K012010

The way he talks and acts and how he specifically talked about these deals really sounded like he thought he was gaming the system. That no one else had ever thought of trying this. His fatal flaw is his arrogance imo. Instead of executing a tried and true rebuild process with tangible steps of progress to achieve, he went for an ultra risky dynasty build. It really comes down to the whole walk before you can run thing. He didn’t have experience as a general manager, and instead of deferring to more experienced smarter people who had shown the path to rebuilding a franchise, he tries to build some dynasty. Now we are literally anchored even worse than before. I hope I’m wrong, but Adams may have caused the most damage of any of our general managers throughout this entire drought. That’s a really scary thought.

I thought that a really telling thing he said early on regarding Samuelson and one other person it might’ve been Joker— basically said he’s still trying to figure them out. I thought it was interesting to hear the tone he said that with. What he was referring to clearly was just not understanding how they could be so lackadaisical so frequently, also lacking effort consistently. You can tell he just doesn’t understand these younger players as far as how do you not show up ready to play your last game every night. Especially when you’re in your early to mid 20s. I think he is hamstrung pretty badly with some of these contracts or else he would sit a lot of these guys or just force them to get shipped out. Also why he constantly praises Benson because he’s the only young guy we have who plays like an NHL player should.

Not that we didn’t know it at the time, but the risk of signing all these young guys to massive longterm deals to ‘get a better rate’ was obscenely risky. The outcome we’re dealing with was the most likely one. Great idea to hand out Rob Johnson contracts to kids like hot cakes, Kevin.

Wtf is Kulich thinking with some of these passes

I really enjoyed the Panthers’ runs the last two years. How I’d love to see the Sabres built.

Everybody have a great rest of your day, I’m going to take a drive and enjoy the rest of this beautiful weather, cruise up to Amelia Arena in Tampa and most likely drive straight into the biggest palm tree outside. I’ll let you know if I get to hockey heaven, and if I do, I’ll inform them that they gave Terry the wrong address. See you on the other side. P.S. I am (probably) joking.

Rob Ray — “ honestly Dan, not a bad effort from the guys today. Look they’re still young. They were probably out late last night pounding Appletinis” — “Mocktails for Benson” *laughter* Rob — “ very good point Dan. So what I was saying overall pretty good effort, not the result we’re hoping for obviously but it’s a young team. I think we all know there’s some growing pains here. Sorry I gotta jet, Dan. Terry just let me know I need to return my zip up to the Sabres store.”

Heck yeah! That’s what I want out of my number one overall defenseman! Points

There’s still a tiny part of me that wakes up every morning thinking Jay McKee’s shin is not going to be ravaged by staph infection and we’re going to close out Rod the Schnoz and company in style en route to a sweep of the oilers. Be honest guys… am I grasping at straws here?

I actually live surrounded by palm trees. This is the first time in over 10 years that I’ve even thought about palm trees. So thank you Kevin for making me appreciate living in a prime destination for young hockey stars.

I’ve refused to shave mine since the hockey gods stole our Stanley cup in 05’-06’ I look like Gandalf now

No, I’m fully on board that it’s the whole coaching staff. I was very excited about Lindy that coming back for the sole purpose of instilling accountability with this team. I don’t think Lindy was my first choice, but once the decision was made, this was the only thing I was happy about because I knew that he would not play players who weren’t playing the right way. I was incorrect.

Good then maybe we can bring in Brandon Bean after the bills win a Super Bowl to simply sort out the personnel on this team in our prospect pool. I would bet a lot of money that Brandon Bean could do a better job of profiling the personality and emotional make up of our prospects than Kevin could do. Just based on natural instincts and feel. This is what has made the bills a winner in large part. Sean and Brandon know how to clock a person when they meet them and talk to them. Kevin is so wrapped up in his own ego that he just probably believes anything a prospect says during an interview.

Oh, OK. I got it. You are defending Adams and the coaching staff as a whole. Which is totally fine that’s your prerogative. But you can be more direct instead of giving fortune cookie basic level statements.

Are you driving at something? You keep making statements that I think everyone agrees with. I’m just trying to figure out if there’s something specific you’re trying to convey.

Absolutely. We had all the pieces we needed to drive a serious rebuild into something special.

I love Tage, but if there’s somebody who needs to sit and watch the game with specific instructions on what to focus on, it’s the baby giraffe.

Absolutely I love UPL. And I’ve been defending him for years as far as needing patience. Same with Levi. We’re going to have one of the best goalie tandems for a long time soon. I’m just very, very upset about the power play coaching and the inability to get another player or two specifically for that who can help with zone entry.

It also doesn’t applying remotely the same way as NFL players. 90+ percent of these kids grow up in very similar environments. I’ll be smaller ones. They’re not looking to go to Miami and go to clubs. While they are still young people who probably want to have fun, it’s just a completely different situation as far as what they’re looking for in a professional hockey city.

Because it was when Kevin said how we’re doing fine, five on five, and then Kevin defended the coaching staff when we started talking about a power-play in the struggles there

No, I was talking about the rest of the coaching staff, which is what the question was more geared to yesterday, specifically the power-play struggling yet we have the same coaches.

I really want Lindy to start being incredibly cutthroat with who he sits and who he plays. The focus has to be entirely on playing the right way at all times. When or lose it has to be about making the right decisions constantly. If Tate tries a stupid dangle and loses the puck, he sits for a shift. If somebody does a ridiculously stupid drop behind his back half spin and we don’t get a shot on an overtime, call somebody else and have him play. Or put in the healthy scratch. All contracts and all thoughts regarding players have to be put aside and told his team understands how they’re supposed to play at this level every single game every single shift. If you take a stupid shot that is blocked that leads to a two on one go in the other way, you sit. if you fail to clear the area in front of UPL that leads to a goal, you sit for a game. I would rather have this process go an entire season of getting this attitude to sync into their heads, and have a terrible record, then have to put up with watching the same mistakes every single night. Basic mistakes.

I honestly think my least favorite thing Kevin said yesterday was how great our coaching staff is, and that every player on the team would agree with that if you asked them. That’s a frightening response by a general manager. So you want us to ask a bunch of guys who are technically losers with the way that they play what they think of the coaching staff’s ability.

What’s worse about this drought with the Sabres than with the bills is that we all recognized the issue with never bottoming out in order to get a franchise changing quarterback to start the whole process off the right way. Which just continued a decade plus long tease. Well, the Sabres have bottomed out multiple times and yeah, while we definitely got screwed out of McDavid by the NHL, we have had the opportunity to choose a franchise changing player several times. And even if you don’t get that generational guy, we got top tier guys who would absolutely facilitate a great rebuild. And we’re still in the same situation. This is a nightmare scenario that is so much worse than the Buffalo Bills drought ever was.

A couple more more number one overall picks ought to do it right?