Worst start since 2017 as Sabres predicted faceplant comes true

[LGR4GM]

We had an entire thread where we looked at scoring and came to conclusions a ton had to go right for the team to make playoffs. It's all gone wrong. PP is trash. PK is trash. Quinn and Cozens couldn't score at skeeball. The goalies turned back into their past selves. 

 

Sabres now have their worst start since 2017.

 

Edited November 3 by LGR4GM

[bunomatic]

4 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

We had an entire thread where we looked at scoring and came to conclusions a ton had to go right for the team to make playoffs. It's all gone wrong. PP is trash. PK is trash. Quinn and Cozens couldn't score at skeeball. The goalies turned back into their past selves. 

 

Sabres now have their worst start since 2017.

 

By pretty much every metric KA is a failed GM. In answer to Fairburns question , no KA can not fix this. 

Edited November 3 by bunomatic

[JoeSchmoe]

8 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Quinn and Cozens couldn't score at skeeball

😅. Cozens already cashed his tickets at the prize desk, but Quinn's looking at the plastic comb.

[JP51]

KA cant fix this... he built this team to be equipped for the Ryder Cup not the Stanley Cup. 

[That Aud Smell]

There is no end to #SomeSuffering

No end.

Thanks for coming back for an emeritus farewell, Lindy. I'll always be fond of you.

I've already written off the season. If this team were to somehow string together a 6 or 7 game winning streak within the next few weeks, I'd tune back in. Barring that, I'm done.

I don't imagine that Pegula will fire Adams. The Seth Appert succession plan must be permitted to come to fruition.

[Porous Five Hole]

They are off to their worst start since 2017 (a season where they finished in last place).

Im not expecting that to repeat itself, but it puts a rather bleak outlook on this team being anywhere close to playoff caliber.  

[Pimlach]

We have played 12 games, we will be at 24 by the end of the month.  

I still think there may be hope and I will evaluate this again at the end of November. 

We need the best players (i.e. the higher paid Core guys)  to play like they are actually the best players, and we need good goaltending to change the direction of the season.  

[inkman]

2 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

We have played 12 games, we will be at 24 by the end of the month.  

I still think there may be hope and I will evaluate this again at the end of November. 

We need the best players (i.e. the higher paid Core guys)  to play like they are actually the best players, and we need good goaltending to change the direction of the season.  

I’m still concerned that the Sabres best players aren’t players you can hitch your wagon to.  Tage kinda plays the part but I see none of it from Power, Cozens or Dahlin.  No urgency, not taking care of the puck, absolutely terrible decisions all the time.  Never making the play that is need but instead trying some shinny crap that most players would be benched or waived for.
 

 Unfortunately, we paid these kids $35 million (per season) for what they could be and not what they were.  Now we are stuck with bad players on bad contracts on a bad team.  The hope is gone. The future of hockey in Buffalo is about as bleak as it was when the team’s location was up for grabs.  

[LGR4GM]

 

 

[That Aud Smell]

7 minutes ago, inkman said:

Unfortunately, we paid these kids $35 million (per season) for what they could be and not what they were.  Now we are stuck with bad players on bad contracts on a bad team.  

I think about this a lot.

And when I do, I also think of Adams' career progress following his retirement as a player. 

In 2009, he retires to become a player agent. In August 2011, a few short months after the Pegulas became owners, he became an assistant coach for the Sabres. How'd THAT come to pass, by the way? How'd he so readily worm his way into the Pegulas' confidence? Did he know that Terry loved expensive red wine?

Less than 2 years later, he's fired in the wake of Rolston taking over. But fear not! The Pegulas find a soft landing spot for him at Harborcenter, where he works for 6 years before being brought back into the Sabres organization as the Pegulas' mole in 2019. Less than a year later, he's appointed the team's GM.

I don't have the research to back it up, but fuggit. He is, I would venture, the most unqualified GM in Sabres' history and likely in NHL history. 

When I've sounded off to this effect in the past, there are some who've observed "well, he's had the job for 5 years, so he's no longer totally unqualified."

To that, I say horse feathers. 

His results speak for themselves. He got all bricked up when a young team had an outlier of a year and so he started handing out long-term deals like they were penny candy.

The picture of Thompson and a concave-chested Cozens on some Caribbean beach followed.

And here we are. The Sabres once had a rotten core. Now they have a fraudulent one.

Papier-mâché. Firmly poke the team's exterior and you'll get little more than a cloud of dust and your finger probing a barren cavity.

And don't dive in, baby. They're just a puddle.

[Porous Five Hole]

Lindy is pissed

[ska-T Chitown]

11 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:
Lindy is pissed

GOOD!

[Demoted]

I cannot believe there was another rock bottom!

[DarthEbriate]

1 hour ago, Porous Five Hole said:

Lindy is pissed

Well, that's the real trick, isn't it? And it's going to cost you something extra. 7 years, all in advance.

 

And it's the most damning thing of this entire enterprise. There is no way the Sabres should be outworked, out-hustled to loose pucks, or look sluggish. They've got a new coach to impress, a fanbase that hasn't seen the playoffs in 13 years and is desperate to embrace the team, they're the youngest team in the league but they've got plenty of NHL game experience except Benson, and JJP/Quinn/McLeod/Byram are looking for big paydays. To look flat, to not be flying around, is bordering on incomprehensible. They're off to a bad start record wise, but so was 1/2 of the division so they're no remotely out of it (yet).

Now it comes to it -- which team will play with more urgency tomorrow? Ottawa or Buffalo?

[Goldseatsaud]

Sabres are just too soft look at them. Except maybe Greenway

Edited November 5 by Goldseatsaud

[Pimlach]

4 hours ago, inkman said:

I’m still concerned that the Sabres best players aren’t players you can hitch your wagon to.  Tage kinda plays the part but I see none of it from Power, Cozens or Dahlin.  No urgency, not taking care of the puck, absolutely terrible decisions all the time.  Never making the play that is need but instead trying some shinny crap that most players would be benched or waived for.
 

 Unfortunately, we paid these kids $35 million (per season) for what they could be and not what they were.  Now we are stuck with bad players on bad contracts on a bad team.  The hope is gone. The future of hockey in Buffalo is about as bleak as it was when the team’s location was up for grabs.  

Your concern is valid.  

The Tage and Dahlin contracts do not bother me.  They are going to be worth it and have good careers  

Adam’s moved fast on the others.  For example after something like 57 NHL games, Muel was given 7 years at $4.3M.  Great deal if he is good, but so far he has not been.  Power and Cozens are still kids and they have expensive long term deals.   They both have to get a lot better to be worth it.  
 

[North Buffalo]

Cant comment too much because it is all about wins and losses... but imo Cozens needs to get out of his own way and Power needs to grow up... betting this is the first real rut he has been after years having smoke blown up his arse about how good he is... it is frustrating but like my 20 year old this generation may need more patience than we are used to... because they dont even know what a belt or two by four is... wake up dudes.

[LGR4GM]

 

[Pimlach]

4 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

 

Interesting info.   It is still too early to count the Sabres out just yet.  They can at least move to "bubble" position with a few wins in a row.  

Tonight against Ottawa is huge.  

 

[LGR4GM]

 

[jad1]

18 hours ago, Porous Five Hole said:

Lindy is pissed

If it's going to get better, this is where it starts.  His mistake was not coming in pissed on day 1.

[That Aud Smell]

This is getting tragic, and may eventually be comical (comedy = tragedy + time).

Here's a snippet from Lysowski's piece on the Sabres being worse statistically - in almost every measurable way - than they were this time last season.

I think I'm getting more "out there" than @Stoner when it comes to the Sabres being cosmically misaligned, etc.

+++

“Not accepting that’s good enough,” Ruff said, describing how he is pushing his team to play its best for an entire game. “Not accepting that we’ve done a lot of good things. We’ve got to win games. That’s the key. Raise the standard, raise the expectation."

....

“We’ve done a lot of good things,” Sabres center Tage Thompson said. 

[...]

1 hour ago, jad1 said:

His mistake was not coming in pissed on day 1.

So true.

[Weave]

1 hour ago, That Aud Smell said:

This is getting tragic, and may eventually be comical (comedy = tragedy + time).

Here's a snippet from Lysowski's piece on the Sabres being worse statistically - in almost every measurable way - than they were this time last season.

I think I'm getting more "out there" than @Stoner when it comes to the Sabres being cosmically misaligned, etc.

+++

“Not accepting that’s good enough,” Ruff said, describing how he is pushing his team to play its best for an entire game. “Not accepting that we’ve done a lot of good things. We’ve got to win games. That’s the key. Raise the standard, raise the expectation."

....

“We’ve done a lot of good things,” Sabres center Tage Thompson said. 

I watched a Sabres produced youtube video last night that I presume was a post practice interview with Owen Power.  “We’ve done a lot of good things” was a very similar quote to Power’s response.  
 

They don’t seem to be on the same page, and they don’t seem to sense the urgency either.  This is what happens when there just aren’t enough grizzled vets from winning organizations in the room.  Our vets are mostly products of this culture.

[R_Dudley]

2 hours ago, jad1 said:

If it's going to get better, this is where it starts.  His mistake was not coming in pissed on day 1.

ding, ding, ding, winner, winner, chicken shaught dinner!

I liked the article from Torts LGR4GM had a few posts above. His coaching style is what this group of youngins needed to figure out the wheat from the chaff. Lindy has sounds like too much of the friendly grandfather giving advice instead of when he was barking out orders and benching the ones not listening.