OrangeSeatVertigo

but making that annual run to .500 by season - end. highlight of the year ! 🙂

You can't build an NHL team via the draft alone. You need to get existing high level talents to come as free agents as well. But they won't when they have palm trees and zero state taxes as an alternative. Hockey is a winter sport, and the last place today's single, rock star millionaire pro athletes want to be in the winter is WNY paying sky high taxes. For example, show me 5 unmarried Bills players who stay in WNY for 5 minutes after the season is over. Sucks, bc we know its a good place to be, but it is what it is. Adams handled that issue in a less than smooth way, but he was right that his hands are somewhat tied when it comes to improving the roster. for f's sake, he's sitting on a pile of cap space, ready to spend it and the best players still have b lo at the top of their no-trade list. The "No Trade" list is a testament to how rare the difference makers are in the NHL (that clubs have to agree to it to get them) Not sure there is a solution here as you need to have a great organization and be good on the ice to attract top players and coaches, but you need top players and a great front office/coaches to be good. Its a very nasty Catch-22 situation with the fan base taking the biggest hit.

yeah anyone who thinks pro sports team Head Coaches report to the GM is about 30 years out of phase

the US/Canada game was great.

who would want the job? what a crappy situation to plop into

Obviously, with the improved goaltending, they made a mistake in firing Granato and his go go go score as much as possible offense. they strategy probably works if the goaltending is good. win every game 7-5. works for me. Bring Granato style back. It will work now.

not sure there actually IS a path to avoid the ship sinking.. FAs won't come; trade targets will block any trade to the Sabres; the young guys have guaranteed contracts therefore top 10-12 guys aren't changing in the near term...

without the long term contracts, the players would have left in free agency. so at least the team controls where the player goes, not the player... I get it, that is small consolation, but WNY is a toxic NHL destination for players right now. not sure what the roster would be if the long term contract guys were not there... would be worse than it is now I would imagine. Not sure how to fix this/// letting go anyone who had a hand in screwing up the Eichel relationship would be the 1st step I would imagine. Can you imagine what Eichel says about this organization?

yeah none of this is about $$. Lindy has more than enough of that; he has stated this was his last coaching gig; so yeah this will be where he goes up to the front office and off the bench. He's a good hockey guy, but the roster is so young, light, small and soft that it needs to fitted out with tougher guys.

this is what i think happens. Ruff is his buddy and no coach will be able figure this out with this roster build. don't make Ruff the scapegoat. Scotty Bowman couldn't succeed with this baby faced roster. Time to do a Bills/2016-style reset. Trade away the AHL-level figure skaters and get tougher.

Yeah they're pretty much f'd with all the guaranteed contracts they've put out (not faulting them for it, as no FA will come to this franchise and all the players who can turn it around have no trade lists in their contract and B Lo is on all those no trade lists). So... it looks like this is akin to what McBeanes inherited with the Bills. They need to simply dump anyone in the front office responsible for the Eichel debacle plus the contracts of all the Marcel Dareus' of the world (those who won't go to the net, for example), take the hits and start anew. So a bunch of Eichel-type deals trading away the best figure skater talents (Quinn, etc) for tough guys. Become a tough team. So my guess is that Lindy takes Adams job and a new tough guy coach comes in. Go win games 2-1. The better FA talents in the league simply will simply not be willing to come to the Sabres for several years to come and all trades will be blocked by no trade contract terms. Pegs needs to see the similarities between his current hockey franchise and the Rex Ryan 2016 Bills; change it out from the top down and start over.

Just a bunch of young talented guys playing against teams full of veteran, solid NHLers. Looks like an AHL team playing NHL teams. It will be awhile before they grow up. The NHL draft (unlike the NFL draft) doesn't usually generate immediate solutions. NHL games are won by experienced, big, tough vets. Sabres are building that, but not there now thats for sure.

The Bills went through the same thing for more years and came out of it. Seems when you draft high in the NHL, there needs to be a generation talent there (Lemieux, Crosby, McDavid) not the Dahlins/Powers of the world, or else you just continue in mediocrity. Bills draft Rosen instead of Allen, and they still suck to this day. Not sure the owner has a lot to do with it, or has a ton of input to it. What does Pegula know about hockey? What would you expect him to know about hockey? His job was to save the franchise which was close to pulling out of town.. and he did that.

the better free agent with no trade clauses simply do not want to play for this franchise, similar to the Bills during the drought