Is "accountability" even possible in the Sabres organization?

[GASabresIUFAN]

I don't think accountability is possible in the Sabres organization.  

The GM's job is apparently safe and the player have zero fear of losing their jobs.  They don't care about being benched, don't care about winning and don't listen to the HC.  Their guaranteed long-term contracts keep them from worrying about their next paycheck and the "punishment" for playing bad is likely getting traded out of the cesspool that is the Sabres.  Not much of a punishment.  The real punishment is playing for Adams and Pegula.  

With zero accountability there is zero incentive to even try.  The players are much more worried about getting hurt.  What a sad place to be with more than half the season remaining.  

 

[bob_sauve28]

Nope.

I just wonder if we are missing the larger point. It's not the organization that's the problem, its the city. The Sabres are a second rate franchise in their own town. The Bills are the real draw and the Sabres for most people don't even begin getting people's paying attention until after Bills season is over. Buffalo really IS NOT a great hockey town.

 

 

[Pimlach]

If the Owner is ok with the current situation, and the GM is safe, and the HC is safe, then why would the players worry?  

Terry's speech sure inspired them to do better.  

The only worried players are the ones lining up to leave and they are worried about missing out at the trade deadline.  

Edited Sunday at 03:50 PM by Pimlach

[MISabresFan]

18 minutes ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Nope.

I just wonder if we are missing the larger point. It's not the organization that's the problem, its the city. The Sabres are a second rate franchise in their own town. The Bills are the real draw and the Sabres for most people don't even begin getting people's paying attention until after Bills season is over. Buffalo really IS NOT a great hockey town.

 

 

If your definition of a good hockey town is a team that draws fans and draws $$ then winning might be related to a good hockey town.

 

[Carmel Corn]

Nope, no accountability.  The fish stinks from the head, so if Pegula himself shows no urgency, then nothing else really matters.  The players talked about it last off-season, but it seems like nothing but lip service now

[Dreams Burn Down]

50 minutes ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Buffalo really IS NOT a great hockey town.

 

I disagree.  Buffalo is a rabid hockey town.  It's simply no longer a rabid Sabres town.  We have one of the most knowledgeable and passionate hockey fan bases in the sport.  They're just tired.  Tired of supporting a middling at best and continually disappointing product.

Accountability begins by looking into bathroom mirror and realizing where the real problem lies.  Until TP does that, nothing will change.

[bunomatic]

1 hour ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Nope.

I just wonder if we are missing the larger point. It's not the organization that's the problem, its the city. The Sabres are a second rate franchise in their own town. The Bills are the real draw and the Sabres for most people don't even begin getting people's paying attention until after Bills season is over. Buffalo really IS NOT a great hockey town.

 

 

All they have to do is win. Nothing to do with the city. Management and personnel are the culprit. TP plays a huge part in all the disfunction as well.

[Spoonman]

1 hour ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Nope.

I just wonder if we are missing the larger point. It's not the organization that's the problem, its the city. The Sabres are a second rate franchise in their own town. The Bills are the real draw and the Sabres for most people don't even begin getting people's paying attention until after Bills season is over. Buffalo really IS NOT a great hockey town.

 

 

I have been quiet on the boards this year as I am watching & was ever hopeful again, until they implode again game nights & another season.

I disagree w your take on the city/fans. 

Fans have supported this team since established in ‘70. I remember when we were competitive & relevant in the NHL. 

The city was always behind, supporting, & excited by our boys.

That said, only so much $ in pockets to spend & Sabres are again Sabre-ing. I don’t blame fans, it is the ‘Or Gan IZ A Shon’.

After 13 (going on 14) yrs. of:

- mismanagement, including:

- rotating GM’s & coaches (HC & assistants - I.e. Kruger soccer guy)?!

- bad drafts & trades (ok we keep picking early in draft so building up assets during this period).

- not selling high w prospects/players

- putting too many kids in NHL too soon 

- no real veteran leadership/depth to show the young bucks, and younger veterans (who don’t know winning) how to play big boy hockey.

- GMKA & youngest team in league (again), is too in love w his players to make real moves, Pegs too in love w GMKA’s fealty to do anything!? 

- GMKA not capable & limited scouting staff of even picking up waiver wire guys  (Kapanen to Oilers!). 

- no direction I can discern, except we started year with ‘playoff hockey’ as goal, want accountability, and as of GMKA’s forced presser, the team is back to growing & he likes this group, Buffalo no palm trees & NY taxes…. (has nothing he has/hasn’t done).

- I have not been on Pegs selling the team, as I want them to stay in Buffalo (I remember losing the NBA Braves way back). That said this city deserves better.

IDK anymore what to do?! 

[Wyldnwoody44]

I just imagine that is such a toxic locker room. They may not say it, but man, I've worked in jobs that just consume you and that's without getting slammed in media/social media. 

There is no way to crawl out of it, did you see the JJP goal last night, he was miserable and even Tuch trying to pump him up was futile. I mean skinner was a problem but at least there was some joy there still when he scored. 

I legit don't have a clue or answer in what to do, but Ruff isn't changing this and even winning a game here or there won't do much. 

I fear that 90% of the team has checked out, don't get injured, hope for another change. What else is left. 

[bob_sauve28]

No disagreeing that Terry is terrible, but this city has put up with him and his do nothingness with the Sabres. 

When Mogilney left town I remember him saying he didn't like living in a one newspaper town, or something. And really, does this media hold the Sabres accountable? 

I'd say no. In fact, I'd argue the media is part of the problem. It's like an embedded reporter with the military during war, generally positive reporting. They just want news, good or bad, they don't care. I mean, just look at our broadcast team! Nothing says you don't care more than that! 

[JP51]

They are accountable their goal is to lose and turn this into hockey hell which they have done. There is no possible explanation for this level of abject ineptitude you literally have to try and focus every bit of your essence to be this bad for this long. There is no other explanation. Pegula was bullied by the hockey team in HS and he is exacting his revenge. 

Edited Sunday at 06:30 PM by JP51

[inkman]

36 minutes ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

I just imagine that is such a toxic locker room. They may not say it, but man, I've worked in jobs that just consume you and that's without getting slammed in media/social media. 

There is no way to crawl out of it, did you see the JJP goal last night, he was miserable and even Tuch trying to pump him up was futile. I mean skinner was a problem but at least there was some joy there still when he scored. 

I legit don't have a clue or answer in what to do, but Ruff isn't changing this and even winning a game here or there won't do much. 

I fear that 90% of the team has checked out, don't get injured, hope for another change. What else is left. 

I think they need to get some clear heads in the locker room.  By that I mean new players.  

[Archie Lee]

The Sabres’s roster is basically Anaheim with Rasmus Dahlin. Take Dahlin out with an injury and layer on the expectation of playoffs, and you get a team that looks like the Sabres. They are collapsing under the weight of unreasonable* expectations. 
 

* For clarity, I mean it is unreasonable to expect this roster of players to make the playoffs. It is NOT unreasonable to expect the GM to have assembled a playoff calibre roster at this stage of his tenure. 

[Pimlach]

1 hour ago, Spoonman said:

I have been quiet on the boards this year as I am watching & was ever hopeful again, until they implode again game nights & another season.

I disagree w your take on the city/fans. 

Fans have supported this team since established in ‘70. I remember when we were competitive & relevant in the NHL. 

The city was always behind, supporting, & excited by our boys.

That said, only so much $ in pockets to spend & Sabres are again Sabre-ing. I don’t blame fans, it is the ‘Or Gan IZ A Shon’.

After 13 (going on 14) yrs. of:

- mismanagement, including:

- rotating GM’s & coaches (HC & assistants - I.e. Kruger soccer guy)?!

- bad drafts & trades (ok we keep picking early in draft so building up assets during this period).

- not selling high w prospects/players

- putting too many kids in NHL too soon 

- no real veteran leadership/depth to show the young bucks, and younger veterans (who don’t know winning) how to play big boy hockey.

- GMKA & youngest team in league (again), is too in love w his players to make real moves, Pegs too in love w GMKA’s fealty to do anything!? 

- GMKA not capable & limited scouting staff of even picking up waiver wire guys  (Kapanen to Oilers!). 

- no direction I can discern, except we started year with ‘playoff hockey’ as goal, want accountability, and as of GMKA’s forced presser, the team is back to growing & he likes this group, Buffalo no palm trees & NY taxes…. (has nothing he has/hasn’t done).

- I have not been on Pegs selling the team, as I want them to stay in Buffalo (I remember losing the NBA Braves way back). That said this city deserves better.

IDK anymore what to do?! 

 

a response to the Spoon signal has been detected. 

[PerreaultForever]

4 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Nope.

I just wonder if we are missing the larger point. It's not the organization that's the problem, its the city. The Sabres are a second rate franchise in their own town. The Bills are the real draw and the Sabres for most people don't even begin getting people's paying attention until after Bills season is over. Buffalo really IS NOT a great hockey town.

 

 

Not true. The fact that they still have ANY fans is a testament to how strong of a hockey town it really is. I remember the glory days. I remember how long the lines at the border were on Sabres game nights (great nights for sneaking duty free across the border, just wear a Sabres jersey and line up). 

There is no American city where hockey is bigger than football. NFL rules in the sports world. Even in a sports city like Boston with an original six team the Bruins are behind the Pats, Celtics and Red Sox. Only in Canada does hockey reign supreme. 

Now having said that, to the question, no, in the current situation accountability is next to impossible. Without people in that locker room demanding it from their team mates it's impossible. There is nothing a coach can do as there is no one to bring in if you sit someone. I mean what has Quinn done to be back in the line up? Nothing. But who you going to replace him with? Call up Rosen? There's no answer with this roster. 

This is why I say we need a bunch of guys who hate to lose that will thump their own team mates if necessary. I think the Dahlin Krebs incident was actually a good thing, and around that time we were showing signs of becoming a hockey team, but it wasn't enough and there weren't enough guys to keep that going and so now we are in the spiral again and everybody's quitting. 

[inkman]

5 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

I don't think accountability is possible in the Sabres organization.  

The GM's job is apparently safe and the player have zero fear of losing their jobs.  They don't care about being benched, don't care about winning and don't listen to the HC.  Their guaranteed long-term contracts keep them from worrying about their next paycheck and the "punishment" for playing bad is likely getting traded out of the cesspool that is the Sabres.  Not much of a punishment.  The real punishment is playing for Adams and Pegula.  

With zero accountability there is zero incentive to even try.  The players are much more worried about getting hurt.  What a sad place to be with more than half the season remaining.  

 

How do you hold players accountable on guaranteed contracts, with limited roster flexibility, set for life financially? Put Power, Cozens and Tage in the press box indefinitely?

I’m not opposed to it, I just want to know what it looks like.  

[GASabresIUFAN]

16 minutes ago, inkman said:

How do you hold players accountable on guaranteed contracts, with limited roster flexibility, set for life financially? Put Power, Cozens and Tage in the press box indefinitely?

I’m not opposed to it, I just want to know what it looks like.  

That’s my point.  Unless the players want to do what is necessary to win, once KA gave them their fat contracts they had no incentive to work hard or play hard.  
 

Benching has no effect.  Dropping them down the lineup has had no effect and they can’t be sent to the minors for the most part.  

Edited Sunday at 08:35 PM by GASabresIUFAN

[Cage]

20 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Nope.

I just wonder if we are missing the larger point. It's not the organization that's the problem, its the city. The Sabres are a second rate franchise in their own town. The Bills are the real draw and the Sabres for most people don't even begin getting people's paying attention until after Bills season is over. Buffalo really IS NOT a great hockey town.

 

 

That's a really surprising take from someone with Bob Sauve as his handle???  In the 70s/80s/90s the Sabres did own this town.  When I was growing up everyone had a Sabre Jak.  People were far more likely to be dressed in Sabres colors than Bills.  It wasn't until the 90's SB years that the Bills started to take over.  But even then, Hasek, Barnaby, Ray and company were the toast of the city.  

Obviously now the Bills are riding quite a wave, but I have no doubt the Sabres would be selling out if they were as competitive as the teams that I'm pointing to above

 

[Archie Lee]

17 hours ago, inkman said:

How do you hold players accountable on guaranteed contracts, with limited roster flexibility, set for life financially? Put Power, Cozens and Tage in the press box indefinitely?

I’m not opposed to it, I just want to know what it looks like.  

How does every winning team do it?  You start by assembling a roster around them that you can win with. This is not on the players. It is on the owner and GM. If we move on from the current core, they will go on to careers like Reinhart and Eichel and Ullmark (I don’t mean Stanley Cups and Vézina trophies, I just mean they will go on to reach their potential elsewhere). It’s time to support the core, not dismantle it. 

[bob_sauve28]

58 minutes ago, Cage said:

That's a really surprising take from someone with Bob Sauve as his handle???  In the 70s/80s/90s the Sabres did own this town.  When I was growing up everyone had a Sabre Jak.  People were far more likely to be dressed in Sabres colors than Bills.  It wasn't until the 90's SB years that the Bills started to take over.  But even then, Hasek, Barnaby, Ray and company were the toast of the city.  

Obviously now the Bills are riding quite a wave, but I have no doubt the Sabres would be selling out if they were as competitive as the teams that I'm pointing to above

 

Totally agree that the city supports a winner but while we support winners, we don't seem really good at pushing losers to get better. Jerry Sullivan does kind of have a point about our media being soft, and not really holding the organizations to account.  Heck, the media really seems complicit with the team, as if they are the same team.

The Bills are different on this point. The NFL's media reach is so much larger and they can put pressure on the organization to do better, the Sabres really don't have that. The media coverage of Sabres is more chummy, more friendly. And with missing the playoffs they simply avoid more media spotlights. 

When Mogilney made that quote that are a "one newspaper town" I think he was on to something.  I'm not blaming the people of Buffalo, I'm just arguing our situation doesn't really empower fans to push for more accountability 

[inkman]

14 minutes ago, Archie Lee said:

How does every winning team do it?  You start by assembling a roster around them that you can win with. This is not on the players. It is on the owner and GM. If we move on from the current core, they will go on to careers like Reinhart and Eichel and Ullmark (I don’t mean Stanley Cups and Vézina trophies, I just mean they will go on to reach their potential elsewhere). It’s time to support the core, not dismantle it. 

I don’t have the faith you do in anyone on the current roster.  Hopefully they will prove me wrong. 

[LTS]

19 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

No disagreeing that Terry is terrible, but this city has put up with him and his do nothingness with the Sabres. 

When Mogilney left town I remember him saying he didn't like living in a one newspaper town, or something. And really, does this media hold the Sabres accountable? 

I'd say no. In fact, I'd argue the media is part of the problem. It's like an embedded reporter with the military during war, generally positive reporting. They just want news, good or bad, they don't care. I mean, just look at our broadcast team! Nothing says you don't care more than that! 

Broadcast teams and media in general are very different today than they were 20-30 years ago. I wouldn't expect the local media to be overly questioning (however, they are questioning) these days. Most newspaper journalists don't even know if they'll have a job year to year. They have to branch out and attempt to build their own brand via social media but they also need to make sure they are able to access the team.  There's a fine line there.

The broadcast team is 100% at the mercy of the team itself. No way are they going to slam their employers.

As for the city itself? I would never question the integrity of the fan base. The attendance is a testament to the product the team has put on the ice. I'd love to say that we've all been in the arena when the team is doing well and we know what the atmosphere is like but I don't know that we can say that now given how long it's been. But as we've seen, plenty of people on here know what a good team will do for attendance and atmosphere.

Of course the in arena game production leaves a LOT to be desired, so even if the Sabres were a winning team I don't think it would compare to other places. That's also on the team itself to rectify.

As for putting up with Terry, I'm not sure I would agree. There's a level of "putting up" that we all have to do because he's the owner. But again, I think far less people give a damn about the Sabres right now because they are losing. That's not putting up with Terry, that's not supporting his product. There is definitely an aspect of the Bills' success that overshadows that Sabres woes and that would happen in most cities.

17 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

That’s my point.  Unless the players want to do what is necessary to win, once KA gave them their fat contracts they had no incentive to work hard or play hard.  
 

Benching has no effect.  Dropping them down the lineup has had no effect and they can’t be sent to the minors for the most part.  

I don't agree with this. I think it's easy to equate a contract to not trying. It's easy to equate the lack of success to lack of effort. I think it's more a situation where you have just far too many young players trying to all work through the same things. They lack veteran support to provide the experienced view on how to handle everything that happens on the ice and off the ice. They are fragile, but young teams are expected to be fragile. I think they respond to benching. I think they do try for the most part. The problem is that they don't all try at the same time, try the same way that allows them to play as a team.

As a quick example, I used to coach a kid who had all the motor in the world. All I ever heard about was how hard he played. His effort couldn't be questioned. It was a sentiment that I agreed with after watching him play. The problem was he was always reading the play wrong. So he'd try really hard and end up in the wrong position which would either leave a defensive or offensive gap that the team had to cover.  Effort does not equal success.  It's required to have success.

So I think they try. They have their moments. But they fail to achieve success, in game, and then their youth and inexperience sets in and they get down on themselves. Right now I am sure its the weight of the world on their shoulders. You don't get to this level of an athletic career and have a mindset where losing 13 games in a row is acceptable. But much like life, when you get bad news on top of bad news, eventually it wears you down.

This is in no way meant to say that I give them a pass on this.  This is the hand they are dealt and they need to overcome it. It's not an excuse for them to have lost 13 in a row and it's sure as hell not any level of justification of the actions of the front office. This team remains a tire fire and we are all experiencing 13+ years of inertia regarding this teams futility to be a quality NHL franchise.

[inkman]

34 minutes ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Totally agree that the city supports a winner but while we support winners, we don't seem really good at pushing losers to get better. Jerry Sullivan does kind of have a point about our media being soft, and not really holding the organizations to account.  Heck, the media really seems complicit with the team, as if they are the same team.

The Bills are different on this point. The NFL's media reach is so much larger and they can put pressure on the organization to do better, the Sabres really don't have that. The media coverage of Sabres is more chummy, more friendly. And with missing the playoffs they simply avoid more media spotlights. 

When Mogilney made that quote that are a "one newspaper town" I think he was on to something.  I'm not blaming the people of Buffalo, I'm just arguing our situation doesn't really empower fans to push for more accountability 

Right.  Which is why your $$$ is the only true way to hold the team accountable.  Don’t go to games.  Don’t buy merch.  Don’t pay for streaming services to exclusively watch them. Pull the rip chord.  I didn’t watch one second of Saturday’s game despite having 3 tvs in my man cave.   It was college football on every screen.  

[bob_sauve28]

2 minutes ago, inkman said:

Right.  Which is why your $$$ is the only true way to hold the team accountable.  Don’t go to games.  Don’t buy merch.  Don’t pay for streaming services to exclusively watch them. Pull the rip chord.  I didn’t watch one second of Saturday’s game despite having 3 tvs in my man cave.   It was college football on every screen.  

I really don't think TP cares much about money anymore. The guy is 100% asleep at the wheel. A pro-active approach would be better. There needs to be pressure put on them from fans, and whoever else cares about the team. Lets face it, an intervention is long overdo but nothing at all seems to be going on. Fans should go but wearing those bags over their heads, stuff like that. 

[eanyills]

23 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Nope.

I just wonder if we are missing the larger point. It's not the organization that's the problem, its the city. The Sabres are a second rate franchise in their own town. The Bills are the real draw and the Sabres for most people don't even begin getting people's paying attention until after Bills season is over. Buffalo really IS NOT a great hockey town.

 

 

I don’t understand this point. There isn’t a US team that isn’t “second rate” in their own city. No American NHL team is the top dog in their city.