Official Jason Karmanos Hired as Sabres Associate GM

[nfreeman]

18 minutes ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

If the point is that the Sabres can not draft or develop talent well, then whether they tank or not is immaterial.  They will stink either way.  It's just that tanking gives you a shiny object you can fling at me like Jeremy White and Mike Schopp did.  Jack Eichel is just as immaterial as everything else, so you asking about who my top player is means less than nothing.

I know my hockey history going back to the NHA.  I could expound at length on the different ways these different philosophies have worked and failed to work.  It is a wonderfully interesting discussion.  But if the counter to my answers is beer on my turban, being lampooned for 15 minutes on a radio show, a shiny object in my face, or a condescending comment from a moderator, when none of them are material to the discussion people asserted it was, which is, "tanks are more efficacious in creating a championship team than slow builds," then WHAT THE **** AM I DOING HERE?

Marvin -- these are trying times, no question about it.  We can still have conversations about how ill-advised the tank was that include good-natured gibes from the mods.  No one is throwing beer on you, and even those who refuse to admit the tank was idiotic are not beating their chests about how smart they are and how dumb everyone else is like some of the WGR guys were doing at the time.

[Marvin]

41 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Marvin -- these are trying times, no question about it.  We can still have conversations about how ill-advised the tank was that include good-natured gibes from the mods.  No one is throwing beer on you, and even those who refuse to admit the tank was idiotic are not beating their chests about how smart they are and how dumb everyone else is like some of the WGR guys were doing at the time.

Thanks, @nfreeman.  That made me feel a lot better.

At a few of games during the tank year, other fans DID pour beer on me.  One punched me because, "why are you smiling for a win?"  People at the games did throw garbage and food at me for cheering goals and wins.  Numerous times, guys shoved me because I "obviously wasn't a real Sabres fan."  A guy in a turban is an easy target and easy to recognise from anywhere nearby in the arena, I guess.  And it beats the hell out of being told I am not a real American during the pandemic, I guess.

Let us also face it.  I have some baggage that no one else here is likely to have.  After 9/11, few people needed the Sabres and Bills to hire an extra guard whose sole job was to protect your life.  Not many of you have been accused multiple times of trying to destroy America during the pandemic.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Marvin, Sabres Fan

[Randall Flagg]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

The problem isn't the tank. The problem is the underlying problem that has yet to be addressed. The Buffalo Sabres do not draft or develop talent well. We can tank for Bedard in 2023 and it would still not matter, just like Edmonton sucked for years until they started evaluating their talent better and drafting slightly better. 

Carolina is the poster child for rebuilds. They have quality built a hell of a prospect pool without tanking. LA or TOR might be the poster children for tanking and then ascending. 

And as we've shown numerous times, embarking down the tank path created a worse-than-pathetic roster, with only a few excess picks to show for it, picks that fell in complete-crapshoot ranges of the NHL draft, is a ridiculous starting point to expect even competent front offices to be able to build winners from. 

Moulson - Girgensons - Ennis
Stewart - Hodgson - Stafford
Foligno - Flynn - Gionta
Deslauriers - Mitchell - Kaleta/Ellis/Larsson/Dalpe/McCormick/Varone/Schaller

Reinhart and a typical prospect pool, if not shallow in hindsight

Meszaros - Myers/Benoit
Strachan - Risto
Gorges - Weber
Zadorov

combined with a couple late first rounders, a few excess 2nds and 3rds, all of which are like 15% or less to ever play 100 games in the league, is not a reasonable pool of assets to expect to turn into a winner on a typical timeframe no matter who is in charge. When you need substantial upgrades at all 18 skater positions, you're f*cked. You need to bat 1.000 to even have a shot, and no GM bats 0.750. 

Toronto was still winning advanced stats splits when they "tanked," the Sabres purposely put out a roster to get less than 40% expected goal share for 2 years. There is a massive difference in expected on-ice standards and on-ice results between the two teams. And the Kings have never lost on purpose for multiple years, I'm not even sure what years you might be talking about.
 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Randall Flagg

[Radar]

What does the tank pros or cons have to do with the thread title???????

[Marvin]

Just now, Radar said:

What does the tank pros or cons have to do with the thread title???????

Directly, none.  I was answering another question.  Probably that stuff needs to be excised from the thread and put in its own thread.

In my case, however, it is relevant to me what we expect of Karmanos and Rutherford.  (My contacts say it is all over but putting ink to paper or conforming to 21 CFR 11.)  It's about what the philosophy of the two men will be.  I don't want them to completely blow things up.  Keep the healthiest parts, move the rest, but keep short-term competitiveness while improving long-term.  In my case, it is a deep philosophical opinion about building a team.  The tank happens to be where my ideas are most sharply contested in our debates here and in the hockey world in general.  I also happen to think we are closer to being a very good team than most here.

[LGR4GM]

41 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Marvin -- these are trying times, no question about it.  We can still have conversations about how ill-advised the tank was that include good-natured gibes from the mods.  No one is throwing beer on you, and even those who refuse to admit the tank was idiotic are not beating their chests about how smart they are and how dumb everyone else is like some of the WGR guys were doing at the time.

It's interesting the only person beating their chest about how "right" they were and tossing out snide anti tank remarks at random, is you. 

 

[nfreeman]

1 hour ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

Thanks, @nfreeman.  That made me feel a lot better.

At a few of games during the tank year, other fans DID pour beer on me.  One punched me because, "why are you smiling for a win?"  People at the games did throw garbage and food at me for cheering goals and wins.  Numerous times, guys shoved me because I "obviously wasn't a real Sabres fan."  A guy in a turban is an easy target and easy to recognise from anywhere nearby in the arena, I guess.  And it beats the hell out of being told I am not a real American during the pandemic, I guess.

Let us also face it.  I have some baggage that no one else here is likely to have.  After 9/11, few people needed the Sabres and Bills to hire an extra guard whose sole job was to protect your life.  Not many of you have been accused multiple times of trying to destroy America during the pandemic.

Ugh.  That stinks.  Very sorry you had to endure all of that crap.

[bunomatic]

1 hour ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

Thanks, @nfreeman.  That made me feel a lot better.

At a few of games during the tank year, other fans DID pour beer on me.  One punched me because, "why are you smiling for a win?"  People at the games did throw garbage and food at me for cheering goals and wins.  Numerous times, guys shoved me because I "obviously wasn't a real Sabres fan."  A guy in a turban is an easy target and easy to recognise from anywhere nearby in the arena, I guess.  And it beats the hell out of being told I am not a real American during the pandemic, I guess.

Let us also face it.  I have some baggage that no one else here is likely to have.  After 9/11, few people needed the Sabres and Bills to hire an extra guard whose sole job was to protect your life.  Not many of you have been accused multiple times of trying to destroy America during the pandemic.

Wow. People suck at being good people basically. ***** that you had to go through all that. 

[Curt]

3 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Now that question is very interesting

Isn’t that the only relevant question when discussing whether the tank was a good idea?

 

[LGR4GM]

14 minutes ago, Curt said:

Isn’t that the only relevant question when discussing whether the tank was a good idea?

 

Probably. 

It would be very interesting to ask the potential assistant GM's about something like that. 

[Curt]

3 hours ago, Radar said:

What does the tank pros or cons have to do with the thread title???????

When the Sabres lose 18 in a row, every thread is a referendum on the tank.

[Curt]

3 hours ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

Thanks, @nfreeman.  That made me feel a lot better.

At a few of games during the tank year, other fans DID pour beer on me.  One punched me because, "why are you smiling for a win?"  People at the games did throw garbage and food at me for cheering goals and wins.  Numerous times, guys shoved me because I "obviously wasn't a real Sabres fan."  A guy in a turban is an easy target and easy to recognise from anywhere nearby in the arena, I guess.  And it beats the hell out of being told I am not a real American during the pandemic, I guess.

Let us also face it.  I have some baggage that no one else here is likely to have.  After 9/11, few people needed the Sabres and Bills to hire an extra guard whose sole job was to protect your life.  Not many of you have been accused multiple times of trying to destroy America during the pandemic.

This is sad to hear, although I think we all know that it happens.  I hope that you never feel targeted here.  While we can all get a little riled up from time to time, this is just hockey after all and we shouldn’t take ourselves too terribly seriously when discussing it.  This is all for good fun.

[Hoss]

4 hours ago, SwampD said:

 

TO didn't tank. They sold at the deadline.

Huge difference.

Toronto tanked. Theirs was just less involved. There was media coverage of their obvious plan to lose before that season even started.

[SwampD]

11 minutes ago, Hoss said:

Toronto tanked. Theirs was just less involved. There was media coverage of their obvious plan to lose before that season even started.

 

5 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

... had we not destroyed our roster to lose as much as possible on purpose for 164 consecutive games ...

 

 

TO did not destroy their roster. We had Kaleta playing center.

[Thwomp!]

Maybe they just did it right and lucked out a lot?

Maple Leafs and the textbook tank  https://www.si.com/nhl/2016/03/04/toronto-maple-leafs-tanking-nhl-draft-lottery

Their sell off did begin in earnest the summer before, but they only needed to tank that 1 year because they then landed Matthews in the draft.

Edited April 1, 2021 by Thwomp!
clarification

[GASabresIUFAN]

Can we hire these guys already?

[dudacek]

5 hours ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

Thanks, @nfreeman.  That made me feel a lot better.

At a few of games during the tank year, other fans DID pour beer on me.  One punched me because, "why are you smiling for a win?"  People at the games did throw garbage and food at me for cheering goals and wins.  Numerous times, guys shoved me because I "obviously wasn't a real Sabres fan."  A guy in a turban is an easy target and easy to recognise from anywhere nearby in the arena, I guess.  And it beats the hell out of being told I am not a real American during the pandemic, I guess.

Let us also face it.  I have some baggage that no one else here is likely to have.  After 9/11, few people needed the Sabres and Bills to hire an extra guard whose sole job was to protect your life.  Not many of you have been accused multiple times of trying to destroy America during the pandemic.

People suck. You don't. Glad you are here.

(And people cheering for the Sabres to lose are the ones who aren't real Sabre fans. Viva Mike Weber!)

Edited April 1, 2021 by dudacek

[Cheektorado]

5 hours ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

Thanks, @nfreeman.  That made me feel a lot better.

At a few of games during the tank year, other fans DID pour beer on me.  One punched me because, "why are you smiling for a win?"  People at the games did throw garbage and food at me for cheering goals and wins.  Numerous times, guys shoved me because I "obviously wasn't a real Sabres fan."  A guy in a turban is an easy target and easy to recognise from anywhere nearby in the arena, I guess.  And it beats the hell out of being told I am not a real American during the pandemic, I guess.

Let us also face it.  I have some baggage that no one else here is likely to have.  After 9/11, few people needed the Sabres and Bills to hire an extra guard whose sole job was to protect your life.  Not many of you have been accused multiple times of trying to destroy America during the pandemic.

You're a true Sabres fan in my eyes.

[LabattBlue]

Since Rutherford is under contract to the Pens until summer, please tell me the Pegula’s aren’t going to give them a draft pick to hire Rutherford earlier? Didn’t we go down that road with them a few years ago? 

[thewookie1]

1 minute ago, LabattBlue said:

Since Rutherford is under contract to the Pens until summer, please tell me the Pegula’s aren’t going to give them a draft pick to hire Rutherford earlier? Didn’t we go down that road with them a few years ago? 

That rule was expunged literally the following year I recall.

[LabattBlue]

11 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:

That rule was expunged literally the following year I recall.

Wasn’t it the “mandatory” compensation that was eliminated?  Doesn’t mean they can’t voluntary send a pick to a team for an off ice staffer....or maybe I’m out to lunch on this issue  

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by LabattBlue

[Curt]

3 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

Wasn’t it the “mandatory” compensation that was eliminated?  Doesn’t mean they can’t voluntary send a pick to a team for an off ice staffer....or maybe I’m out to lunch on this issue  

 

Only question is if it’s a 30min lunch or if you get a whole hour.

Seriously though, I don’t know the exact wording of the rule, but the result is that teams don’t give other teams picks in exchange for non-player employees.

[Broken Ankles]

1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Can we hire these guys already?

If Terry waits just two more weeks, do you know how many more of these he can buy???

[Hoss]

2 hours ago, SwampD said:

 

TO did not destroy their roster. We had Kaleta playing center.

That's not the conversation I was having. The conversation I was having was purely about Toronto and whether or not they tanked. They did.

[nucci]

regardless whether the tank was a good idea...it didn't work and we are still the worst team in the league after all these years