decisions that cost us a couple goals." Seriously wtf is that.

The problem I have with Pettersson is the narrative coming out of Vancouver. The perception is that him and Miller just do not get along and Miller is a leader and full accountability guy. Very vocal and calls people out, but also steps up himself so no hypocrisy. So if Vancouver, under Tocchet, is looking to move a talented guy like Pettersson it makes me question character and work ethic and thus, although he might be a Sabres fit in some ways, winning might not come along with that and things might actually get worse.

No idea. Know nothing about her. Would she be competent, would she care? or is she just a little rich girl who will ask daddy for advice? If she hires hockey people and just kicks back and enjoys the good food in the owner's box sure, can't be much worse. Ryan Reynolds sure. Everybody wants him to buy them. Vancouver White Caps courting him right now. Ottawa didn't happen so I doubt that he's an option. There's always Snoop Dog.

Of course. Another 5 year cycle and if the same people run it the same results. This roster is poorly constructed. I don't think many people would disagree with that. The team is too young and lacks veteran leadership. I think most people agree with that too. So the talk is nobody wants to come and we are on everybody's no trade lists. That's Adams claim overall. He'd like to add and tried to trade but he just can't. Maybe that's true. 13 years who wouldn't put Buffalo on their lists? The problem that this has created, that Pegula has created, is that in this reality their solution is to let the young players grow and age and become the leaders, but this takes way too long, they don't know how to be leaders at this level, and they lose their love for hockey, stay fragile and end up losing every time and sometimes accepting it. And thus 5 year cycle we get rid of the next bunch. No way to end that without a complete do over under new and better management. True. That's the problem. Hence, as I posted in one of the threads, full Shorsey, radical scorched earth is the only option now to change the culture. Three or four veteran sons of ***** who are mean and nasty and hate to lose. Make them the captain and assistants. Whip the rest of them into shape or ship them out of town. Maybe we are a thug show for a few years but in time, the culture will finally change, and a day might come where opposition teams say "Buffalo tomorrow night? Oh man I hate going into that building."

True. The Zegras rumors are real and there might be substance to the Cozens and Byram for Petterson rumor. That's not what we need though. We need leadership, we don't need to be team Sweden and Cozens for Zegras would be even less leadership not more. I think it's too late to trade youth for veterans though. That ship sailed in the summer. You do that now you just get guys who play out the string. The season is already over so you either do nothing (likely their plan) and dump your UFAs or you tear it all down and try again. In all likelihood the speed of any positive changes will be far too slow to make a difference any time soon.

That's fair, it was a nice play against a weak Leafs D. I've seen goals called off for less with that rule though. Agree it's stupid. I'm sure you remember Jim Lorentz. Imagine how he'd struggle under today's rules. He was no Dornhoeffer, but boy did he like to sit in tight on goalies. I imagine big Dave would lose a lot of his goal totals as well. I'm old, I liked old hockey better.

What I am sure of is that the return on pretty much everyone will be picks and prospects. Possibly decent hauls, but down the road stuff. So it would be hard to reshape the current roster but if you wanted to sell the entire store and start over, that would be one option. I wouldn't want him and Pegula to be the guys doing that though.

If they make Greenway's medical reports available and he's going to be playoff ready he could be dealt. Bruins last year took Maroon when he was on IR and hadn't played in months.

I'm on the record saying I was in favor of the Torts plan and I've been keeping an eye on Philly to compare rebuilds. At the point of the Risto trade Philly was a dire mess and then they tore down and started over under Torts Briere and Jones. Fans are getting impatient there but at the moment (although they are not good either) they look closer to me. Right now Ottawa seems to be the team ready to grab the moment. Ullmark is playing lights out for them and their confidence is growing. Sabres could and should have been them.

Not surprised. He does look like one of those characters out of the tv show Vikings though. He thinks he's Ragner Lothbrook.

In all seriousness this is a game the Sabres can and should win. This is a textbook definition of a trap game for the Bruins. They are just off a 6 game road trip and feeling pretty good about themselves, Christmas is around the corner and they have the Caps right before Xmas sets in. So to imagine they are taking the Sabres lightly and looking ahead is an understatement. If even a few of the main Sabres are interested in ending this losing streak I can see this going very well for the Sabres. Bruins can't score and if you get ahead on them early they can fall apart. If Sabres can't win this one, they might not win another one all year.

There was a tweet about Cozens going to Detroit too and I suspect the vultures are flying all around the carcass looking for the next Reinhart or Eichel. Rumors will fly everywhere. Probably best to ignore them all until something actually happens.

As many as possible?

Dude thinks he's a viking?

I had 30 seconds of enjoyment in this game when Tage belted Matthews and then held his own well against Reilly. For 30 seconds Tage was a hockey player. That was fun. The rest had me nodding off.

That's what Torts did in Philly. He told Briere all the guys he wanted gone and I think they got rid of them all. They never gave a coach here that sort of input. As is, who does Ruff replace anybody with? Some other green rookie with limited or no NHL experience. That's not viable. So hands tied.

I actually hadn't thought about that. Lucic running Miller was the first year of the drought. He really did break this hockey team.

Sabres are going to win tonight. Backwards Friday. Book it.

Can't agree with your Granato assessment. The one point out season is a bit of a myth. We went under the radar, faced a myriad of back up goalies and caught a lot of teams napping. A lot of luck and things went right for a bit. Granato had them playing loose and free offensively and they enjoyed that, but they learned a lot of bad habits in that and he might just have ruined a few of them as a result. There's a long list of reasons why we suck. No point in going over it again here. Ruff's structure and system is correct, but for whatever reason these players are either not willing to do it or are incapable of doing it and so it's just not going to work, period. The old adage is changing the coach is easier than changing the roster but in this case we need to change everything.

I don't think it's "coordinated" but there's something in media studies called the Contagion Effect and I think that's what's happening. Once an interesting story gets out there everybody tries to get a new angle or build on that same story and it balloons and spreads. When the speculation and the facts get blurred, sometimes the actual narrative can change. I know Bruins press were chatting on podcasts about the division and Bruins playoff chances and they all made fun of the Pegula chat in Montreal and some encouraged him to "keep talking".

A lot of Bruins fans think Jacobs is cheap 🙂

Yup, it's no rocket science and as @bunomatic said at the top a lot of us have talked about these very points for years. I've talked about the flawed development strategy multiple times at length, but we're just dumb old fans what do we know. THEY have said before they know better.

maybe, but that sort of balancing act is easy to put into words and really hard to do in practice. I mean even Tampa tossed Stamkos aside when the business model said his time was over. That was cold. Team seems fine. I would suggest that this is where veteran player leadership comes in. Players know it's a business and if they also know there's a high standard, they usually embrace it if they want to win. There can be a gulf between upper management and locker room.

I disagree. 30 games should be more than enough. Fact is they were doing it better 20 games ago and have regressed. I like Ruff, I think he knows what needs to be done, but it's clear the message isn't getting through (again) and he isn't getting the job done. Can anyone get the job done with this situation? Unlikely. Certainly not Appert, who would just be Granato V2.

I don't believe that's true. I think Pegula wants you to believe that's true, but I don't think it is.