EM88

Do you read many of the posts on this forum? I have only been posting for a few months. However, even I have read a lot of the things others in this thread are referring to. While much of it is opinion, much of it is not. There are many links to articles written by insiders. Also some direct statements by Kim and Terry Pegula have been brought up numerous times in previous threads.

The timing of those transition items might be tough.

Disagree. Although I am sure if you are being sarcastic or not due to others calling it a winless streak or not. If it is sarcasm I am missing, then this reply isn't needed. It is not a pointless streak of course. They have earned some points. Those OT losses are still losses. Hence, a losing streak.

Calm down? Yet you are the one who keeps responding asking me how to react to you? I think you need to look in the mirror and read your own comments. You are also the one who has called me, and others 'cute' nicknames that I can only think allow you to think that you are more clever than you are for putting them out there. Your act on this forum is tired. And I have not even been there all that long as an active poster.

I do think that is what most of us want. I think we had it. Was it or was it not Terry Pegula himself who said no? My understanding is when covid hit, Terry and Kim wanted to slash costs. They wanted to cut the scouting staff, the development staff and possibly spend less on the roster, although that last point is up for debate. Botts was the general manager and he said no. He told the Pegulas how that would impact the organization going forward. He was, in reality, being his own man, and telling the owner what was best for the organization from a hockey perspective. Pegula certainly was rich enough to continue to pay those guys. But Terry and Kim said no. They fired Botts for being his own man and looking out for the hockey department. Kim or Terry were quoted right after saying Botts was fired because he was not listening to them and the direction they wanted. I agree that having someone act as a yes man to the owner is a problem. But when the owner not only will not hire someone different, but actually fired someone he worked with for a couple years because he was being his own man? I just don't see how you get around that owner being the roadblock to what this team needs. I do not think anyone on this board knows what happened or his happening for sure. But putting together what we do know of the past. Articles. Quotes from Terry and Kim Pegula directly, Put all that together and it seems like there is so much more pointing to Terry and Kim wanting to protect their money and cut spending, rather than Kevin Adams deciding on his own to not sign veterans.

You are definitely not promoting board engagement. When you tell people they are wrong because of what you consider facts that others do not agree with, that is not promoting engagement, that is provoking confrontation. And do not fall down back-peddling too hard on your use of the word fact. I read your posts. You did not just push your opinions as fact one time, you did it over and over. Say something once in jest and it may be justified as just a word on the internet. With the level you pushed it, it is a lot more than that. It is a sign you refuse to accept someone elses opinioin and you are going to try to beat them down with your version of facts, which are not facts. Your rep on the board? what is the measure of that rep? Your post count? So I should bow down before your opinion because of your 'self assigned' rep on this forum? I will not. Dear Admins? Can you tell me where I may find the list of the rankings of posters by their rep on this board? Anyone? Or should I just refer to Thorner as the authority on this? I guess we can all have opinions, except when it goes against what Thorner states are his facts. Got it? No, I do not, and i will not.

No I was not but I never claimed to be. Read the context of the entire back and forth of my discussion. You can see asking me if I was every any of those things is not the issue, I didn't bring up that part of the converstation and topic.

It is apparent that no one else's thoughts or opinions matter other than your own. We all want to give our opinion, but you have a quality in your responses to me where you post wanting to be the sole authority on things. Responding to a post not with reasoning but just to call me wrong because my opinion doesn't meet your standard as fact? That is really coming from an ego centric thought process of posting. This is not a court of law. I should not be labeled as *in fact* wrong by you simply because I have not yet proven to you what you want, or do not want, to have proven.

Were you a player in the NHL? Were you a person who worked inside the building, possibly working with the scouting department? Were you a person who was an assistant coach, undoubtedly having conversatations with members of management while doing so? Your argument is so off base and you are stretching so much it is crazy.

This is what you just don't get. He is not DEFINITIVELY a problem in all of our minds. He might be a problem. With the conditions he operates under pegula, there is no way I can be confident he is a problem. There is a chance he pushed for the Cozens contract. There is a chance he decided he wanted his young guys locked up and pushed for the Cozens, Tage, Power and Dahlin deals. There is a chance he looked back at the Sabres of the past and saw all the young guys come up and succeed in 2005-06 and thought they could duplicate it with few veterans this time. And by all of the above, the 'he' I mention is Pegula not Adams. You can use the words of 'ending the debate', 'thats a fact' call me stubborn, sticking my head in the sand. Using terms like that don't make you right. Personally declaring something is a fact in a post on a message board does not prove it, not matter how much you want it to be true, you just might be wrong.

I do not care if he gets another shot. My point is there is no difference if he gets another shot or someone else is brought in under the same conditions. Adams getting another shot without the constraints of ownership is better than someone else being brought in with the current ownership issues and under the same conditions.

No that is not my argument at all, not in the least. You are really trying to derive something that isn't there. My argument is there is little way to know if he is or isn't a good GM. The best way to find out is to remove the constraints he is under. Possibly the biggest part of my argument is any other GM that is brought in, if under the same constraints from the owner, is likely to have similar results to keeping Adams here. Let Adams be a GM. He may be bad, but he may be good. We cannot tell if he is bad because he has not been allowed to be a "GM" freely. If he fails at that point, remove him.

Maybe there actually is a big trade in the works but the Sabres think the other side is trying to squeeze them on the deal. Letting word out that the team was told to not expect a big trade just might be the Sabres way of try send a message to the other team. I am not sure if that kind of thing works in the NHL circles but who knows.

Adams was hired with a General manager title, but he was not hired as a general manager. His job duties are that of one of a group of many in the hockey department, but also a shield for criticism that belongs to Pegula. A lap dog for Pegula. Someone to implement the fantasy hockey wishes of Terry Pegula. I wish to see what Kevin Adams can do as an actual General manager with some autonomy. I do not believe he has had it. Judging someone as a bad GM over 5 years when he has not been allowed to operate as an actual GM over those 5 years does not cut it for me.

When you say No one I would tend to disagree. There are not a lot of us but there are more than 2 of us who think Adams is not the problem.

You may be correct that Adams is the biggest problem with the team. I personally am not at that point yet thinking other issues around him are just as bad as him. We can disagree for a while. But as low as my current opinion of Terry Pegula is, him giving the team that message just lowered it a tad bit more.

The last part is the most disappointing. This team could use a shake up. But even if a trade is not on the horizon, why tell them that? This team seems to feel comfortable and appears to not push themselves too hard, there is a perception they are fragile mentally. If that is the case, and it appears it is the case, then I want that sword of damocles of a potential trade hanging over their head.

The issue is not so much who gets Pettersson going. Rather who can Pettersson help to get going. He is already 26. He has 436 regular season games and 30 playoff games. He has 438 regular season points. This is his 7th full season in the NHL. He would instantly become the most experienced/successful center on this team. If you are going to team anyone with the young wingers, he is the most qualified to do so.

It is not as easy as a yes or no question. The first round pick is just one of many young assets this team has. So is the first pick the following year. Kulich. Rosen. Levi. Helenius. Östlund. If I am going to trade my first overall pick and not protect it, the return better be very good. If you are putting some kind of lottery protection on that pick or you are talking one of the other prospects, than sure, make that trade. If you get someone that is going to help this team right now, then they should trade a future asset for it.

Pettersson is much better player than Cozens, but his production is way, way down and he cost a lot of money. He played 62 games last year before signing. In those 62 games he had 29 goals and 46 assists. After signing, including the playoffs until now he also has played 62 games. 14 goals and 32 assists. It is not only that, he currently has 2 goals in his last 12 games. You cannot afford that slump in production from a guy in his prime late-20s who is making that much money. He is a big chance at $11.6m until his mid 30's. Right now he is giving them Casey Mittlestadt like production at double the price. As much as I think Cozens hurts this team, I am not sure you trade him for a player who is producing only slightly better but is getting paid so much. If that trade was there, I would do it. I like Bryams game quite a bit, but I would still do it, providing you get a D-man back from Vancouver that is a decent, NHL level guy. Cozens off this team with Pettersson centering Benson and Quinn or Peterka? That is interesting.

I tend to agree. The power play is a function of a few things. One of them is random chance. Take a look on a busy night in the NHL at all the powerplay goals. Sometime nearly half of them are on funny bounces of the boards, unplanned deflections, or getting knocked in around a scrum. The rest of the powerplay lies more in how the defending team plays defense than your own offensive structure. The key to that may be do you do enough, or do you have the players on the ice, that will encourage the defending unit to break structure? To do that I think you need accurate passers who have a good hockey awareness, who can pass and move the puck quickly at times without losing control of it. The Sabres do not seem to have those type of players, or at least they are not playing that way right now. Other than that, have accurate shooters on the net and guys with hockey sense. Don't shoot the puck into the shinpads of the defender just because the crowd is yelling SHOOT! Or do not cut to the center of the ice and take a shot without regard to where your teammates are just because you have that 0.5 second to get off the shot yourself. This one is the reason they need to get Cozens off the Powerplay. There are some powerplays where if you isolate on him, he does things that seemingly single-handedly sink the Sabres powerplay.

The majority of his micromanagement comes in 2 forms: Not paying guys/spending to the cap when good vets were needed alongside the young developing guys, and Terry Pegula actually input into roster construction in a way that he does it so more as a fan than as a skilled, experienced hockey guy. A fantasy league hockey GM in essense. He has his hockey department and GM do the leg work just like the guys who publish fantasy ratings on a website do the deep dives, and Pegula takes that, along with likeing what he sees in a player, and that is the limit of his input and skill. There was a very long post by someone else a week ago that put it well. The Sabres were in position to bring in some very good vets here, better than guys like Erik Johnson, but they would have had to likely 'overpay' to do so. Having Cozens on a line with 2 good vets, not guys like Tyson Jost, or having both Power and Dahlin the past 2 years playing with 2 good Vet D-men would have helped their development. Its not the GM that says he doesn't want to spend money, it has been well documented that Pegula put caps on spending, an owner cap the Sabres followed, not a league cap. I think Cozens is a bad overall hockey player. Cozens does not know how to play defense. Cozens is not clutch in anyway. Cozens makes mistakes that cost goals and seems to have no ability or desire to set up his teammates in the offensive zone. So why is he getting paid $7m long term? He only had goals to 'earn' that deal for half a season before it was offered to him, and he had no-where near a complete game? There is a lot of smoke and some fire if you look back into that deal being signed that Pegula was behind it. There are other posters on this board that have documented that with quotes and/or article links in the past.

Cozens is now playing close to like I expected him to. He is on pace for 15 goal, 35-40 points with being terrible on the powerplay and Penalty killing and bad defensively. I expected him to score about 20 goals and have 45-50 points, as well as being terrible on the powerplay and penalty killing and bad defensively. That is not too much of a difference. The issue with Dylan Cozens is most people, apparently the Sabres organization itself, seems to overlook him being bad on the Powerplay, bad on the penalty kill, and being bad defensively. Those things are not new, that is who he is and that is why, despite his draft pedigree, he is just not a good player overall. At this point I do not think there is any 'saving him'. Even if he scores 25-30 it will not help the team all that much if he doesn't improve his all around game. He has shown few signs of that happening, or a willingness or effort to do so in my eyes.

Tage is playing at a 50+ goal, +13 plus/minus pace. Shooting 18.8%. I'm pretty sure that not only matches his 'career' year, but beats it in those metrics. Beats last year, beats 3 years ago, beats 4 years ago, etc.

The owner is top of my list.