It Is Time: Fire the GM, the Coaching Staff, get some experience in here. Fans deserve better!!!

[Thorner]

4 hours ago, zow2 said:

The Capitals have a new coach and they started the season awful.  They have several new players I've never heard of.  They've had some injuries.  They beat Las Vegas last night and now won 7 of their last 9.  But Buffalo has this amazing pipeline of young guys!  SO where the heck are they?  We should be better than the Caps this season.

Pipeline strength counts for like.. 5% of the final exam score. That’s what we are seeing and should have known by now. For every 10 steps your pool is ahead of another teams, that’ll make up about 1 step of progress vs actual nhl roster comparison 

strong prospect pool, in a vacuum, is a weak correlation to nhl success. It doesn’t really matter if your GM doesn’t GM 

Sabres have had a top ranked pool *multiple* times over the decade. What does that tell you? It’s easy. It’s easy to be bad and draft high 

[Scottysabres]

I watched a game last night coached by this staff.....

 

 

Playing a team coached by this staff.....

Edited November 15, 2023 by Scottysabres

[Thorner]

38 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Pipeline strength counts for like.. 5% of the final exam score. That’s what we are seeing and should have known by now. For every 10 steps your pool is ahead of another teams, that’ll make up about 1 step of progress vs actual nhl roster comparison 

strong prospect pool, in a vacuum, is a weak correlation to nhl success. It doesn’t really matter if your GM doesn’t GM 

Sabres have had a top ranked pool *multiple* times over the decade. What does that tell you? It’s easy. It’s easy to be bad and draft high 

Just wanted to expand on this:

Being a *good drafter* matters. Having the deepest *prospect pool* known to man matters little. 

the biggest elephant in the room people somehow don’t grasp is that…there’s a draft every single year lol. Like, every year, get this: the league just…gives out 7 free draft picks to every team! Like, just for free! 

when you are a team like the Buffalo Sabres, and you are constantly measuring your timeline to competitiveness in multiple years.. all the other teams, that need *so much less* from their prospect pools due to the strength of their actual roster, have *multiple years* to cobble together the replacement prospects they need, from the free draft picks dolled out, again, every single year. 

do you know how hard it is to make up ground just by endlessly fortifying your prospect pool, like we do? Other teams are making picks over that long time frame, too lol. And they require so much less from them. (Strengthen goalie by team D? How bout strengthen prospect pool by strong nhl roster. That’s the secret: needing less from your young kids. Easier for them to find success.)

It is no good pooling a bunch of excess prospects, you don’t make up ground by the *few* that squeeze through the compression to get in to the league every year, there aren’t enough spots, your benefit is squandered willingly.

The strength of a deep pool is in its use as *currency*. If you don’t use it for that, you aren’t going to make up ground. If you don’t want to GM, you won’t have a good team.

[PerreaultForever]

@Thorny is correct. There are many ways to build a team but for success you need a solid veteran core to build around and then you ease your rookies in around that. If you create and rely on a young core it takes a lot of time for them to become veterans (so to speak) and they lack the leaders around them to learn from so their development is even slower and perhaps incomplete. Everything falls onto the coaches for leadership so at bare minimum you need a dominant figure as coach that they will all look up to and willingly learn from. 

You need to look at the teams jumping over us in terms of rebuilds and consider their plans and rosters if you want proof. Compare the Montreal Boston game to the Buffalo Boston game. Watch the difference in terms of HOW they played them more than the result. Now Montreal might falter this year and we might even end up ahead of them but you can see their rebuild is on the right track and if things continue the way they are without question they will be ahead of us soon, if not already. There are other examples. 

It really isn't that complicated, but TP wants fast and lots of goals. TP wants people who do what he says. TP has ruined this franchise. TP needs to sell the team and go watch tennis games when he's not lounging on his beds of money in Florida. Unless TP changes, it'll never change in Buffalo. 

[Thorner]

2 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

@Thorny is correct. There are many ways to build a team but for success you need a solid veteran core to build around and then you ease your rookies in around that. If you create and rely on a young core it takes a lot of time for them to become veterans (so to speak) and they lack the leaders around them to learn from so their development is even slower and perhaps incomplete. Everything falls onto the coaches for leadership so at bare minimum you need a dominant figure as coach that they will all look up to and willingly learn from. 

You need to look at the teams jumping over us in terms of rebuilds and consider their plans and rosters if you want proof. Compare the Montreal Boston game to the Buffalo Boston game. Watch the difference in terms of HOW they played them more than the result. Now Montreal might falter this year and we might even end up ahead of them but you can see their rebuild is on the right track and if things continue the way they are without question they will be ahead of us soon, if not already. There are other examples. 

It really isn't that complicated, but TP wants fast and lots of goals. TP wants people who do what he says. TP has ruined this franchise. TP needs to sell the team and go watch tennis games when he's not lounging on his beds of money in Florida. Unless TP changes, it'll never change in Buffalo. 

Correct? Or just HYSTERICAL?!!?!!!!? 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Thorny
Outrage culture

[Believer]

2 hours ago, Thorny said:

It doesn’t really matter if your GM doesn’t GM 

Pretty good description of Adams… Content to work his plan… regardless of the growing prospect of missing the playoffs again. 

Pegula owes the fans a better product.

[Pimlach]

On 11/14/2023 at 8:33 PM, Crusader1969 said:

I've been hoping that GMKA would make a trade that would help this years Sabres team. He has the cap space , the prospects and the draft capital to make a couple of big upgrades but hasn't.  It's got me thinking, why hasn't he and then it came to me

last summer Peca gets a job offer from the NYR to be an assistant under the defensive minded Laviolette. 
Adams tell Peca he'd love to keep him but there is no opening on the Sabres staff
BUT considering how bad the Sabres were defensively and on the PK last year, there is no way he couldn't find room for Peca 

So he tells Peca to go coach under Laviolette for a year or two.  Learn his system and when the time is right, the Sabres will bring him back as the head coach 

I'm sure Adams was thinking 2 years but how things are going so far in 2023-24. Now I think it will be moved up to next summer.  Adams wants to see improvements but not to the point where he can fire Granato.  Hence no trades 

unless the wheels completely go off the track , DG finishes the year but is let go after the season and Michael Peca becomes the new coach of the Buffalo Sabres brining in Laviolette defensive system 

 

Peca could coach the Sabres someday, that’s an obvious possibility.  

But these conversations you refer in bold are all conjecture your part. 

[Crusader1969]

1 hour ago, Pimlach said:

Peca could coach the Sabres someday, that’s an obvious possibility.  

But these conversations you refer in bold are all conjecture your part. 

100%   Just my theory 

[PerreaultForever]

16 hours ago, zow2 said:

The Capitals have a new coach and they started the season awful.  They have several new players I've never heard of.  They've had some injuries.  They beat Las Vegas last night and now won 7 of their last 9.  But Buffalo has this amazing pipeline of young guys!  SO where the heck are they?  We should be better than the Caps this season.

Wasn't it the Caps farm team that knocked Rochester out last year? I might have that wrong but I think so. 

Washington is playing to their identity. They added this guy cause I guess Wilson wasn't enough.

https://www.hockeyfights.com/fights/n268050

But of course, Sabres have more talent and a deeper prospect pool. 

[Scottysabres]

19 minutes ago, seer775 said:

Most of Yzerman's key Bolts were lightning draft picks (Kuch, Stamkos, Vasilevskiy) or prospects acquired young (Sergachev). A lot of them were deep picks (Palat, Colton, Point, Cirelli). In the salary-capped NHL your talent must come primarily from the ranks at a team-friendly price. Overpaying for rentals is detrimental to team success in the long term (Rangers, Hurricanes, Panthers, Leafs).

Best we can do is age Mits/Cozens/Quinn/JJP/Dahlin/Power/Levi/UPL into a veteran core while developing other pieces over time. Pray one or more of the Amerks works out, and if they don't be prepared to sell assets sooner rather than later to make it work. 

For as long as the Bills have a shot at the playoffs Pegula will be hands-off with the Sabres. This will give KA/DG the room required to develop our younger players.

While what you say here may appear to be sound logic, there is large flaws in that logic. Namely, no team in the NHL has now endured the length of time trying to build a competitive team to reach the playoffs. Forget the Cup, we're talking about just getting to the dance. It is illogical, not logical, to believe all the other NHL teams haven't brought in outside roster help in order to get their own homegrown drafted talent playoff experience.

Currently, the Sabres organization can't even muster a winning season with anything remotely resembling consistency. The eye test doesn't lie, and analytics can be deceiving. Just look at the Bills for example, +75 point differential, yet 5 and 5.

There is something to be said about "culture" in hockey. Some teams maintain a winning culture through multiple full roster turnovers with very short turn arounds from turnover seasons. That not only hasn't happened here in Buffalo, but it has yet to manifest any real signs of doing so. That's what is really disturbing, imho.

[PerreaultForever]

50 minutes ago, seer775 said:

Most of Yzerman's key Bolts were lightning draft picks (Kuch, Stamkos, Vasilevskiy) or prospects acquired young (Sergachev). A lot of them were deep picks (Palat, Colton, Point, Cirelli). In the salary-capped NHL your talent must come primarily from the ranks at a team-friendly price. Overpaying for rentals is detrimental to team success in the long term (Rangers, Hurricanes, Panthers, Leafs).

Best we can do is age Mits/Cozens/Quinn/JJP/Dahlin/Power/Levi/UPL into a veteran core while developing other pieces over time. Pray one or more of the Amerks works out, and if they don't be prepared to sell assets sooner rather than later to make it work. 

For as long as the Bills have a shot at the playoffs Pegula will be hands-off with the Sabres. This will give KA/DG the room required to develop our younger players.

What is this ANOTHER KA post?

It's a good argument EXCEPT (to the bold) Rangers and Panthers are doing very well (1st and 2nd in their divisions respectively) and Leafs and Carolina are still in playoff positions and then there's Boston to consider further. Remind me, how many of their own draft picks did Vegas have winning the cup? (I'll wait..............)

Those are the cold hard facts, not some half baked theory of development. 

You do realize, at this point, that we traded Eichel for Tuch. Now I like Tuch. I'm glad he's a Sabre and imo he should have been named captain before this season BUT until the picks actually become something, all we got worth talking about was Tuch. Ponder it. We've become nothing more than a development/farm team for the rest of the league. 

[Quint]

If they can't fire any Sabres ACs who can't coordinate a powerplay with top talent, then I say fire Ken Dorsey all over again.

[PerreaultForever]

5 hours ago, seer775 said:

Reg szn don't mean squat. If you don't at least make the semis, consider it a failure. To the Hurricanes credit, they've made the semis consistently. But they still suck. The only good teams in the last decade were the Hawks, Kings, Pens, and Lightning. Mostly every other team was a one off or whiffed entirely. VGK won because the expansion draft is a load of hogwash. The Kraken made the 2nd round in their 2nd szn. That shouldn't be possible but it is. Tough.

Yes the Eichel trade was deplorable. He got his surgery and was a Conn Smythe favorite immediately after he left. Good lord above Pegula.

Thankfully, we have something going for ourselves. We have great talent locked in for cheap, and it'll get cheaper as the cap goes up. Lots of room to grow.

We do? What exactly? Prove it. 

[PerreaultForever]

17 minutes ago, seer775 said:

Dahlin is a Norris candidate. Thompson is an 80 point player, Skinner a 40 goal scorer, Cozens is gritty and a skilled player at 22 years old. Mittlestadt is a great bottom-6 playmaking centre. Quinn and JJP are showing great potential in terms of offense. Power is pretty darn good at 20. Levi and UPL are also showing signs of growth at young ages. Tuch is a steal at <5 mil. We have a lot of valuable assets. 

Our team has been horrendously mismanaged since Briere and Drury walked. We only saw signs of improvement when Eichel was injured and we've been growing since then. Plus, we have a ton of upcoming talent that will grow with our core.

We aren't going to be good for like 3-4 years. We have young, high calibre talent at bargain rates. The salary cap is going up. Water the seeds every day, give them sunlight, and they will grow. Throw a little fertilizer in the mix (i.e someone to teach proper defense and how to be tough) and we have a team that will resemble the 05-06 Sabres.

You didn't answer the point though. Nobody is arguing that there is talent on the roster and there is potential in the prospects. That's not the point. 

Your comment was that the Rangers, Carolina, etc. were paying the price for trading away picks and I said look at the standings. Then you said that was regular season and didn't count, playoffs mattered and you alluded to this team being built for the playoffs to which I said prove that. Cause we AREN'T. If there was ever a team being built for the regular season and playoff failure, this is it. 

Playoff success requires great goaltending, solid defense and physicality and grit along with some scoring talent (and ideally a good PP) . That is not the Sabres and there is no sign that that will be the Sabres in the future either. Hence I said prove it. 

Saying that we will be bad for 3-4 years is a ridiculously low bar and it comes along with zero guarantees of future success. Why should WE as fans have to wait that long when other teams do it faster? These sort of low bar apologetics make no sense at all. 

I do agree we've been mismanaged though. I think we still are being mismanaged, and I think it comes right from the top (TP). 

The proof is in what actually happens, not in future forecasts, maybes and prospects. None of that matters until it becomes wins on the ice. Fool me once shame on shame on won't get fooled again. 

Edited November 17, 2023 by PerreaultForever

[PerreaultForever]

Just now, seer775 said:

We need three bottom 4 Defensemen and three bottom 6 forwards. Everything else for the most part is set to develop. 

Forwards Out: Jost, Oloffson, Okposo. Defense Out: Joker, Clifton, EJ.

Replace them with prospects and/or trades, and we have something.

Well there's no disagreement there but my point would be why didn't we start on that this year? Should have ditched Olofsson before the season started. Should not have signed KO. EJ I have no issue with as it's a temp vet signing and Clifton seemed like good value but I think my fears on what might happen with him have happened unfortunately. Jost was a waiver guy. Why did they ever think he'd be anything? Free agency could simply have been better this year, it wasn't, and now we pay the price. 

[Thorner]

20 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

What is this ANOTHER KA post?

It's a good argument EXCEPT (to the bold) Rangers and Panthers are doing very well (1st and 2nd in their divisions respectively) and Leafs and Carolina are still in playoff positions and then there's Boston to consider further. Remind me, how many of their own draft picks did Vegas have winning the cup? (I'll wait..............)

Those are the cold hard facts, not some half baked theory of development. 

You do realize, at this point, that we traded Eichel for Tuch. Now I like Tuch. I'm glad he's a Sabre and imo he should have been named captain before this season BUT until the picks actually become something, all we got worth talking about was Tuch. Ponder it. We've become nothing more than a development/farm team for the rest of the league. 

It’s not a good argument 

10 hours ago, seer775 said:

Reg szn don't mean squat. If you don't at least make the semis, consider it a failure. 

Just an utterly putrid line of thought imo, I’m sorry. You have to be final 4 or the season is a failure? 

the rest of the post is non-sensical, but at least not putrid. Having our core locked in cheap relative to the current cap isn’t a situation that improves when the cap goes up further: the one advantage we have gets mitigated because the growing cap grants wiggle room to the teams that actually need it, when we don’t. We were going to be one of the teams NOT capstrapped and now more teams join those ranks. We aren’t even going to utilize said space anyways, given past KA precedent. Growing cap neutralizes the benefit of the strides/points of differential relative to other teams that KA made in CURRENT system 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Thorny

[Thorner]

2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

You didn't answer the point though. Nobody is arguing that there is talent on the roster and there is potential in the prospects. That's not the point. 

Your comment was that the Rangers, Carolina, etc. were paying the price for trading away picks and I said look at the standings. Then you said that was regular season and didn't count, playoffs mattered and you alluded to this team being built for the playoffs to which I said prove that. Cause we AREN'T. If there was ever a team being built for the regular season and playoff failure, this is it. 

Playoff success requires great goaltending, solid defense and physicality and grit along with some scoring talent (and ideally a good PP) . That is not the Sabres and there is no sign that that will be the Sabres in the future either. Hence I said prove it. 

Saying that we will be bad for 3-4 years is a ridiculously low bar and it comes along with zero guarantees of future success. Why should WE as fans have to wait that long when other teams do it faster? These sort of low bar apologetics make no sense at all. 

I do agree we've been mismanaged though. I think we still are being mismanaged, and I think it comes right from the top (TP). 

The proof is in what actually happens, not in future forecasts, maybes and prospects. None of that matters until it becomes wins on the ice. Fool me once shame on shame on won't get fooled again. 

If it takes Adams… 8 years to field a good team, he has done an *objectively* horrible job as GM compared to literally every other GM, and compared to anything other than the combined, worst of all time efforts of Regier/Murray/Botterill who missed for 9 straight - over which making it after 8 years would represent a slight, modest improvement

you know what they say: aim low

Edited November 18, 2023 by Thorny

[Scottysabres]

Changes in coaching, changes in roster, particularly goaltending and veteran leadership are not merely needed, they are now necessary if this team is have any chance of success.

[Billznut]

On 11/15/2023 at 1:02 PM, Thorny said:

Just wanted to expand on this:

Being a *good drafter* matters. Having the deepest *prospect pool* known to man matters little. 

the biggest elephant in the room people somehow don’t grasp is that…there’s a draft every single year lol. Like, every year, get this: the league just…gives out 7 free draft picks to every team! Like, just for free! 

when you are a team like the Buffalo Sabres, and you are constantly measuring your timeline to competitiveness in multiple years.. all the other teams, that need *so much less* from their prospect pools due to the strength of their actual roster, have *multiple years* to cobble together the replacement prospects they need, from the free draft picks dolled out, again, every single year. 

do you know how hard it is to make up ground just by endlessly fortifying your prospect pool, like we do? Other teams are making picks over that long time frame, too lol. And they require so much less from them. (Strengthen goalie by team D? How bout strengthen prospect pool by strong nhl roster. That’s the secret: needing less from your young kids. Easier for them to find success.)

It is no good pooling a bunch of excess prospects, you don’t make up ground by the *few* that squeeze through the compression to get in to the league every year, there aren’t enough spots, your benefit is squandered willingly.

The strength of a deep pool is in its use as *currency*. If you don’t use it for that, you aren’t going to make up ground. If you don’t want to GM, you won’t have a good team.

All Kevyn has been doing is selling Pegula on patience with the young guys. It’s only buying Kevyn more time as an NHL GM, nothing more. It’s not translating to being a winning organization or actually playing playoff games. Eventually Pegula will realize this. Sadly by that point, we will have extended our streak of futility to 13, 14, 15 … years. 

[GoPuckYourself]

My problem with GM Kevyn Adams is this, none of us in here are GM's of any sort yet most of us knew coming in that we needed competent veterans to replace Okposso/Grigensons yet Adams re-signs those 2, we also stated we needed an upgrade in net of any kind, yet Adams sticks with the same 3 that wasn't good enough last season and pins his hopes entirely on a rookie. Most of us said we desperately needed a faceoff guy, Adams still has not gotten this guy. We also said we needed at least 2 defensive defensemen and finally Adams agreed and unfortunately Clifton has been a major bust up until this point. I just don't think this guy is a quality enough GM to know what it takes to put together a championship caliber team, I'm still hoping and faithful but deep down I think i already know where this will lead.

[postseasonblues]

It's a 10 year plan, just be patient. 

[Archie Lee]

We will get a glimpse of this team's psyche on Sunday.  The Blackhawks are not a good team.  They play today in Nashville.  The Sabres should be well-rested.

MoneyPuck's simulator has the Sabres winning last night's game nearly 70% of the time. They did play a good road game against a good team.  They had a couple defensive lapses, one terrible goal against (a once a season kind of goal), and they were at times too fancy on offence. In a lot of ways, last night was an encouraging game. In the context of a good team having a good season, last night would be the sort of game where you conclude you just need to clean up a couple things and keep doing what you are doing. 

Unfortunately, we are not currently a good team having a good season. In the context of a disappointing start for a team with high expectations, overlaid on a record-long playoff drought, last night just seems like another sign that they are never going to get it right.

The Sabres should take positives from last night.  They should fix a few problem areas, go into Chicago and win going away, and then build on these two games.

[Scottysabres]

Tick-toc, Tick-toc, Tick-toc

We have heard the chimes of midnight master shallow....

Every day Granato and staff remain at the helm, is another day this team steers deeper in to the abyss.

[TheAud]

4 hours ago, postseasonblues said:

It's a 10 year plan, just be patient. 

When did it start?

[postseasonblues]

15 minutes ago, TheAud said:

When did it start?

It's all a blur, but I'm thinking 3 years ago.