JohnC

Let's celebrate a home win. https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/watch/1st-female-nz-army-chief-maj-gen-rose-king-honored-with-haka/vi-AA1u64eH?ocid=hpmsn

I have little problem with the additions. However, that is not to say that addressing the lower lines and making them faster and grittier were enough. In my view, it raised the floor but didn't do enough to impactfully improve the team. In my opinion, the exchange of Mitts for Byram was a mistake. It was an equal talent exchange but from a roster standpoint it hurt the roster. What I was hoping for was adding a second line caliber. Overall, collectively his decisions lacked the required impactful addition that needed to be made. Taking a casual approach when you are managing a middling roster is insufficient. There is little urgency and too much satisfaction in toddling along. Simply not good enough.

There is no question that prior to making a hockey decision that the GM has to run it by the owner. But as @Thorner has pointed out, there is nothing unusual about that. The owner wants to be kept in the loop before a decision is made. I don't find that surprising or a process/sequence to be critical of. There are some organizations where the hockey operation is completely separate from the corporate owner. But in an ownership structure of a single individual owner, he being involved or attuned to what is going on (however one wants to describe it) shouldn't be a surprise. There is no question that the GM has a more limited budget to work with than many other organizations have. But that limitation shouldn't be an explanation for every hockey decision the GM makes. Of course, our GM has made some good decisions. This offseason, he smartly rebuilt the lower lines. But overall, his body of work is average in a competitive field where you are going against other GMs who are wiser and more creative in working within their own challenging and often limiting environments. I haven't given up on this season just yet. However, I'm not going to dumb down what good work and success are. Your record is your record. No more excuses.

I'm not going to get involved in whether KA is qualified or not as a GM. What I can comfortably say that as a GM he is mediocre (at best). He's had more than enough time to implement his mostly "draft and develop" rebuild approach and get to the stage where his constructed team is seriously competing. By any measure (record and performance) this team has not reached that basic stage. I'm sad to say that but what is obvious is obvious. A good GM doesn't simply add players. His job is to construct a roster that can be molded into a good team. It's more than basic bricklaying. It's about getting the right players who support the developing players and elevate them. The standard for this franchise is so low that when it wins three games in a row many fans get deluded into believing that this team has broken through and has crossed the threshold of being more than respectable. Then the inevitable relapse brings the fans back to the dismal world of reality. I've used this metaphor on a number of occasions so excuse me for the redundancy. KA is a checkers player in a game with chess players. The rumor that he is considering make a big deal makes some people excited. Not I. It's his freaking job! When your team is stuck in the muck of generational mediocrity it is incumbent on your somnolent GM to wake up and try something else to alter the meandering course. It's his freaking job!

When you own a business the measurement of success is your profit margin. When you own a sports franchise the measurement of success is your W/L record. It's not much of a challenge to make a judgment on Pegula's ownership of the Sabres. It's an unvarnished failure in a system designed for parity.

Are you sure that is Cozens? I thought it was the devil.

What's perplexing to me is that when he bought the team the new owner let it be known that hockey was his favorite sport. He loudly declared that his goal was to win the Cup. When he first took over, he recklessly spent gobs of money on overrated talent. Especially during the covid era and afterwards, he seemed to be more attuned to the balance sheet. (I have no criticism of the owner's spartan operation during the covid era with empty arenas. Surviving was a challenge for most businesses.) After that tough business environment he became more interested in the balance sheet than the team stat sheet. What happened? Did he become more interested in his higher profiled football team? Did his wife's devastating illness alter his interest in his sports businesses? I don't know. What's bothersome is that I don't recall him making many (if any) public comments about the hockey team and what he expected of it. Has he lost his desire and interest in the team? As an owner, he's mostly silent and incommunicado. So what do we have to go on about judging his commitment. Based on how the team has operated it's basically a low budget operation. That is indisputable. My hope is that under Lindy, this team gains enough success to the point where the team becomes a factor in the league and the fans come back to fill the many available seats in the arena. Just maybe that might be the impetus for him to take this franchise more seriously and demonstrate a greater commitment by increasing his support $$$. @Brawndo your posts on this topic have been exemplary. In detail, you documented the facts. They are indisputable. Some people get bothered by having to face a reality that is an uncomfortable reality.

I respectfully but strenuously disagree with getting rid of the offsides rule. As you point out, there will be to many "goal hangers" if this basic rule was eliminated. It would in my opinion dramatically alter how the game is played. So my vote is a hard no!

I'll always remember his profile picture. RIP and condolences to his family. That's a young age to be laid to rest.

When discussing the cap one can get sidetracked/misled when comparing one contract to another. The Mitts for Byram contract comparisons really don't get to the core of the cap issue. The critical issue when discussing the cap under the recent Pegula tenure is about the aggregate expenditure. And on that issue as stressed by @Brawndo the organization has for the past number of years been demonstrably under the cap max limit and bordering on the cap minimum requirement. Hopefully, as you also point out, the cap expenditure will go up as some of our younger players' contracts come into play. In general, our GM has done a good job in adding medium level role players to strengthen the bottom of our roster. However, that is not to say that this underachieving organization didn't have the wherewithal (cap space) to bring in a second-line player to bolster another line. Even with the additions of Lafferty and Zucker, another second line talent could have been added if the desire was there to do so. That desire didn't exist.

The one thing that Lindy is doing well is balancing out the minutes for all four lines. It helps that the lower lines are playing well and eating up some of the minutes that the second line would normally get. In the long run, spreading out the minutes will lesson the fatigue and battered factors for the roster as the season grinds on. The difference between this year and previous years is that the team is at a stage where there is depth that can fill in without a major drop in performance.

I don't see profligate spending in the Pegula era. However, I'm not out of hand dismissing the possibility that there will be an uptick in spending as this team becomes more competitive. Will the money more likely be directed toward our young players as their contracts come due rather than outside players? Probably so. What this organization desperately needs is more success on the ice so that there will be more people in the stands $$$ so the balance sheet becomes more balanced. If that materializes, I do so the owner more willing to open the wallet.

My view of Gilbert is that he is a pedestrian and fringe player. But, in this game, for some odd reason the refs were determined to single him out. We have all heard the term "the teacher's pet" but in this case he was the "teacher's target". The calls against him were both unfair and baffling. As like you, I didn't really understand why Byram got such an absurd number of minutes. I'm not saying that he shouldn't have gotten a heavy workload, but it seemed way too large. I would have added a couple more minutes to Power and Clifton.

You are being too impatient with Quinn and Cozens. Since Benson returned to the line those players, and the line, have played better. From what I have recently scene, Cozens is playing better but simply isn't converting his chances.

All the transactions that included financial aspects that @Brawndo listed are factual. If you don't want to believe that the owner was the main driver in the subtraction of salary, that's okay. Hopefully, the Sabres are at a different stage of the rebuild where $$$ isn't such an influential factor in personnel decisions. But what is indisputable is that the Sabres over the past few years have been a low cap team.

Zucker is busy right now. He's icing his swollen junk.

A win is a freaking win! We won because our goalie was superb. How many times have we said that about the opposition's goalie after a loss when we outplayed the opposition? And there will be games where your players have heavy legs and seem like they are skating in mush, and surprisingly win a game on a fluke play when you get a fortuitous deflection off of someone's skate. The outcome in hockey games can be the result of flukish plays more so than in other sports. That's what makes it exciting and also exasperating. In general, were the Sabres outplayed yesterday? I would say yes, with the exception of the first 10 minutes where we dominated play. We came away with a win, where usually we don't. I take that as a good sign that this team has enough moxie to prevail when things aren't going fully our way. If you want to lament about it, that's fine. I look at this game as a fortunate win and be happy about it.

The quick start didn't go to the Sabres head. Calgary is a tough and grinding team that adjusted their game and then played the disciplined way they usually play. They stopped scrambling around and got back to the hardnosed and stifling style that they usually play. Let's give credit to the opposition. To our credit, the Sabres won a game that they usually would lose because they would act out of frustration and impatience instead of sticking to a more structured manner of playing. Despite some of the lamentations around here, this was a good win.

As you are indicating, Lindy is an experienced NHL coach who understands the players he has to work with and what it takes to build them up and upping their game. The psychology of the job is just as important, if not more important, than the Xs and Os. I'll take Lindy as a coach over Torts any day of the week. I also expect to see Samuelsson back in the lineup against Montreal.

https://www.nhl.com/standings/2024-11-09/division https://www.nhl.com/video/cgy-at-buf-recap-6364477369112 These links were taken from NHL.com

Some quick thoughts on this game: UPL is obviously the first star. He put this team on his back and held up like an old stone fort. In the first 10 minutes, we were dominating in our offensive zone. Those early minutes where we were dominating thereafter ended. The game was then played like a visitor's defensive game. Especially in the third period, I thought Calgary out played us with a lot more scoring chances. UPl played strong and kept us in the game. This is definitely a Lindy coached team with few breakdowns, although there were some. Compared to previous years, we showed that this is a more mature unit whose play adjusts to the character of the game. The big difference is the coach has enough players to play the lower lines more minutes. My unsung hero in this game was Greenway. He shined when we were down a man in OT. He's a big man who plays big and smart. After watching this game it is difficult to single out many players (except for UPL) for their exceptional play because they all played soundly within the system. Surely, there were some breakdowns but in a fast paced game there will always be some breakdowns. If Tuch was a better finisher he would be an all-star. Byram played more than 32 minutes. He and Dahlin seemed to always be on the ice. I can't say that the Cozens line stood out but they appear to incrementally be getting better. Thier line did score a goal. Tage's blasts are awe inspiring. JJP's shoutout goal was sparkling. Calgary is a good and tough team. A win against them should be appreciated. Let's go for 4 straight Monday.

If you usually beat the teams that you should, then from a playoff standpoint you should be in good shape. Losing to the Islanders at home when their best player was back in Jersey was a gut wrenching WTF loss. You can't throw away those golden opportunities when presented because those "should have" points add up in the year end tally. For this team, the margin of error is small. Just maybe, one positive takeaway from that enraging loss was that it made the coach lose his patience and put some slacker heads on the chopping block that resulted in the rest of the lineup to play with more purpose and attention to details. There are a lot of things to focus on watching this game. For me, I will give special attention to the Benson/Cozens/Quinn line. If that line can play up to the expectation many of us had for it, that would be a major plus for this team as the season moves on. If not, the coach will be involved on another line reshuffling.

You bring up an interesting issue (intended or not) regarding scouting and roster building when comparing Zucker to Hall. Too often for the Sabres, the decision-makers seemed to be more interested in adding players without consideration to what the actual team need was. This offseason, there was a decided effort to better balance out this roster and have players who fit roles. The bottom half of our roster has been dramatically overhauled with the addition of nearly half a dozen players, who although none of them would be categorized as upper tier players, all are tough and responsible players. Collectively, they brough an element of maturity that did not previously exist and also had the benefit of supporting our younger players. I have been critical of KA for some specific deals (notably Mitts for Byram) but in general this was a good offseason for the front office. It didn't splurge but rather was judicious and discriminating in who they brought in. Maybe this can be attributed to the Lindy influence?

I wouldn't dangle Samuelsson for a first rounder. We don't need future draft picks; we need players who can play now. This team is starting to have depth that will come into play as the season grinds on. Samuelsson seemed to lose some of his game since having to contend with a series of injuries. I'm confident he will get it back. He's far from being an upper echelon player but that doesn't mean that he can't be a solid/good player for us this season.

Some quick thoughts on this game: The first star should go to UPL. His positioning was superb and he was always under control. This was a game where it was hard to single out any one particular player because everyone played well. Our forwards were all over the Rangers not giving them any space to work with. Our defense got the puck quickly and efficiently out of the zone. Benson has perked up the Cozens line. What was encouraging is that Quinn is getting more active. If this line can play well it balances out our offense. Clifton and Gilbert are playing well. The neatest play of the game was Zucker winning on battle on the boards and making a nifty puck to Greenway for the score. Shesterkin was horrible. The first goal he gave up to Dahlin was horrible. It should have been an easy stop. What's encouraging beyond the recent two winning games is how this team played. They were tough, gritty and tenacious. The players are buying in to how Lindy wants them to play. The players that KA added this offseason have altered the character of this team for the better. Greenway is becoming one of my favorite players. When you get good netminding it gives you a good chance to win. UPL is seizing the opportunity to be our primary goalie. Great win. Let's keep it going and get back into the fray sooner rather than later.