JohnC

I'm not trying to be impolite but your logic is askew. How in the world is the hockey franchise a success? Certainly, not by record and understandably lagging fan support. Your up is not my up and your down is not my down. The both of us have exhausted this topic. We're going in circles and will never intersect.

Absolutely, getting rid of Skinner was the right decision for us. My judgment on the team's operation is based on its performance for the past 13 years. That's more than enough body of work to make a fair judgment. At least it is for me.

You don't even recognize the incongruity of your own view/logic. Why is his football team a success while his hockey franchise is a generational failing team? After the ludicrous PR hiring of Rex Ryan, whom he fired and walked away with the remaining portion of a rich contract, he hired quality staff (coach and GM) and let them run the operation. Compare that to how he has overseen the hockey operation? He's churned through coaches and GMs who he hired. Is he meddling in the operation? I don't know to what extent. What I can say for sure is that since he has owned the hockey franchise it has not only not made the playoffs in nearly a generation, but it has sunk to being an irrelevant and invisible franchise in the NHL with a steadily eroding fan base. No matter what metric one uses to assess his tenure as an owner over the past 13 years, only one conclusion can be made: He has been a dismal failure. If you don't believe me then check the record. If your head is exploding it is from your twisted logic when attempting to declare success from stupendous in your face failure. 🙃

You hit a chord with me on the issue of having, or I should say, not having a standard to judge by. What a faction of the lenient evaluator crowd want many of us to do is to suspend the normal standards for evaluating success and failure. (As you noted.) It's basically dumbing down the standard and being required to be happy with the participation ribbon. I'm not going to fall into that debased world of mediocrity. I will not passively accept that standard in a competitive endeavor that has a simple basis to judge: W/Ls. Up is up and down is down. For most of us, we know the difference. It's not a difficult concept to grasp. For some, it's a challenge.

Why do you think attendance is down for the Sabres? I watched the KC game in Buffalo where the stadium was not only filled but was rocking from the beginning to the end? Why do you think there is such a difference in fan participation between the two franchises located in the same region?

Based on Carolina's record and playoff history over the past decade I would give a lot of credit to their decision-making. You are making a big mistake if you want to make a determinative judgment on a team's operation based on a single player transaction. Overall, their body of work associated with hockey decisions is stellar. How do I know? Their record and playoff participation. Overall, the body of work associated with Buffalo's hockey decision is to put it kindly is very inadequate. How do I know? Check out our record and playoff appearances over the past decade or so.

I have never been a Skinner basher. However, Carolina understood beyond the goal scoring stats what he was as a player and how he fit in with what the coaching staff wanted to establish as a team. (He didn't fit in.) We then belatedly came to our own conclusion about him as a player. It seems that Edmonton is now coming to the same realization. If one dimensional players are not prolific, they then become liabilities. He is what he is and what he has always been. Some organizations are quicker to see.

There are a variety of styles of ownership in hockey and all sports. There are involved owners who have a say in decisions and there are laissez-faire styles of ownership where the owner is completely detached from the operation. Regardless of the management style in the end what's being evaluated is the overall record. From that standpoint, our owner has been a dismal failure. You may find the question of rating our owner a difficult and complex issue. I don't. It's as simple as counting wins and losses.

Depends on what? What I know, and you know and everyone else knows is what his franchise's record is during his nearly a generation of ownership. It's not a mystery. If you want to ignore the reality of his tenure, that's your prerogative. His record as an owner is abysmal.

He's owned the team for I believe 13 years. During that period of time he was instrumental in the hiring process of the upper staff. The people who he hired to make the hockey decisions have not succeeded during that extended interlude. The onus of his decisions do not make him a successful owner, at least that is how I view it.

What's your take on how TP is doing? He's owned the hockey team for nearly a generation. His record is his record.

Public funds to build an acceptable venue are less likely to be used in Canada. So anyone interested in buying the team and moving it north would have to finance a new or renovated facility on their own. Don't see it happening for a Northen transaction.

As I get older the more I get befuddled. I try to gracefully accept my out of touch status. 😀

You're right that for the most part the Chiefs blunted the run game. But you still have to mix it in and keep their defense in check to prevent them from cutting loose and attacking the qb. Sticking with the run when there wasn't much production was the right approach to take in the game within the game.

What is a plerp?

I consider the Sabres as basically a middling team. For me, whether they are a .500 team or not is not a consequential issue. Even if they are a .500 team, so what! This franchise has become irrelevant as an NHL franchise. From a league narrative standpoint it is basically invisible. What's outrageous is that this descent has been going on for nearly a generation. That's ridiculous!

It's noticeable to me, too. There is also an "intensity" differential watching other teams compared to watching the too often flat Sabres. I do believe that the Sabres are a .500 team. What does that mean? You are striving to attain being mediocre. That in itself is pathetic.

There isn't any team that doesn't deal with injuries. Most teams play their backups significant amounts of time. There are a number of workhorse goalies but not as many as in the "old" era. It's inarguable that having a quality backup is important. But how much of an improvement is it with Reimer as the backup? What we got is what we got. Criticizing Lev's performances is warranted. What's also warranted is recognizing that the play in front of him on defense and offense is inadequate, to put it mildly. It's easy to point out particular deficiencies in this roster from the goalies to the forwards to the defensemen. The roster in general is simply inadequate not only from a talent standpoint but more indictable from an individual competitive level. The results shouldn't be surprising when you have a mediocre GM and a clueless owner. The most intolerable aspect of this team is that it is boring to watch. It didn't take me long to switch over to the Georgia vs Tenn college football game. There was passion on the field and in the stands. I have no doubt that when the injured players return the Sabres will be better. But so what? There is not enough talent or proper construction of the roster to sustain it for extended periods of time. Extended mediocrity becomes wretched mediocrity that is tough to take. It's so sad how irrelevant and invisible this franchise has become since the Puegula takeover.

Are you sure you didn't mean Adams re-signing being considered a "big" move"? That's more likely to be the case.

That's the solution for every game. Play hard and smart. Those traits weren't abundant enough in the Montreal and Islander games. Lost opportunities that were there for the taking.

That's exactly where I want Cozens located on the second PP unit. I agree with you that he's not much of a threat shooing from the perimeter. However, he has more utility when he mucks it up around the net.

The difference between this year and prior years is the coach. Lindy stresses net presence. He does have the ability to get in the tough areas and mix it up. We'll see. I didn't watch last night's game but from the highlights it seemed to me that he was around the net more. We'll see. Just a general observation not specific to Cozens is that this year under Lindy there is a greater effort by our players to hover around the net in our offensive zone and on the power play. Benson, one of our smaller players, and Greenway, one of our bigger players, are adept at it. And so is Zucker.

Assuming Cozens gets PP time, I believe that he should consistently be in the 25-30 goal range.

There is no question that unless your second line is offensively productive it is not fulfilling its role. It's evident that when a lower line is challenging the second line in production that you have a problem. I wasn't able to watch the Blues game but saw some clips of the game. It seems that Cozens is getting better as he gets more aggressive around the net, and with Quinn there is a slight uptick in his game. Although Quinn is a young player he has previously shown that he has a lot more potential to draw from. (Although not so much evident this season.) The Quinn malaise has really perplexed me. I thought that he was going to make a quantum leap this season. I'm not writing him off although much of the crowd already has.