Phil Housley should be fired.

[Kruppstahl]

1 hour ago, inkman said:

I think the worst part of the entire Housley tenure is that it was largely predictable.  He was gifted an all-star squad in Nashville. Many predicted it wouldn't translate without the players. Guess what?  

I have a suspicion that Terry Pegula hired Phil Housley simply because Phil is Phil.  I.E., a big name from the Sabres past, a previous Wunderkind, and a Sabre who is in the HOF.

That all appealed greatly to the side of Terry Pegula that cried (FFS) when he looked at #11 in the crowd at his team purchase PC and said "You're my hero."

It's also the part of Terry that bumped into Patty La La at some fundraiser dinner and said "Oh my God, it's Patty LaLa!  Come save my franchise!  If you can't do it, no one can!"

Pegula has demonstrated that he is naive, gullible, and sentimental when it comes to running this team.

He should be kept far away from the hiring process.

Which of course begs the question: "Then who is going to do the hiring?"

And the answer is a czar type person who should be added to the organization but is not here yet.

Yeah, yeah, that went up in flames with #16 and his decision to hire GMTM.  So what.  Doesn't mean the concept isn't sound.

You gotta hire the right people.

That's the entire point.

 

 

 

 

[Stoner]

1 hour ago, Cheektorado said:

To be clear, I also have great respect to Terry and Kim Pegula and love them for keeping these teams in Buffalo.

Love Tom Golisano for keeping the Sabres in Buffalo. He bought them at a time when their future in the city was unsure, and he added a stipulation to his sales agreement with Terry that the team could not be moved. Further, Tom had a much higher offer from someone (Ballsillie?) who planned to move the team, and he said no thanks.

[Zamboni]

President of hockey ops.

Sabres lack one.

It MAY help this franchise.

[Stoner]

4 minutes ago, Kruppstahl said:

I have a suspicion that Terry Pegula hired Phil Housley simply because Phil is Phil.  I.E., a big name from the Sabres past, a previous Wunderkind, and a Sabre who is in the HOF.

That all appealed greatly to the side of Terry Pegula that cried (FFS) when he looked at #11 in the crowd at his team purchase PC and said "You're my hero."

It's also the part of Terry that bumped into Patty La La at some fundraiser dinner and said "Oh my God, it's Patty LaLa!  Come save my franchise!  If you can't do it, no one can!"

Pegula has demonstrated that he is naive, gullible, and sentimental when it comes to running this team.

He should be kept far away from the hiring process.

Which of course begs the question: "Then who is going to do the hiring?"

And the answer is a czar type person who should be added to the organization but is not here yet.

Yeah, yeah, that went up in flames with #16 and his decision to hire GMTM.  So what.  Doesn't mean the concept isn't sound.

You gotta hire the right people.

That's the entire point.

I'll be very surprised if Terry ever hires someone who's above him on the hockey operations depth chart. Terry is the one who said that he likes a flat management structure, that there's no monopoly on hockey IQ and that the Sabres did not want to have an "emperor." Why has Terry hired so many first-timers (Murray, Botterill, Housley, LaFontaine)?

[JJFIVEOH]

10 minutes ago, Kruppstahl said:

I have a suspicion that Terry Pegula hired Phil Housley simply because Phil is Phil.  I.E., a big name from the Sabres past, a previous Wunderkind, and a Sabre who is in the HOF.

That all appealed greatly to the side of Terry Pegula that cried (FFS) when he looked at #11 in the crowd at his team purchase PC and said "You're my hero."

It's also the part of Terry that bumped into Patty La La at some fundraiser dinner and said "Oh my God, it's Patty LaLa!  Come save my franchise!  If you can't do it, no one can!"

Pegula has demonstrated that he is naive, gullible, and sentimental when it comes to running this team.

He should be kept far away from the hiring process.

Which of course begs the question: "Then who is going to do the hiring?"

And the answer is a czar type person who should be added to the organization but is not here yet.

Yeah, yeah, that went up in flames with #16 and his decision to hire GMTM.  So what.  Doesn't mean the concept isn't sound.

You gotta hire the right people.

That's the entire point.

 

 

 

 

Thurman Thomas as next head coach! 

Jim Kelly and Daren Puppa as assistants. 

Edited March 24, 2019 by JJFIVEOH

[Kruppstahl]

42 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

I'll be very surprised if Terry ever hires someone who's above him on the hockey operations depth chart. Terry is the one who said that he likes a flat management structure, that there's no monopoly on hockey IQ and that the Sabres did not want to have an "emperor." Why has Terry hired so many first-timers (Murray, Botterill, Housley, LaFontaine)?

If that's true, we're screwed.  

 

EDIT:  What I'm lobbying for is the czar to oversee hockey operations and do the hiring of the GM and/or HC as well.  If we hire the right GM I don't have a problem with him selecting his own HC with the blessing of others in the organization.  And that's the role I see for Pegula.  He should be the guy who gets the hell out of the way and lets the czar find the right candidate to hire...then bring him in for a meeting with Pegula simply to receive Pegula's blessing, while Pegula retains a veto power.

That should keep Pegula's ego in check while still keeping him away from things he knows nothing about.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2019 by Kruppstahl

[dudacek]

2 hours ago, Kruppstahl said:

If that's true, we're screwed.  

 

EDIT:  What I'm lobbying for is the czar to oversee hockey operations and do the hiring of the GM and/or HC as well.  If we hire the right GM I don't have a problem with him selecting his own HC with the blessing of others in the organization.  And that's the role I see for Pegula.  He should be the guy who gets the hell out of the way and lets the czar find the right candidate to hire...then bring him in for a meeting with Pegula simply to receive Pegula's blessing, while Pegula retains a veto power.

That should keep Pegula's ego in check while still keeping him away from things he knows nothing about.

 

 

Whether you liked the selections of Housley and Botterill then or now, this is an easy after-the-fact narrative.

Both men were highly touted within the industry as among the top candidates within their respective disciplines.

[PerreaultForever]

I'm not sure it can be assessed properly at this stage so wait for next year, but the thing that really stood out for me in the Montreal game (and it's a recurrent issue) is the lack of teamwork on this team defensively. Good defensive teams like Boston  know where they are supposed to be and players do THEIR JOB and expect the other guy to do his. Too many times this team doesn't seem to know what to do and players either watch and do nothing or group chase a guy and leave an area open. This is why Risto's fallen apart. All over the ice, but rarely where he actually should be, just doing that thing. Trying to do too many things has made him into a player who can't do anything.

Take the Gallagher goal for example. Eichel said "I thought Weber would come to the net" but that's not his responsibility. His job is to cover Gallagher and take away that area. This sort of thing happens over and over. I honestly cant' decide if that's on the coach, or on a team with too many weak players and so the better ones always try to do too much and also fail as a result. Got to change that next year though that's for sure.  

[matter2003]

3 hours ago, Kruppstahl said:

I have a suspicion that Terry Pegula hired Phil Housley simply because Phil is Phil.  I.E., a big name from the Sabres past, a previous Wunderkind, and a Sabre who is in the HOF.

That all appealed greatly to the side of Terry Pegula that cried (FFS) when he looked at #11 in the crowd at his team purchase PC and said "You're my hero."

It's also the part of Terry that bumped into Patty La La at some fundraiser dinner and said "Oh my God, it's Patty LaLa!  Come save my franchise!  If you can't do it, no one can!"

Pegula has demonstrated that he is naive, gullible, and sentimental when it comes to running this team.

He should be kept far away from the hiring process.

Which of course begs the question: "Then who is going to do the hiring?"

And the answer is a czar type person who should be added to the organization but is not here yet.

Yeah, yeah, that went up in flames with #16 and his decision to hire GMTM.  So what.  Doesn't mean the concept isn't sound.

You gotta hire the right people.

That's the entire point.

 

 

 

 

Let's hire Gene Sterratore as coach...I mean he seems to do everything else...Rules analyst for the NFL broadcasts, now he is in the NCAA Tournament as a Rules Analyst...why not Hockey Coach..could he do worse with this team than what we have had??

[Kruppstahl]

39 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Whether you liked the selections of Housley and Botterill then or now, this is an easy after-the-fact narrative.

Both men were highly touted within the industry as among the top candidates within their respective disciplines.

That's ridiculous.

I hated both hires the day they were made and also hated Bylsma the day he was hired, and said as much continually.  

Pegula has a long history (already) of making terrible decisions with both franchises and needs to be removed from substantive decision making as much as possible with both teams.

When you change everything about an organization and it just keeps sucking, there is only one place to look for answers: ownership.

The Bills were stuck in that situation for decades.  Eventually it got to the point that until Ralph Wilson died, the team would be horrible, and that's how it worked out.

We are slipping into a similar problem with Pegula already.

 

 

[Brawndo]

2 hours ago, Kruppstahl said:

That's ridiculous.

I hated both hires the day they were made and also hated Bylsma the day he was hired, and said as much continually.  

Pegula has a long history (already) of making terrible decisions with both franchises and needs to be removed from substantive decision making as much as possible with both teams.

When you change everything about an organization and it just keeps sucking, there is only one place to look for answers: ownership.

 

 

Then how can we trust him to hire the right person to be President of Hockey Operations? 

[Torpedo Forecheck]

2 hours ago, Kruppstahl said:

That's ridiculous.

I hated both hires the day they were made and also hated Bylsma the day he was hired, and said as much continually.  

Pegula has a long history (already) of making terrible decisions with both franchises and needs to be removed from substantive decision making as much as possible with both teams.

When you change everything about an organization and it just keeps sucking, there is only one place to look for answers: ownership.

The Bills were stuck in that situation for decades.  Eventually it got to the point that until Ralph Wilson died, the team would be horrible, and that's how it worked out.

We are slipping into a similar problem with Pegula already.

 

 

Nonsense! McBeane was an excellent hire.

[dudacek]

2 hours ago, Kruppstahl said:

That's ridiculous.

I hated both hires the day they were made and also hated Bylsma the day he was hired, and said as much continually.  

Pegula has a long history (already) of making terrible decisions with both franchises and needs to be removed from substantive decision making as much as possible with both teams.

When you change everything about an organization and it just keeps sucking, there is only one place to look for answers: ownership.

The Bills were stuck in that situation for decades.  Eventually it got to the point that until Ralph Wilson died, the team would be horrible, and that's how it worked out.

We are slipping into a similar problem with Pegula already.

 

 

I’m not talking about your opinion, I am talking about the  majority opinion of the hockey industry.

 

[Stoner]

11 hours ago, Brawndo said:

Then how can we trust him to hire the right person to be President of Hockey Operations? 

It's a fair point. A blue ribbon panel (Bert, Ed Kilgore, Charlie the Butcher etc.). Or let his older adult kids do it. They're going to be there eventually (at least I think they suggested that was the plan). I don't have a real answer to this dilemma. It would have been easier when Sawyer, Black, Patrick et. al were around.

[LGR4GM]

He's not fired yet? Well I suppose now they would wait until May. 

[Stoner]

I have to say, Phil's status is a real burning mystery to me. As dudacek has pointed out, keeping him seemed like a slam dunk two months ago even with the team slumping. But the extent of the collapse makes shitcanning him very plausible. Although I still think it's unlikely he gets fired, you can easily imagine a scenario where Jason slams a door and comes out and says he didn't really want to do it, but this kind of performance can't be tolerated. Then there's Brawndo's theory that Phil wasn't really a Botterill hire, and Jason could go to Terry and have lots of ammo for bringing in his own coach.

[PalmTreeMafia]

5 of the remaining 8 games on the schedule are against 3 of the worst 4 teams in the NHL. If this 58 points-per-season losing pace since late November continues through the next couple weeks, how do you NOT fire Housley?!

[JJFIVEOH]

25 minutes ago, Marchand'sNose said:

5 of the remaining 8 games on the schedule are against 3 of the worst 4 teams in the NHL. If this 58 points-per-season losing pace since late November continues through the next couple weeks, how do you NOT fire Housley?!

Because Buffalo.

[Thorner]

4 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

I have to say, Phil's status is a real burning mystery to me. As dudacek has pointed out, keeping him seemed like a slam dunk two months ago even with the team slumping. But the extent of the collapse makes shitcanning him very plausible. Although I still think it's unlikely he gets fired, you can easily imagine a scenario where Jason slams a door and comes out and says he didn't really want to do it, but this kind of performance can't be tolerated. Then there's Brawndo's theory that Phil wasn't really a Botterill hire, and Jason could go to Terry and have lots of ammo for bringing in his own coach.

I'm getting there, too. It starting to feel like a "There's nothing he could do to jeopardize his status as coach of the Sabres.......wow....except THAT." situation. 

With the benefit of a 10 game win streak, the Sabres have 5 more wins total than the last place Ottawa Senators. That's significant. 

[JJFIVEOH]

I said it before, and I'll say it again. Back in the 90's when a coach had two assistants, the head coach needed to be a teacher. Now, teams have 78 assistants and they take care of the game plan. Now, the head coach needs to be a cheerleader and not a teacher. People on this forum thought I was nuts when I said the Sabres needed to hire Spuddy Gallant. Look what he's done. He doesn't have a strategy or a style of play. He takes the guys he has on the roster and plans around their strengths. Instead of forcing a system like Housley is doing and what Rolston and Goober Bylsma did in the past. 

 

Dump Phil, and hire an experienced veteran coach. STOP TRYING TO MAKE ROOKIES WORK! 

[carpandean]

Under Phil Housley:

Regulation wins: 24.20%

OT/SO games: 24.84%

Regulation losses: 50.96%

 

Under Dan Bylsma:

Regulation wins: 32.93%

OT/SO games: 22.56%

Regulation losses: 44.51%

 

[Kruppstahl]

18 hours ago, JJFIVEOH said:

I said it before, and I'll say it again. Back in the 90's when a coach had two assistants, the head coach needed to be a teacher. Now, teams have 78 assistants and they take care of the game plan. Now, the head coach needs to be a cheerleader and not a teacher. People on this forum thought I was nuts when I said the Sabres needed to hire Spuddy Gallant. Look what he's done. He doesn't have a strategy or a style of play. He takes the guys he has on the roster and plans around their strengths. Instead of forcing a system like Housley is doing and what Rolston and Goober Bylsma did in the past. 

 

Dump Phil, and hire an experienced veteran coach. STOP TRYING TO MAKE ROOKIES WORK! 

It's the same in many sports.  Think about it.  These guys (pro athletes) have no formal education in their sport.  All they have is their personal experience in the game.  So to a large extent, they only know what they have been taught or the way they did it during those 9 years in City X, etc.

In that regard, they only know how to do it 1 way--their way.  

It is therefore only the brightest minds that truly understand the sport that can take any collection of talent, and push it in any one of 6 different directions to maximize what they have on the team.

Most coaches are simply not operating on that level.  They know how to do it their way, and tailor everything around that one way of doing things.

I also think, as a general rule, the best players make bad coaches b/c too much came too easily to them their whole lives, and so they never had a need to learn the right way to do things, etc.  They also tend to get frustrated easily (my theory; who knows if that's true) b/c things came easily for them and they quickly grasped complex ideas, so why can't this player of theirs do the same thing?

The problem is there really are no institutions where one can get a proper education in something like "playing hockey" and so you are left with ex-jocks trying to make the most of it, based on nothing but their own random set of personal experiences.

It's a miracle anyone is any good at it.

Though now that I think about, very few are any good at it!  Look at the turnover in the NHL.

 

 

[Brawndo]

There might be some clarification on this matter later today as the Pegulas are meeting the media. Tim Graham expects the question to be asked on Housley’s Future. 

[Stoner]

11 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

There might be some clarification on this matter later today as the Pegulas are meeting the media. Tim Graham expects the question to be asked on Housley’s Future. 

Any more background or context on this? Was this meeting planned?

[Thorner]

57 point pace since the streak (50 games).