Is "accountability" even possible in the Sabres organization?

[Big Guava]

Can't be because the owner is essentially trying to run this team on a budget, so there is no commitment from the top to win.

I mean, they still draft pretty freaking well considering they only do video scouting now but that has to show up somewhere in terms of not getting the right mix of players.

Edited 21 hours ago by Big Guava

[WhenWillItEnd66]

No. That is all.

[SabreFinn]

Luukkonen was interviewed by a finnish NHL writer  with questions about Sabres and this losing streak. On a question if players demand accountability from each other, Luukkonens answer was that you can't ask for accountability from teammates if you don't ask it from yourself.

Reading between the lines, Luukkonen was pissed off.

[bob_sauve28]

1 hour ago, eanyills said:

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.

The point is about accountability and the Sabres fly under the radar and are not really held accountable. Do you disagree with that? 

Yes, other cities have NFL teams, and maybe those teams cities would react exactly the same way Buffalo is towards TP, but I doubt it, Maybe a rustbelt city like Detroit or Pittsburg would, but if Terry owned the Rangers and they were this bad I can't imagine a crap storm would not ensue. Here we just get ready for the draft. 

 

 We are a one newspaper town and the Sabre media just seems owned and operated by TP inc. There is little to no accountability demanded from the media 

[JP51]

20 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

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. 

I will go one further... make a change... a solid and significant one in the front office and watch the hope re assert itself almost immediately... I think when you feel helpless and that nothing will change you get angry or apathetic or exceedingly negative... throw some prospect for hope and change in there... and watch what happens in this town... 

[Dreams Burn Down]

4 hours ago, Cage said:

That's a really surprising take from someone with Bob Sauve as his handle???

I'd put the tandem of Don Edwards and Bob Sauve behind only Hasek and Miller as the best this franchise ever had.  Look up games one and two of the first round in 1983 when Sauve put on a clinic in The Forum in Montreal.

[bunomatic]

2 hours ago, Big Guava said:

Can't be because the owner is essentially trying to run this team on a budget, so there is no commitment from the top to win.

I mean, they still draft pretty freaking well considering they only do video scouting now but that has to show up somewhere in terms of not getting the right mix of players.

Yeah the right mix is on KA. He literally ships out players in positions of need for players of the style that we have too many of already. Example Casey for Bo.

[PerreaultForever]

6 hours ago, JP51 said:

I will go one further... make a change... a solid and significant one in the front office and watch the hope re assert itself almost immediately... I think when you feel helpless and that nothing will change you get angry or apathetic or exceedingly negative... throw some prospect for hope and change in there... and watch what happens in this town... 

I think they've waited too long. The season is over no matter what you do now. 

[JP51]

9 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

I think they've waited too long. The season is over no matter what you do now. 

Oh I think honestly the next year is over too but people just need some hope

[Cage]

19 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

The point is about accountability and the Sabres fly under the radar and are not really held accountable. Do you disagree with that? 

Yes, other cities have NFL teams, and maybe those teams cities would react exactly the same way Buffalo is towards TP, but I doubt it, Maybe a rustbelt city like Detroit or Pittsburg would, but if Terry owned the Rangers and they were this bad I can't imagine a crap storm would not ensue. Here we just get ready for the draft. 

 

 We are a one newspaper town and the Sabre media just seems owned and operated by TP inc. There is little to no accountability demanded from the media 

In these threads people keep using the word "accountable".... I'm not sure what that really means??  For fans, we can turn off the team and ice them out of our attention span.  Don't attend games, don't buy merch....  The local media hasn't exactly been love-festing over the team.  Suppose they could be harsher, but not sure what that would change?

For the team, they can fire Ruff, fire Adams or get rid of players.  This is where it where, to me, it gets very perplexing.  

When looked at individually, Adams has made a lot of moves that we would probably agree with in isolation.  I'll keep it at a high-level, but we can go into details as well.  First he wanted to build the team around players who wanted to be Buffalo Sabres.  I think we can all agree with that concept.  The Bills would do the same thing.  Beane just took a huge cap hit to get rid of Diggs.  So he traded frustrated players (Eichel, Reinhart, Risto) and got reasonable trade compensation for them.  He got a lot of first round draft capital, Tuch (who clearly was happy to come here) and Levi (we needed a top G prospect)

He's drafted well.  We're still the youngest team in the league.  Sabres prospect pipeline is routinely ranked in the top 5.  Not just the first round picks, but taking chances on good Russian players who are developing and he got at multi-round discounts.  He knew to trade up for Peterka.  Most every GM would hav picked Owen Power #1 overall (and he's still young).  They've forced most players to be successful on Amerks before progressing.  Amerks are stocked with developing draft picks who are growing as we should expect.

He's been careful, but taking reasonable risks on handing out long-term contracts.  While we might 20:20 hindsight some of those, the long-term signings for Thompson (nearly 50 goal scorer), Cozens (30 goal scorer at the time), Samuelsson (strong young D for $4m/), Dahlin are moves most GMs would have done as well.  He's being careful with cap space as he had been expecting that Quinn, Byrum, Peterka, maybe Krebs would continue to grow and he would need the space to resign them.

He also was creative in solving long-standing G issue.  He didn't give up on UPL, got top prospect in Levi and took a shot at an emerging possibility in Comrie.  While Comrie didn't work out, he was thinking about the issue the same way as Beane may have when he signed as yet unknowns like Poyer and Hyde some years ago.  

As much as people liked Granato, the players needed "accountability" (there's that word again), so he brings back Ruff, which seems like a sound move at the time.

Obviously all of this hasn't progressed as planned, but I don't see large-scale defect in the thinking that we would expect from a GM.  I honestly am stuck with where the problem is with this team??  They should be like last year's Houston Texans or two years ago's Detroit Lions and be on the rise with the rest of the league nervous about playing them.  If that was the case, the stands would be full.... the Bills notwithstanding.

 

Edited 14 minutes ago by Cage

[LGR4GM]

29 minutes ago, Cage said:

In these threads people keep using the word "accountable".... I'm not sure what that really means??  For fans, we can turn off the team and ice them out of our attention span.  Don't attend games, don't buy merch....  The local media hasn't exactly been love-festing over the team.  Suppose they could be harsher, but not sure what that would change?

For the team, they can fire Ruff, fire Adams or get rid of players.  This is where it where, to me, it gets very perplexing.  

When looked at individually, Adams has made a lot of moves that we would probably agree with in isolation.  I'll keep it at a high-level, but we can go into details as well.  First he wanted to build the team around players who wanted to be Buffalo Sabres.  I think we can all agree with that concept.  The Bills would do the same thing.  Beane just took a huge cap hit to get rid of Diggs.  So he traded frustrated players (Eichel, Reinhart, Risto) and got reasonable trade compensation for them.  He got a lot of first round draft capital, Tuch (who clearly was happy to come here) and Levi (we needed a top G prospect)

He's drafted well.  We're still the youngest team in the league.  Sabres prospect pipeline is routinely ranked in the top 5.  Not just the first round picks, but taking chances on good Russian players who are developing and he got at multi-round discounts.  He knew to trade up for Peterka.  Most every GM would hav picked Owen Power #1 overall (and he's still young).  They've forced most players to be successful on Amerks before progressing.  Amerks are stocked with developing draft picks who are growing as we should expect.

He's been careful, but taking reasonable risks on handing out long-term contracts.  While we might 20:20 hindsight some of those, the long-term signings for Thompson (nearly 50 goal scorer), Cozens (30 goal scorer at the time), Samuelsson (strong young D for $4m/), Dahlin are moves most GMs would have done as well.  He's being careful with cap space as he had been expecting that Quinn, Byrum, Peterka, maybe Krebs would continue to grow and he would need the space to resign them.

He also was creative in solving long-standing G issue.  He didn't give up on UPL, got top prospect in Levi and took a shot at an emerging possibility in Comrie.  While Comrie didn't work out, he was thinking about the issue the same way as Beane may have when he signed as yet unknowns like Poyer and Hyde some years ago.  

As much as people liked Granato, the players needed "accountability" (there's that word again), so he brings back Ruff, which seems like a sound move at the time.

Obviously all of this hasn't progressed as planned, but I don't see large-scale defect in the thinking that we would expect from a GM.  I honestly am stuck with where the problem is with this team??  They should be like last year's Houston Texans or two years ago's Detroit Lions and be on the rise with the rest of the league nervous about playing them.  If that was the case, the stands would be full.... the Bills notwithstanding.

 

He gets 0 credit for goalie prospect situation. He could have in the same summer kept Reinhart and drafted Wallstedt. Instead he bridges Reinhart again and then trades him for magic beans. 

There is 0 gms in the entire league who would have signed Samuelsson to that deal. It was awful. 

This is all excuses for why Adams in 5, count them 5 years of crap doesn't have a playoff team. He's a bad gm and this post actually proves it. 

The Sabres have 2 Russian prospects of interest and their drafting (looking at 2022) has been okay but not great. Carolina is what great looks like. 

Trading for Byram is still bizarre. "Saving" cap isn't a thing. His "want to be here" stance is mind numbingly stupid. Players want to win. 

The Ruff move didn't seem sound at the time. He didn't even conduct a search. They did it to sell tickets. 

The more I read this post the angrier I get. What nonsense, Adams is a failure, Ruff is a failure, the team is a failure, and Terry Pegula is the worst owner in the NHL.

Edited 6 minutes ago by LGR4GM