Whose idea was the tank and whose decision was it?

[GASabresIUFAN]

I’ll say it again, the tank was successful, it was the post-tank rebuild that failed. I really thought that given the current roster with new players brought in by Botts and new coach that they would contend for a playoff spot this year.

 

To answer your question, I’ll continue to think the tank was a good move. What happened in the rebuild was a failure to build off the tank.

 

I keep trying to figure out what other strategy people wanted the Sabres to do?  DR tried the FA route, spent millions and failed.  He had no credible pipeline to replace the players lost to free agency.  His key centers, Roy, Connolly and then Coho had injuries and then illness which destroyed their effectiveness.  The core was dying.  Other then rebuild what were they supposed to do?

[Drunkard]

I keep trying to figure out what other strategy people wanted the Sabres to do? DR tried the FA route, spent millions and failed. He had no credible pipeline to replace the players lost to free agency. His key centers, Roy, Connolly and then Coho had injuries and then illness which destroyed their effectiveness. The core was dying. Other then rebuild what were they supposed to do?

They were supposed to keep their aging veterans like Pominville, Miller, and Ott while making Vanek the highest paid player in the league. Then we were supposed to rebuild the right way, with a bunch of picks in the teens. Anything less would be considered tanking and there would be a pox on us all.

[nfreeman]

I keep trying to figure out what other strategy people wanted the Sabres to do?  DR tried the FA route, spent millions and failed.  He had no credible pipeline to replace the players lost to free agency.  His key centers, Roy, Connolly and then Coho had injuries and then illness which destroyed their effectiveness.  The core was dying.  Other then rebuild what were they supposed to do?

 

Bring in a better GM, who would do a better job in drafting prospects, bringing in FAs, trading and hiring coaches.  Keep the team in the playoffs, or at least in playoff contention, and incrementally add quality players -- who are much more interested in joining a decent team than a DFL one -- via trade and FA.

 

Above all, do NOT panic and put all your eggs in a basket that requires a highly unlikely scenario to unfold in order to escape the basement.  Because once you're in the loserville quicksand, it's really GD hard to escape it, which is why it usually doesn't happen -- and that's when your team becomes NHL Siberia, your franchise player mails it in half the time, your young players learn bad habits and your home games turn into half-empty, boring shows of discontent.

[Randall Flagg]

They were supposed to keep their aging veterans like Pominville, Miller, and Ott while making Vanek the highest paid player in the league. Then we were supposed to rebuild the right way, with a bunch of picks in the teens. Anything less would be considered tanking and there would be a pox on us all.

There is middle ground between this and scorching the roster like no team has done before or since, leading to by far the worst metrics, advanced and otherwise, that any team has put out since a lot of them started being tracked. 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Randall Flagg

[Crusader1969]

I'll ask both of you the same question I asked Liger, which he ducked:  if they are bottom-5 again next year, will you think the tank was a bad move?  If not, what if they are bottom-5 again the following year?

 

 

let me ask you this, without the tank -where would this team be right now? can you figure out any scenario that would make them anything more that a middle of the pack team?

[WildCard]

There is middle ground between this and scorching the roster like no team has done before or since, leading to by far the worst metrics, advanced and otherwise, that any team has put out since a lot of them started being tracked. 

We more than enough opportunities to recover/replenish the roster since. We just used them poorly 

[Randall Flagg]

let me ask you this, without the tank -where would this team be right now? can you figure out any scenario that would make them anything more that a middle of the pack team?

So easily. 

 

2014 - they finish mediocre and get to pick 8th, and get a better player than the one they got in Ehlers or Nylander. Maybe luck into Pastrnak or Point later on, but that would have nothing to do with the standings finish. 

 

2015 - the biggest drop off, but say they finish 8th again and land Provorov or Werenski. Or Barzal if you want them to finish 15th, a guy with a better season this year than Eichel has ever had. 

 

2016. McAvoy or Sergachev instead of Nylander, although one of these years maybe they get lucky and land in the lottery. Also, they're probably a little worse at this point than in our current universe so maybe they get super lucky and get a Laine or Matthews. If we don't want to give them any luck, there's still Tkachuk. 

 

Still make the ROR trade, be smarter than what appears to be the worst GM in franchise history, and maybe last year is the last season of bottoming out, and we have Petersson coming over next season to give us a young, fast, deep lineup that most assuredly has more hope than this dreary sack of that is about to kick in a $10mil contract on its "franchise player" who hasn't scored 60 points or 25 goals once yet (yes, I'm aware that he'd shatter those numbers in a full season but it's not a good look) with 22 million tied up in KO, Pominville, Moulson, and Bogosian 

 

There's no doubt in my mind that right now we'd feel better about this team than we do currently had we not tanked, and that our cap and lineup would not have anywhere near this many washed out vets, many of whom were signed solely to reach cap floors because we purposely had a roster so bad it wasn't allowed to play in the league.

[SwampD]

What other moving targets are there? Being successful in the draft? Hiring a good head coach? Not being an idiot in FA? Those are the same moving targets every successful team has to hit

Exactly! So why willingly sacrifice 2+ season to tank?

Just rebuild properly.

[Sabre Dance]

let me ask you this, without the tank -where would this team be right now? can you figure out any scenario that would make them anything more that a middle of the pack team?

You're kidding, right?  Right now, I'd settle for middle of the pack. The last time I looked, the Sabres were dead frickin' last in the league. I think without the tank, we could still have easily managed to do that...

[North Buffalo]

Exactly! So why willingly sacrifice 2+ season to tank?Just rebuild properly.

Unfortunately water under the bridge at this point. Hopefully the Sharks win the whole thing then fall off the cliff with their old guys and Sabres get a least one lottery pick or two next year. Again JBots seems to rebuilding the right way now and hope he keeps it going. Edited March 29, 2018 by North Buffalo

[GASabresIUFAN]

So easily. 

2014 - they finish mediocre and get to pick 8th, and get a better player than the one they got in Ehlers or Nylander. Maybe luck into Pastrnak or Point later on, but that would have nothing to do with the standings finish. 

2015 - the biggest drop off, but say they finish 8th again and land Provorov or Werenski. Or Barzal if you want them to finish 15th, a guy with a better season this year than Eichel has ever had. 

 

2016. McAvoy or Sergachev instead of Nylander, although one of these years maybe they get lucky and land in the lottery. Also, they're probably a little worse at this point than in our current universe so maybe they get super lucky and get a Laine or Matthews. If we don't want to give them any luck, there's still Tkachuk. 

 

Still make the ROR trade, be smarter than what appears to be the worst GM in franchise history, and maybe last year is the last season of bottoming out, and we have Petersson coming over next season to give us a young, fast, deep lineup that most assuredly has more hope than this dreary sack of ###### that is about to kick in a $10mil contract on its "franchise player" who hasn't scored 60 points or 25 goals once yet (yes, I'm aware that he'd shatter those numbers in a full season but it's not a good look) with 22 million tied up in KO, Pominville, Moulson, and Bogosian 

 

There's no doubt in my mind that right now we'd feel better about this team than we do currently had we not tanked, and that our cap and lineup would not have anywhere near this many washed out vets, many of whom were signed solely to reach cap floors because we purposely had a roster so bad it wasn't allowed to play in the ###### league.

This rebuild on the fly doesn’t work. You assume we’d make better draft decisions/get lucky and develop the players properly. DR’s pipeline was so bad he rushed Z and Grigorenko to Buffalo without proper development. What makes you think he would have done it right on the fly?

[WildCard]

So easily. 

 

2014 - they finish mediocre and get to pick 8th, and get a better player than the one they got in Ehlers or Nylander. Maybe luck into Pastrnak or Point later on, but that would have nothing to do with the standings finish. 

 

2015 - the biggest drop off, but say they finish 8th again and land Provorov or Werenski. Or Barzal if you want them to finish 15th, a guy with a better season this year than Eichel has ever had. 

 

2016. McAvoy or Sergachev instead of Nylander, although one of these years maybe they get lucky and land in the lottery. Also, they're probably a little worse at this point than in our current universe so maybe they get super lucky and get a Laine or Matthews. If we don't want to give them any luck, there's still Tkachuk. 

 

Still make the ROR trade, be smarter than what appears to be the worst GM in franchise history, and maybe last year is the last season of bottoming out, and we have Petersson coming over next season to give us a young, fast, deep lineup that most assuredly has more hope than this dreary sack of ###### that is about to kick in a $10mil contract on its "franchise player" who hasn't scored 60 points or 25 goals once yet (yes, I'm aware that he'd shatter those numbers in a full season but it's not a good look) with 22 million tied up in KO, Pominville, Moulson, and Bogosian 

 

There's no doubt in my mind that right now we'd feel better about this team than we do currently had we not tanked, and that our cap and lineup would not have anywhere near this many washed out vets, many of whom were signed solely to reach cap floors because we purposely had a roster so bad it wasn't allowed to play in the ###### league.

I get you're answering his question about potential scenarios, but at the time everyone on here liked our first round picks over Boston's, everyone on here loved the O'Reilly trade, and everyone on here loved the Samson pick (well, some wanted Drasaitl). It's revisionist history 

 

Also, what you're doing still isn't applicable in the draft. What you're saying is 'we should have drafted player X over player Y'. Well, the tank doesn't prohibit you from doing that at all. We could have picked player X, the tank allowed us that choice, we just didn't.

 

Let's not pretend Barzal and Eichel are remotely comparable

 

Exactly! So why willingly sacrifice 2+ season to tank?

Just rebuild properly.

Because we did that for years, and never got anywhere. The fact remains that the in today's NHL the teams that have won Cups consistently drafted highly in the draft, so we tried to do just that. Rebuilding properly can be done by tanking and simply drafting quality players besides just the top guy you hit on; every team in the league needs to hit on late round draft picks, and every team needs to develop them properly. How those failures are somehow the result of the tank is beyond me

You're kidding, right?  Right now, I'd settle for middle of the pack. The last time I looked, the Sabres were dead frickin' last in the league. I think without the tank, we could still have easily managed to do that...

Really, you would? You'd settle for drafting 10th every year, being the 8 seed, and getting demolished in the first round every year? Because that's what we were doing. That's like taking a job for $30k a year that you fcking despise because it's just enough to live on

Edited March 29, 2018 by Jokertecken

[SwampD]

 

 

Because we did that for years, and never got anywhere. The fact remains that the in today's NHL the teams that have won Cups consistently drafted highly in the draft, so we tried to do just that. Rebuilding properly can be done by tanking and simply drafting quality players besides just the top guy you hit on; every team in the league needs to hit on late round draft picks, and every team needs to develop them properly. How those failures are somehow the result of the tank is beyond me

No we didn't. We had the same guy in charge, getting the same type of players over and over.

 

If we had rebuilt properly, there would have been no reason to tank.

 

I didn't but this logic then. I buy it even less now.

[Crusader1969]

I don’t see how anyone can think this.

 

The point of the tank, as Flagg notes, was not just to get Eichel. It was to get the team to cup contender status— because drafting a superstar was thought by some to be a prerequisite for achieving that status.

 

Of course, the reason many of us correctly opposed the tank is that it almost always fails to result in cup contender status.

 

 

you make it sound like the Sabres were cup contenders and they decided to change course mid-stream

[GASabresIUFAN]

The bottomline is that we needed competent management to make this work and we haven’t had it.

[WildCard]

No we didn't. We had the same guy in charge, getting the same type of players over and over.

 

If we had rebuilt properly, there would have been no reason to tank.

 

I didn't but this logic then. I buy it even less now.

I like how we can just say 'rebuilt properly' without defining anything about it; we can just assume we have a good GM who's going to hit on mid round draft picks, make good FA and RFA decisions, hit on more later round picks, farm a good AHL team to build winning success and culture, and find the right coach.

 

Being a GM is hard. Being a GM with worse draft picks is harder. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

you make it sound like the Sabres were cup contenders and they decided to change course mid-stream

Correct. This team was dying already. The “tank” just euthanized it.

 

What would have happened had we kept all the picks and not traded for Fasching, ROR, Lehner, Kane and Bogosian? What would have happened had we allowed Grigorenko, Girgensons and the other prospects to develop properly. We certainly have a deeper, cheaper, faster, younger and better team then we currently have.

Edited March 29, 2018 by GASabresIUFAN

[Crusader1969]

So easily. 

 

2014 - they finish mediocre and get to pick 8th, and get a better player than the one they got in Ehlers or Nylander. Maybe luck into Pastrnak or Point later on, but that would have nothing to do with the standings finish. 

 

2015 - the biggest drop off, but say they finish 8th again and land Provorov or Werenski. Or Barzal if you want them to finish 15th, a guy with a better season this year than Eichel has ever had. 

 

2016. McAvoy or Sergachev instead of Nylander, although one of these years maybe they get lucky and land in the lottery. Also, they're probably a little worse at this point than in our current universe so maybe they get super lucky and get a Laine or Matthews. If we don't want to give them any luck, there's still Tkachuk. 

 

Still make the ROR trade, be smarter than what appears to be the worst GM in franchise history, and maybe last year is the last season of bottoming out, and we have Petersson coming over next season to give us a young, fast, deep lineup that most assuredly has more hope than this dreary sack of ###### that is about to kick in a $10mil contract on its "franchise player" who hasn't scored 60 points or 25 goals once yet (yes, I'm aware that he'd shatter those numbers in a full season but it's not a good look) with 22 million tied up in KO, Pominville, Moulson, and Bogosian 

 

There's no doubt in my mind that right now we'd feel better about this team than we do currently had we not tanked, and that our cap and lineup would not have anywhere near this many washed out vets, many of whom were signed solely to reach cap floors because we purposely had a roster so bad it wasn't allowed to play in the ###### league.

 

so 8th last again this year. Where do I sign up?

You're kidding, right?  Right now, I'd settle for middle of the pack. The last time I looked, the Sabres were dead frickin' last in the league. I think without the tank, we could still have easily managed to do that...

 

you had it your way for the better part of the last 40 years being in the middle of the pack. Tired of seeing them either just miss the play-offs or be first round fodder. Yes, they had a magical ride in 2005 and 2006 but didn't make it to the finals, they rode the best goalie in the world to a Stanley cup appearance one year in 1999.  Thats not good enough for me.

[Randall Flagg]

so 8th last again this year. Where do I sign up?

Well, not guaranteed. I'm throwing out a scenario you asked for, one where we're in better shape. There are far more of those available than there are scenarios where we're in better shape after doing something that requires us to fundamentally destroy all of our depth and future cap space in order to get to the floor and be able to exist as an NHL entity. 

 

I would so easily trade Jack, Sam, Nylander, and Mitts for Provorov/Werenski/Barzal, Ehlers/Nylander, McAvoy/Sergachev/whoever, and a Petersson or something, plus a ~50% chance that we win one of those four lotteries from a different spot from the spot we were in, and so small shots at McD/Ekblad/Auston/Nico like any other bad team had during that time. Without the trash vets we signed for cash floor purposes and with a far-less depleted organizational depth, the chasm that is there now having people perpetually two lines above where they should actually be playing. 

 

I would so easily trade a 20% chance at McD, 25% chance at Ekblad, and Eichel and Reinhart for something that didn't do to us what the tank did.

 

I would do that so fast you couldn't even blink, and I guarantee that we'd all have had a lot more fun of a season this year if that had been the case.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Randall Flagg

[SwampD]

I like how we can just say 'rebuilt properly' without defining anything about it; we can just assume we have a good GM who's going to hit on mid round draft picks, make good FA and RFA decisions, hit on more later round picks, farm a good AHL team to build winning success and culture, and find the right coach.

 

Being a GM is hard. Being a GM with worse draft picks is harder. 

Here's my problem with this whole thing. They chose keeping a GM who had been there over a decade, gotten them into a position of "needing" to tank, and then left him in charge of the tank (at least at first), over just getting a new GM and trying to rebuild.

 

I mean, "What's he done wrong?"

[Randall Flagg]

Also, it's not like it would have guaranteed us picking 13th every season had we chosen not to tank.

We were a bad, bad team in 2013. We would have gotten high picks and great players either way, without having Nolan having to play on the 2nd line after 2 injuries 5 years later. 

[WildCard]

Here's my problem with this whole thing. They chose keeping a GM who had been there over a decade, gotten them into a position of "needing" to tank, and then left him in charge of the tank (at least at first), over just getting a new GM and trying to rebuild.

 

I mean, "What's he done wrong?"

I can see that stance, and I would agree it's a valid one. Maybe if DR isn't terrible at his job we don't tank. Or maybe we fire him earlier and get a GM that also doesn't tank. Those are valid routes. I also don't believe they make tanking any less valid

Also, it's not like it would have guaranteed us picking 13th every season had we chosen not to tank.

We were a bad, bad team in 2013. We would have gotten high picks and great players either way, without having Nolan having to play on the 2nd line after 2 injuries 5 years later. 

But Nolan isn't the tanks fault

[GASabresIUFAN]

Here's my problem with this whole thing. They chose keeping a GM who had been there over a decade, gotten them into a position of "needing" to tank, and then left him in charge of the tank (at least at first), over just getting a new GM and trying to rebuild.

 

I mean, "What's he done wrong?"

But that isn’t a problem with the strategy, it’s a problem with management of the strategy. However, DR didn’t immediately put us in position to need to tank as much as Quinn/Golisano by not giving him to budget to keep Campbell, Briere and Drury.

 

Just think, had we kept those 3 we may have remainded contenders for another couple of years and with Pegula buying the team, DR may have had the money to get a quality scouting staff and we’d have been able to rebuild the pipeline and we’d still be a playoff team. But that’s not what happened.

Edited March 29, 2018 by GASabresIUFAN

[Crusader1969]

Well, not guaranteed. I'm throwing out a scenario you asked for, one where we're in better shape. There are far more of those available than there are scenarios where we're in better shape after doing something that requires us to fundamentally destroy all of our depth and future cap space in order to get to the floor and be able to exist as an NHL entity. 

 

I would so easily trade Jack, Sam, Nylander, and Mitts for Provorov/Werenski/Barzal, Ehlers/Nylander, McAvoy/Sergachev/whoever, and a Petersson or something, plus a ~50% chance that we win one of those four lotteries from a different spot from the spot we were in, and so small shots at McD/Ekblad/Auston/Nico like any other bad team had during that time. Without the trash vets we signed for cash floor purposes and with a far-less depleted organizational depth, the chasm that is there now having people perpetually two lines above where they should actually be playing. 

 

I would so easily trade a 20% chance at McD, 25% chance at Ekblad, and Eichel and Reinhart for something that didn't do to us what the tank did.

 

I would do that so fast you couldn't even blink, and I guarantee that we'd all have had a lot more fun of a season this year if that had been the case.

 

 

the argument isn't would they be better off right now, its about was it the right course of action then. I agree they probably would be better off right now without the tank - you can't get much lower than last.  

 

If they win a cup in 7 years with Eichel as the center piece, with Samson, Mittelstandt, Nylander and whomever they draft this year and next as the "core". Was the tank still the wrong course of action?

[Randall Flagg]

But Nolan isn't the tanks fault

The point is that it isn't trivial to rebuild organizational depth well after you've purposely destroyed it and handcuffed yourself with contracts you KNOW are going to be bad down the line so that you can be allowed to have a franchise that year. The tank assumes that it is. It's not just "make better decisions". The consensus among both smart fans and smart NHL people is that Murray was at least doing fine if not well, until all of a sudden it became apparent that he was the worst GM in a long time. Because it's ###### hard to build good, fluid roster dynamics in your organization. It's hard to maintain it when you already have it, much less go from having plugs and tweeners playing up to your first line of Moulson-Girgensons-Ennis. We ran Flynn and Mitchell, guys that immediately became 9-13th forwards on low-seed playoff teams, as our second line for that season, and that lack of depth haunted us even though after "fast tracking" we still made more picks than an average team would in that stretch. That's because filling depth both with picks and with players isn't a trivial "just get it right" or "making the right hire would have done it right" scenario. It's nearly impossible to do, and that lack of depth in 2015 has never been fixed even though we've tried like hell via fast tracking trades, expensive free agents, cheap free agents (we added like 10 this year), we still had Jamie goddamn McGinn as a top LW after the tank, still have required one of 28/21 to be there last year and this year, and have always been in a state of 2 injuries requiring our lineup to look like it did in 2015. 

 

The point of anti-tankers is that this isn't just a result of bad management. This is the most likely result of a tank regardless of good management, because building teams is far more of a crap-shoot than anyone would like to admit, so purposely setting yourself so far back is always going to haunt you. 

 

And finally, no, the Leafs don't count even though they're the luckiest goddamn team in existence. Even though I would call their 2016 season a tank. (Garret Sparks? Come onnnnnnn.) There needed to be a decade of discomfort and several hockey savants in the organization as a preset to 2014-15 to give it a decent chance of being successful, AND THEN an unlikely lottery win. 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Randall Flagg