History-mystery: What if... OSP never told the team?

[Stoner]

This quote jumped out at me in today's Golisano profile in The Buffalo News:

Quote

Golisano concluded (when deciding whether to buy the team) that by treating the Sabres like a business designed to make a profit – rather than as a billionaire’s real-life equivalent of a free-spending fantasy hockey team – he could make it work. But he wanted Quinn and DiPofi to run it.

https://buffalonews.com/2020/02/14/tom-golisanos-busy-week-a-book-a-homecoming-an-ovation/

The Sabres franchise performed admirably well for a long time with a small-market chip on its shoulder, lean and mean. What if Darcy hadn't been forced by TP into a more "sublime" plan (read: spend more, "the financial shackles are off") the summer of 2011? What if Tom and Larry and Dan had stuck around? How would Darcy, on his own, have retooled the Sabres? Would the depression have lasted three years, like it did the previous time Darcy had to remake the team? Or 10?

Edited February 15, 2020 by PASabreFan

[Weave]

The team certainly wouldn't have embraced losing on purpose.  OSP would never stomach the resulting drop in ticket sales.  But I'm sure the team would have been challenged to continue to make the playoffs under OSP ownership. 

As much as I now appreciate the demand to ice a winner under challenging budgetary conditions, I think "innovations" like scouting by film would have prevented the team from finding those young players that OSP would need to have success as an internal budget team.

As it stands now, I miss his ownership.  He did demand success overall. 

And now I need another shower.

[Eleven]

29 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

the summer of 2011

What about the summers of 2006 and 2007?  Those were the important ones.

Larry Quinn was a pox on the House of Sabre.  Anyone who thinks things would be better with him and Golisano, rather than the Pegulas, needs a cranial examination.

[Stoner]

39 minutes ago, Eleven said:

What about the summers of 2006 and 2007?  Those were the important ones.

Larry Quinn was a pox on the House of Sabre.  Anyone who thinks things would be better with him and Golisano, rather than the Pegulas, needs a cranial examination.

How hard would it have been to be better than the Pegulas?

[Stoner]

1 hour ago, Weave said:

The team certainly wouldn't have embraced losing on purpose.  OSP would never stomach the resulting drop in ticket sales.  But I'm sure the team would have been challenged to continue to make the playoffs under OSP ownership. 

As much as I now appreciate the demand to ice a winner under challenging budgetary conditions, I think "innovations" like scouting by film would have prevented the team from finding those young players that OSP would need to have success as an internal budget team.

As it stands now, I miss his ownership.  He did demand success overall. 

And now I need another shower.

Did video scouting go away? How much better has the team's scouting been under Pegula?

The hi-la-ri-ous thing that Darcy said, parroting Terry I'm sure, is that the Sabres would no longer be about "just making the playoffs." That's what the low-bred mouth-breathers of the league do. How gauche! No, the Sabres franchise would be about domination, dynasty, win one and then win another!

Leave the shower running for me and my team, because we both got fracked.

[Weave]

22 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Did video scouting go away? How much better has the team's scouting been under Pegula?.

My understanding is it did go away.  Is it better today?  It’s a legitimate question, but outside of the point I was making.