GDT: Buffalo Sabres @ Colorado Avalanche 01/02/25 9PM --MSG

[Archie Lee]

9 minutes ago, SwampD said:

There is not a coach in the league that would have not taken that time out there.

I agree.  It was a little odd though to not see the white-board come out.  Typically you would see one of the coaches use the time-out as an opportunity to gather the 5 players who are going to be on the ice and quickly go over the plans for a won or lost draw (assignments, positioning, etc.).

[SwampD]

Just now, Archie Lee said:

I agree.  It was a little odd though to not see the white-board come out.  Typically you would see one of the coaches use the time-out as an opportunity to gather the 5 players who are going to be on the ice and quickly go over the plans for a won or lost draw (assignments, positioning, etc.).

That’s only when you are losing. In a surprise twist we were actually winning in this situation.

[That Aud Smell]

1 hour ago, Stoner said:

Are you saying this is the lowest point in franchise history?

Eesh. It's hard to be sure. It certainly feels like it.

But the omnipresence of teh interwebs and mobile phone messaging (lo, my several Sabre group chats) make it an apples:oranges comparison to compare now to low times of the past. There's so much more opportunity to socialize the misery.

Plus, we have the matter of recency bias with which to contend.

OTOH, the current drought is historic and the team's futility is without precedent for the franchise. Plus, the future is so  bleak and gloomy, given how Terry is choosing to (mis)manage the franchise.

So, yeah -- this is the lowest point in franchise history. And they ain't done yet.

[Archie Lee]

8 minutes ago, SwampD said:

That’s only when you are losing. In a surprise twist we were actually winning in this situation.

No, sorry, it's not.

When you are defending in that situation, you have a set-play off the draw: the face-off will be won here, the winger or d-man will move it here, etc.  You also have assignments for when the face-off is lost and it isn't a bad thing to take 20 seconds to go over these (in my view, Cozens blew his assignment on goal 4). I'm not saying we lost because Ruff or an assistant didn't come to the boards and go over the assignments with the 5 players on the ice.  It was odd to not see one of them do so, in my view...and it does happen all of the time in that scenario when teams are losing and winning. 

[jad1]

24 minutes ago, rickshaw said:

I’m surprised to see so many Ruff apologists. He was a terrible hire. I’d rather they kept Donny and he changed some of his attributes (like taking off the kid gloves)

But even firing Granato, surely there was a better hire than the aging Ruff. He had a very good NJ team and they missed the dance. He is doing nothing for this squad. His timeout last night proves it. This team is a disaster.

If you were an experienced, successful coach, why the hell would you work for/with Adams?  You wouldn't even be able to hire your own assistant coaches.

You mean I get a roster full of 23 year olds AND Matt Ellis?  Sign me up!

Ruff took the job because he still wanted to coach and his job prospects were limited and he liked the city.

Adams hired Ruff because every other viable candidate refused to take his call.

[DarthEbriate]

3 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

OTOH, the current drought is historic and the team's futility is without precedent for the franchise. Plus, the future is so  bleak and gloomy, given how Terry is choosing to (mis)manage the franchise.

So, yeah -- this is the lowest point in franchise history. And they ain't done yet.

It will feel worse if the Jets (the football one) takes its medicine this offseason and cuts the decrepit QB and finds a QB who can run a modern offense, resuscitates its defense, and emphasizes its young offensive line... and ekes out 9 wins to get a wild card berth in the 2025 or 2026 season.

Meanwhile, the Sabres will extend Quinn and JJP as their guys rather than finding elite centers. Sabres fans will simply have to wait until Power is 26 years old and the core is age-appropriate for playoffs. Break the drought. Follow that up with a season of regression and a miss. Then, 2 more seasons to "learn how to win" in the playoffs, by which time the Power and Dahlin contracts are over and the team needs to trade them because they are NOT resigning with this sad-sack and then rebuild once more. This is the Way of Pegula.

[jad1]

4 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

It will feel worse if the Jets (the football one) takes its medicine this offseason and cuts the decrepit QB and finds a QB who can run a modern offense, resuscitates its defense, and emphasizes its young offensive line... and ekes out 9 wins to get a wild card berth in the 2025 or 2026 season.

Meanwhile, the Sabres will extend Quinn and JJP as their guys rather than finding elite centers. Sabres fans will simply have to wait until Power is 26 years old and the core is age-appropriate for playoffs. Break the drought. Follow that up with a season of regression and a miss. Then, 2 more seasons to "learn how to win" in the playoffs, by which time the Power and Dahlin contracts are over and the team needs to trade them because they are NOT resigning with this sad-sack and then rebuild once more. This is the Way of Pegula.

Jets finding a QB.  That's funny.  

[Broken Ankles]

1 hour ago, Stoner said:

That's what we need. A protest song.

 

[DarthEbriate]

4 minutes ago, jad1 said:

Jets finding a QB.  That's funny.  

People said the same thing about the Bills until Josh Allen got to his second season and showed he was more than just hurdling linebackers. It only takes one.

[WhenWillItEnd66]

Listened to the Postgame on GR....Lots of pissed off players. Benson dropped the f-bomb during his interview. Kids need a couple more vets. Plain and simple.

[mansquito]

37 minutes ago, jad1 said:

Jets finding a QB.  That's funny.  

That could have been said about the Bills for nearly 2 decades.

 

Thank God for J.A. 17!

[Weave]

2 hours ago, Stoner said:

I wonder if someone has a job to monitor social media. And if the braintrust of the Sabres secretly smiles at seeing 571 posts for this game.

They still care!

Post count per game thread is advanced metrics!

[Pimlach]

2 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

They actually won a draw with about 25 seconds left and shot it out but it hit a Colorado bench glove and the refs rules it as if it were a Sabres glove.

Yes, correct. I remember that now.  That was big and it is unfortunate they did not get that call which would have put the next face off outside of our D Zone.  

So they did win one faceoff, but overall they didn't do the things winning teams do.  Maybe having a rookie take those big faceoffs in our D Zone was not the best decision?  Maybe McLoed, who has Stanley Cup experience, might have ben a better choice?   I don't recall him even playing in the last few minutes.  

[Pimlach]

1 hour ago, Stoner said:

As an aside, those Av fans are pretty awesome. Afterwards Byram said how much he loved playing in front of them.

And they most certainly got under the refs skin, leading to two consecutive "makeup calls" after the refs correctly ruled on the the ice that Benson was pushed into the crease.  

[jad1]

35 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

People said the same thing about the Bills until Josh Allen got to his second season and showed he was more than just hurdling linebackers. It only takes one.

You're implying luck, but their rank incompetence drafting and developing QBs negates any luck that might be coming their way.  And anytime that it appears that luck might win out, the New York media shows up and pounds that hope into the ground.

 

 

 

[Pimlach]

2 hours ago, Archie Lee said:

A tear-down or rebuild, even partial, means moving vets for younger players.  This would be the 4th attempt at a tear-down or rebuild in the Pegula era.  I'm not sure why we would think the next one would go better than the last 3.

I'm not opposed to moving out some of the core 12 players. For clarity, the core 12 are from two categories:  1.) The players who Adams has extended long-term; and 2.) The players he has clearly referenced, if not by name, as those who will need to be re-signed in the next two off-seasons and thus are preventing him (in his misguided opinion) from adding veterans with term.  These core players are, from the net out: 1.) UPL, Dahlin, Power, Samuelsson, Thompson, Cozens; and 2.) Levi, Byram, Tuch, Peterka, Quinn, and Benson. Based on how committed we have been to keeping Kulich in the line-up this year, he may be core-player #13.

So, yes, I think we should most definitely entertain moving 2-4 of these core players.  But the return needs to be players who are older than the average age of this group, which is 23(!!).  What team and what GM, other than the Sabres and Adams, would state they are in a "must make the playoffs" year, and then trot out a large core of 12-13 players with an average age of 23(!!)? No other team or GM would do that.

Tearing this down or doing another partial rebuild, would almost certainly put us into years 15-16-17 of missing the playoffs. It's a path that would only make things worse.

The most logical path is to fire Adams/Ruff and bring in a new GM/HC with the goal of modifying/fixing the roster, not tearing it down and starting over. I think, at this moment, we have a team that could be made into a playoff team next year with the combination of committed ownership, smart/targeted decisions by a qualified GM, and upgraded coaching. The most likely outcome though, is that Pegula/Adams/Ruff stay the course, we pick top 5 this year, go into next season with one of the 2-3 youngest teams in the league, and miss the playoffs for the 15th straight season.  Unfortunately, I think we are closer to being a franchise that has a 17-18 year-old top-5 pick tell us: "Pick someone else. I'm not putting on your jersey", than we are to being a playoff team.

The bolded paragraph is spot on.  

I am a Lindy fan, but I am very unhappy with the overall play of his team.  They are no better than last year although they are healthier and they made some changes in the off season.   Much of this is on Adams and Pegula, but the coaching staff is accountable as well.  

With a 5-3 lead they should have licking their chops looking for that 6th goal and instead they retreated and played scared.   They never threatened even once to score into the EN.  They turtled, they caved, they quit - all of it.   They literally failed at every facet of defending their lead.   The OT was a forgone conclusion that the Av's skill players would easily win, again.  

This meltdown, coming weeks after blowing a 4-1 lead at home to this same team, is not something that many long time loyal fans should be excusing away. 

To those looking for positives:   Yes, they played good for large parts of the game, and they answered the Avs goals several times, and yes the Avs are very good, but this team proved again to be fragile and mentally soft.  The fact that the game was there for the taking makes it worse.  

It is unfortunate that Terry cannot, and will not, interview and hire qualified hockey people to run his team - but he won't unless he somehow knows them, or knows someone who knows them, or other such nonsense.  

He seems like a nice guy but his commitment to this team is not there.  This team is still operating under his Covid cost restrictions.  I want to see him sell at least 51% of this team to a local interest.   He is the root cause of all the losing.  

 

[Bangarang]

Matt Ellis leaves the bench and this team gets worse. Coincidence? 

Maybe Appert should have spent as much time fixing the PP as he did making sure every hair on his head was perfectly in place.

[PromoTheRobot]

On 1/3/2025 at 12:10 AM, Gatorman0519 said:

He is the captain of that ship. And whatever he’s doing is clearly not working. 

Imagine this: Adams fired, Karmanos/Ventura acting GM, Ruff to PoHO, Appert to head coach.

EDIT: I see the reaction. I only posit this because this is the only in-season change I can see happening.

 

Edited Saturday at 10:53 PM by PromoTheRobot

[Weave]

3 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Imagine this: Adams fired, Karmanos/Ventura acting GM, Ruff to PoHO, Appert to head coach.

 

We need a new deck of cards, not shuffling the deck we have now.

[Gatorman0519]

13 minutes ago, Weave said:

We need a new deck of cards, not shuffling the deck we have now.

Absolutely. Nothing less would be acceptable. 

[That Aud Smell]

38 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Imagine this: Adams fired, Karmanos/Ventura acting GM, Ruff to PoHO, Appert to head coach.

 

Edited Friday at 07:07 PM by That Aud Smell

[DarthEbriate]

1 hour ago, jad1 said:

You're implying luck, but their rank incompetence drafting and developing QBs negates any luck that might be coming their way.  And anytime that it appears that luck might win out, the New York media shows up and pounds that hope into the ground.

The One might be luck. But you don't need to draft and develop a QB to make it to the playoffs. A cheap re-tread that got developed elsewhere is just as good for a wild card. Look no further than Tyrod Taylor break the Bills' own long playoff drought.

Tampa, Minnesota, Detroit, the Rams. One of them paid a ton of draft capital for their QB (LA), but otherwise it's good-to-great rosters and coaching. The elite QB on a rookie deal can be the goal for anyone, but it's not the only way.

56 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Imagine this: Adams fired, Karmanos/Ventura acting GM, Ruff to PoHO, Appert to head coach.

I don't know. I can imagine quite a bit.

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, Pimlach said:

And they most certainly got under the refs skin, leading to two consecutive "makeup calls" after the refs correctly ruled on the the ice that Benson was pushed into the crease.  

In fairness however, it was odd that they did not whistle the play dead for the injured goalie. He was clearly hurt and down and there was quite a bit of time before he scored. I've seen many games where that would be whistled dead long before the wrap around took place. Pretty sure that was the big complaint. The cause of injury was obviously just a hockey play where the D man knocked him towards the goalie. I think Colorado challenged it just to punctuate their complaint.

Also weird that Ruff held Benson out after that to protect him from getting killed. I guess that's a good thing, but also what does that say about this team?

[Stoner]

5 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

In fairness however, it was odd that they did not whistle the play dead for the injured goalie. He was clearly hurt and down and there was quite a bit of time before he scored. I've seen many games where that would be whistled dead long before the wrap around took place. Pretty sure that was the big complaint. The cause of injury was obviously just a hockey play where the D man knocked him towards the goalie. I think Colorado challenged it just to punctuate their complaint.

Also weird that Ruff held Benson out after that to protect him from getting killed. I guess that's a good thing, but also what does that say about this team?

He played after that. In fact he got booed whenever he touched the puck. He also got a crosscheck to the shoulder/neck off a center ice faceoff.

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, Weave said:

We need a new deck of cards, not shuffling the deck we have now.

You aren't getting that in the middle of the season.