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I think this is closest to truth. Lindy wants to see the Sabres get out of the dumpster. He is not rocking the boat for the greater good or the organization. I doubt he cares what anyone else thinks. Meanwhile, Smithers "talked" to an NHL assistant coach. Nothing came of it, just a conversation, and that person signed somewhere else. Now Adams can say he talked to other coaches but nothing came of it.

Waylon Smithers is one of the most competent characters in the entire Simpsons character catalog. And although it's rare because he loves his boss, he does routinely go against Burns' wishes or confront him when he's too evil. We haven't seen a sliver of the backbone in Adams that Smithers has shown.

Great movie, so many great one liners John Candy: I'm a lean mean fighting machine!! lol

I’ve been trying to tell you guys since he was hired, Lindy is here as a favor to the organization that he holds a lot of loyalty for. He’s not gonna rock boats. He giving a good faith effort to work with the situation Terry and Mr. Smithers prefer. He is here to try to bring credibility to an organization and operating system that Pegula and Smithers prefer to work under. Does that make Lindy culpable? Maybe. I suppose. To me, it is closer to charity work than anything else.

Blue = cold ❄️. Red = hot 🔥. You never played "Hide the Thimble"?

What does this mean? It doesn't really follow a single thought. What does that say about Lindy? Well by Adams own admission Lindy asked about replacing the staff at the front end, and then after getting to know the staff had a "back and forth" with Adams about replacing them. There is no back and forth between two people are on the same page off the rip. So unless you think Adams wanted to replace the staff and Lindy was trying to keep them, to me it sounds like Lindy tried to replace the coaching staff. I am not sure what the realistic expectation of Lindy Ruff is. He has spent nearly 30 years in this town as a coach or player for the Buffalo Sabres. I am sure it would be really really hard for him to throw his fingers up at the org and walk away over hunkering down and trying to right the ship. The expectation, which you seem to imply, is that Lindy should go out in a blaze of glory. That seems like the absolute worst way to end a career in your home town and would basically be unprecedented in any of the big 4 leagues in the US. I cannot possibly wrap my head around the fact that any human who watches that presser and has followed the Sabres isn't targeting all their anger and frustration at some combination of Pegula and Adams. They could hire the ghost of Scotty Bowman to be the HC this team with Trotz, Deboer, and Maurice on staff and they would still miss the playoffs. That is how wildly inept this franchise is.

My first quibble is that this stat is looking back all the way to his rookie season. It probably looks better in his time with the Panthers. It also shades the fact he has been a good playoff performer by eliminating those stats from this chart. I can't deny Bennett is a low percentage shooter but he makes up for that by being one of the leaders in shots on goal. He probably will get overpaid for his overall output but that's what happens when you are a clutch performer.

Said it at the time, it was an interesting take to decide the problem they had in the final was that they weren't offensive enough as they let several of their defensively responsible players leave without any true replacements for them. Loved the McLeod deal when it was made and it likely will only get better. And it is possible the Eulers will rally and pull this out; but FLA has consistently gotten stronger as their series have gone on, so definitely wouldn't want a mortgage payment riding on it.

Well, they did tank to win multiple SCs. So it ... worked, ... , uh, riiiiiight? 🤔

Yeah I figured it out. I’m guessing Micah’s target audience is accustomed to see these types of charts so it’s a familiar language to them. It takes me a couple minutes to figure out which colors are good and which colors are bad. Typically, red is bad in most areas of life. So I have to recalibrate my brain to red being good and blue, a neutral to positive color, is now bad.

The Sabres can't work those sort of deals anymore. They can't be the one giving away the better player. They need to be the one adding the sweeteners to get the better player.

Sam Bennett shoots below average just about every spot on the ice. Blue is below average White is average Red is above average

A running back breaking a long TD run on a slippery, snow covered field might be the worst example to illustrate his superior talent. We can find numerous other plays that show how good Cook is.

I know there are ways to make these charts a wee bit easier on the eyes and brain. A graph or chart should be something that easily identifies the measurable data you are trying to disseminate. I don’t get that looking at this chart. Maybe the color shade changes aren’t dramatic enough. Idk, but if it takes me more than a quick glance to interpret what you are saying, you probably didn’t do a good job of communicating that information.

One day after this clown says the Bills won’t see James Cook for a while, he posts this.

They've already done it to the Sabres when Connolly tried to return.

Ok, so what does that say about Lindy Ruff? I’m not defending Adams. Frankly, Adams should have fired the entire staff, did a full actual search for a head coach and let that head coach pick his staff the way it is done around the league (my understanding is that the GM typically has some say). If the Sabres functioned like a normal team, then after 22-23 Adams would have gone to Granato and said, “time to get serious Donny, we are making a couple of changes to the coaching staff”. There are still fans who think Ruff is getting the shaft. He’s a 65 year old independently wealthy man who has coached more NHL games than all but 2 people. Do us a solid Lindy and grow a pair and step down and tell the world that the conditions are not conducive to winning. The point isn’t that Adams isn’t a weasel, he’s a big one. The point is, Ruff is a weasel too.

Allen's never even made it to a Super Bowl. Also, the sports are so different. It's arguably simpler for a QB to take over and dominate than it is for a single skater to do the same.

How about a 4 year deal, $30 mill signing bonus, $8 mill annual salary. It gets him his $15 million, with flexibility from the team to burn the last year or two of the deal.

This! I don't hear that any differently than "Terry give me everything we need to be successful". Adams always leaves wiggle room. He is a total weasel. Ask him for a yes or no answer on if he can spend 100% of the salary cap or if Terry will pay for 4 new NHL veteran scouts and you get "Terry is willing to provide everything it takes to be successful". Sort of crazy to me that @Archie Lee watches Adams squirm over this question the way he does and comes away fully thinking Adams said that this was Lindy's staff that he wanted and he assembled after getting to know them. He explicitly says that Lindy asked about it, and that after getting to know them they talked about it some more, and after a back and forth "this is the staff that we arrived at". Not that this is the staff he wanted. But the one we arrived at. And as a follow up question, if this is the staff that Lindy wanted, WTF was the back and forth about after "getting to know them". In theory if this is Lindy's staff, here is the conversation. Not sure anybody would consider this a "back and forth" Kevyn: "Do you love this coaching staff?" Lindy: "Yeah" Kevyn: "Cool, next item on the agenda"

Any team that trades for Miller will be doing so because they see him as a 1st or 2nd paid d-man. So, a $6 million AAV won’t be out of line (it might be an overpay for what he is, but it won’t be an overpay for what the team thinks they are trading for). For the Sabres, assuming Byram is good as gone, then Miller would either slot beside Dahlin or Power; unless they put Dahlin and Power together (which typically has worked well, I think) and put a right shot d-man with Miller. B-Docker might fit better with Miller than with Power.

I wouldn’t go that far. Bennett was certainly looking like a bust relative to his draft position. But, he had built a reputation as a strong playoff performer in Calgary (11 goals in 30 playoff games, while being an abrasive hard to play against wanker). Florida got him in April 2021 for a 2nd and prospect Emil Heinemen, who is now in the NHL with Montreal. At the time Bennett was headed into the last year of a bridge deal that paid him around $2.5 million. Any team could have beat that offer; Bennett did not choose Florida for the palm trees and low taxes. Different positions and styles, but like Bennett, Bowen Byram was a 4th OA pick. He is at about the same point in his career as Bennett was when traded to Florida. It looks like we will trade him. On the expected Buffalo Podcast they did their mock off-season part one, and Byram went to San Jose for Timothy Lilegren and the 30th overall pick.

Being a pirate has its perils. It means that you haven chosen a life adrift from the normal. 🥲

All season long it looked like Oiler management had erred big-time in not keeping Holloway, McLeod, and Foegele and opting to keep Henrique and add J. Skinner, and Arvidsson. Then after looking finished early in rd 1, they rattled off a 13-2 stretch to put themselves up 1-0 in the cup final. Now though, it looks like they are running out of steam. The Oilers are still an elite team. It was said last night on here that it doesn’t seem that the Oilers have “IT”. Maybe so, but if the Oilers don’t have “IT” then the Panthers are the only team that does. Maybe the Oilers are getting sucked into the Panthers game, but watching the last few minutes last night, it seemed to me that the Oilers were doing what we would want the Sabres to do. They were sending a message that they aren’t going quietly. And, they have a lot of guys who can participate in the shenanigans. One line after the other had someone willing to drop the gloves or mix it up with the toughest of the Panthers. Maybe this is fence sitting, but I would not count the Oilers out until they are down 2 late in an elimination game. I could easily see them losing Thursday and then winning game 5 at home, putting them one road win from a game 7.