Marvin

NYI shot = 2 squats, NYI goal = 10 sit-ups. You don't want to send him to the hospital, do you?

So if Hutton is standard swiss, does that make our D Lorraine swiss?

This team has had times where they had a hard time executing passing, skating, and coverage over the last decade. But this season is orders of magnitude worse.

He was the top player in Minnesota last year. Maybe he fell off the cliff due to age.

Just musing: how much did having the LOG line help last year?

I can't get the thought out of my head that he almost did something drastic in a fit of pique, but talked himself back from it. When talking about the team, it was not GM speak, it was more player speak and fan attitude. When he talked about the job he has to do, it was GM speak with player attitude. IMHO, that implies that RK is done for and KA has started his head coaching search and is debating whether he should bring in an interim coach for the rest of the season. IMHO, he should do that now and clear the decks. Jack is clearly at the end of his rope. IMHO, benching Skinner did it. KA clearly disagreed with Skinner's benching -- but that now means Eichel probably needs cajoling to stay beyond this season. He is very upset that the players don't play like he does. Honestly, he sounded like he was pointing a finger at Staal and Hall, who should know better. Why aren't they able to help Jack -- particularly Staal, who was the Captain of a Cup winner.

I agree with the goaltending. However, we can't score 5-on-5. We are getting mediocre but not horrible goaltending. But our scoring is way, way down. How much does lack of confidence in the goaltending feed the scoring drought and vice-versa?

Are you saying that they declined out of hand? That seems odd. It seems more likely that Dudley wanted more control than Kim was willing to give.

I hope the article in the Athletic maybe got someone they trust to call them and say, "that quote there? That's me. Here are some people you can ask for help."

Please, oh please, may the former Sabres in the Athletic article got everyone's hackles up and then the Pegula's heard their voices.

I am hoping that someone they listen to will tell them this.

Fact check: on 26 March 2015, I went to the "tank commander" game where Arizona beat Buffalo 4-3 in OT. I cheered when (looking it up) Brian Gionta scored at 16:23 of the third people along with most of the fans. I saw that some of us got crap thrown at us for cheering. We were proudly cheered for the team to win and **** up the tank. We were not complicit. I, for one, always said that the position we are in now was always a possibility because it left far too little room for error. And then this franchise went out of its way to bust past those limits.

So let's see. He can't make forward lines. He can't see why a couple of his defence pairings were working before the injuries and can't adjust. Any other incompetencies which I might be missing?

Old hockey cliche: all other things being equal, a little more will beats a little more skill.

I am going to disagree with you about there not being a difference between a rebuild and a tank. What they have in common is the start: sell off current, preferably aging and over-valued assets, for draft picks, young talent, and roster filler for both the big club and the farm teams. In the short term, they clearly make the top team less talented, but tends to stock a lot of talent in the system which you can develop into major league players. Where they differ is the subsequent execution. In a rebuild, you sign marginal to bottom-half-the-roster NHLers. You install the system you and the GM agreed upon beforehand which you want to run. If the major league team plays over its head, you reward it by maybe getting some better roster filler, give better youngsters a taste of the big leagues, etc. The team tries to win, the GM supports any winning, and tries to improve the atmosphere so that older players can buy in and be positive around the younger players and feel that if they retired, but their tutees win the Cup, then they have contributed. That includes making side-ways trades to fill in long-term holes, asking veterans on expiring deals what they would like to do, etc. A tank is handled by what GMTM did. You sign players who have no business being in the NHL; e.g., Meszaros, Strachan, Benoit. Any player who is not in your long-term plans who is playing over his head gets moved for clearly inferior players. Young players who are contributing often get sent back to the minors or the juniors. The GM deliberately undermines the coach at each turn whenever the team is playing well. Then you get a situation like the tank Sabres: according to several players, when they played very well, they joked with their teammates that they would get traded as a reward. And the Sabres did this for TWO years. Correct. They and New Jersey were actively trying to lose at the end of the season by icing sub-optimal line-ups and deliberately playing inferior goaltenders.

Wow. That's on par with Monty Python's Flying Circus's completely different. You really put your foot in it. (Stupid puns are how I am coping with the Sabres.)

The difference between you and me is that I put much more blame on the coach. IMHO, KA had no choice on that front; therefore I absolve him of the blame for hiring an incompetent. IMHO, this roster should contend for a playoff spot with passable coaching. But RK verges on Ron Rolston bad. IMHO, only a quasi-all-star line-up can overcome his level of incompetence -- and the Sabres were never getting that this season. That's why I am OK with him being kept around to learn somewhere other than GM.

I want to expound on your points as well as defend my evaluation. I view his tenure on paper as a net plus, but the minuses are significant. Extending my point I am not arguing that he did everything right, that everything is working, or that the team is playing better. I am saying that he did some very sensible things to fix the two glaring holes on the roster. I don't like to say it, as a purely practical matter, I figured that there was very little chance of getting a goaltender before the season when we got the rules with COVID-19 without overpaying horribly. I heard that Larsson, like Kahun, was offered more by Buffalo. Maybe or maybe not. Taylor Hall is a sensible addition to the top 6. I am not saying he's committed Sabre, but you seem to be arguing that last year's option, Vladimir Sobotka, would make this a better team. Another teams #1C in as your #2C in Staal seems like a sensible move. Continuing your counterpoint The defencive imbalance is one that I do pin on Adams. I don't know whom he could have got, but LHD for RHD seems eminently feasible at any time of year. His choice of bottom-6 forwards was sometimes mind-blowing. Several far better players were signed REALLY cheaply. I wonder if KA being named GM was a deterrent. Oh, and "Marvin, you ignorant slut."

IMHO, there is no excuse for being this bad. IMHO, the roster is clearly better than the NYR and NJD -- even if we account for potential declines in the performances of Staal and Hall due to age. There is no excuse for Skinner getting benched. There is no reason for Olofsson not being put on a lower line to improve his overall passing and defencive coverage. There is no justification for Okposo being in the top 6. And that's just the top 6 forwards. The Bottom 6 could be improved just by rebalancing the lines. Why are Dahlin and Ristolainen playing together when they need the same kind of partner to let them play their game? Just changing the coach will help immensely.

That was my reasoning for wanting him in player evaluation or some such. Heck, personal buffer between the GM and Coach and the Pegulas might be even more important.

The only pause I take with canning Adams is that he filled the roster in Buffalo and Rochester simultaneously better than the two guys before him. Obviously, he's not clueless. That already makes him more qualified than GMTM and GMJB from my angle. As such, I hope he is kept around somewhere in player evaluation and development.

God, the excerpts from the article make me want to cry. The Pegulas are to the NHL what Dan Snyder is to the NFL.

The players look like they don't believe in the system. I get this weird impression that every time something goes awry, they deviate more and more from it.

The more I evaluate the rosters and considered their styles, the more I think Housley's style is correct for this team. That was one of the reasons I wanted Lindy - it is the same system he prefers with a decently skilled team.

Waitaminnit, waitaminnit, waitaminnit. I thought that Skinner was benched for not playing "above the puck." You can't be an attacking team if you are trying to play low-event hockey above the puck. I see no push up ice, pressure in the offencive zone, or anything in any game which makes it look like they are trying to be an attacking team. This sentence is constructed to be as passive as the Sabres.