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I think a lot of things can be true at one time. I think McBeane are both very good at their jobs but I also don't think two very good executives are enough to overcome Pegula. Had the Bills Baker, who is considered a top 10 QB in the NFL right now, I think the Bills look a lot closer to the Cleveland Browns than they do the Chiefs or the Eagles. And that isn't a critique on McBeane, that is a full on insult to Terry Pegula.

I'm so out of touch that I can't even comprehend the archaic world and crowd. Please be gentle with me. I'm frail and easy to be wounded i.e. easy target due to inherent insufficiencies. 😄

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I think about this as well. It's not just the absence of her role, her personality with the sports teams -- but also the toll it must take on Terry to have a spouse who's become disabled. (Please don't take that last bit the wrong way.)

I do think Rochester would have had a hard time with Charlotte. While Laval was similar to the Amerks with many developing players on the squad and a similar age distribution Charlotte is a spare parts team for the defending Stanley cup champs. In the playoffs the Amerks had 8 players younger than 23 years of age. Charlotte had 3. The 2 goalies they have are 29 and 30 years old. Levi is 23. I am disappointed Rochester could not get by Laval. I think we had a better over all roster. We had 5 first round draft picks playing. I do wish one of the younger players would have been so good that the other team could not handle them. I wish Levi played better in the last game. 2 years in a row when the game counted the most he really was not all that good. It does not mean the young guys or Levi are bad. I think most of them will make it to the NHL. Are any of them all stars? It's tough to make that case right now. At least when this group gets to the NHL they will have better fundamentals as opposed to the players rushed up to the Sabres over the last decade. I remember Housley saying when he came to coach here he did not think he was going to have to teach players how to pick a puck off the wall. At least they are getting that stuff out of the way.

Hey, can we all just agree to wear Phred the Phoenix gear to games now? EDIT: Maybe signs "I went to the University of Phoenix Online and All I got is THE WORST GM IN THE NHL."

Perhaps. And not saying it's causation. But there is a distinct difference in the changes in the hockey department pre early-2022 and post when the team has underperformed yet again.

The hobbit was released in 1937

Serious question. Adams has to be the greatest alumni that Phred the Phoenix has ever seen grace its halls websites. But really, if you zoom far enough out he is entrenched as a 6 year executive of a major professional sports team. There might not be a single more "successful" graduate of their business program.

Surely you’ve seen LOTR? or do you just mean again

It also makes me sad that I never wrote out the full Sabres Wars prequel trilogy screenplays. But, add the prequels to the watchlist, and know that I have just about everyone in the organization mapped to a character. And it's creepy how well it works.

I’m so out of touch with all the references. Being archaic makes one say “huh” a lot.

This could be a snake way of saying he had somebody else do it. See JBotts.

“Why didn’t Pegula declare himself Minister of the Sabres?” asked Ron. Lupin laughed. “He doesn’t need to, Ron. Effectively he is the Manager, but why should he sit behind a desk in Buffalo? His puppet, Thickhead, is taking care of everyday business, leaving Terry Riddle free to extend his power beyond the sabres.”

One thing that I wonder about in all of this is how much, if at all, this situation would be different had Kim Pegula not had her heart attack which essentially resulted in a stroke. The 2 were most definitely a team and without her around now it sure seems from the Fairburn article that Adams and Terry are now that team as far as the hockey side of things goes. Maybe he'd be even more entrenched were she still more involved, but wasn't a significant portion of the ouster of their 1st GM hire a perceived or real insubordination towards her and a significant portion of the 2nd GMs ouster was the owners "not feeling heard" (or something to that effect). (Pretty sure it was her idea to can Brandon too.) Might Kim have been a bit more pointed in the questioning of what was going on at the end of season reviews and during the inseason low points? Terry made some sort of boast when he bought the Sabres that he'd never fired anyone from his Energy East company. But he and his wife sure did fire a lot of people in their 1st 9 or so years of owning the Sabres. Maybe he's a softie and she's the one that has more of the stomach for that sort of thing. Since the team's taken a step back from 91 points we've now seen Granato fired, the S&C coach fired, and Ellis demoted and that's the entirety of the removal for performance in the past 2 years. (Not counting alterations to the playing roster to date.)

The issue then becomes, how much influence does the new staffer have, especially compared to KA. My suspicions are that he may have more authority.( Just my personal opinion.)

And I come back to you now… (after having never left) .. at the turn of the tide

Reading this thread makes me realize I need to watch Game of Thrones and read/watch Lord of the Rings

Really, when JBott refused to fire everyone, Pegula should have just named himself the GM (gone full Jerry Jones) and taken over the control of the team in his own vision. Of course, that's a job, and it's time-consuming and difficult. So, whom better to run it than the sycophant who will do his direct bidding, just as well as he himself could run it? Kind of a cowardly approach vs. what he did with the football team (and I assume the lacrosse team), which is hire real folks to do everything because they actually know the sport and can put in the time/setup to get talented staffs and players, etc. I sense a lot of fear there for something as trivial as a trade dispute hockey franchise. They're one and the same: master and apprentice.

Terry doesn’t need to actually be right, he’s rich. He just needs to be able to tell himself he is. - - - great post

Yep. That's the most salient thing for me that Fairbairn's piece drove home. And even though it's nothing we didn't know or at least suspect, @thewookie1 is right, having it spelled out so matter-of-factly is damn depressing.

Technically Adams would be closer to the truth based on those specific phrasing. You don't choose to win, you can choose to try to win but you can't just state you'll win and will it into existence. Winning is a byproduct of many different elements coming together to create success; continued success is neither aligned nor unaligned with immediate winning but are not directly linked. The problem is that Adams keeps using bad ingredients to make his Sabres Pie.

A bit of a chicken and the egg analysis, imo. I believe that Pegula chose Adams precisely because he perceived the absence of such "skills" in Adams. It was those same skills, I think, that prompted the Pegulas' statement that they weren't being "heard" by Botterill. They (he) wanted someone who would be a direct expression of their (his) "vision" for the Sabres. That vision is little more than a tragic folly -- leading to nothing but waste and ruin. (Sorta sticking with the LOTR tones there.)

I decided to read the article and then just file it away. It paints such a bleak picture that one could easily just throw up their arms in surrender because it effectively tells us the Buffalo Sabres only hope of having success is via a 1 in a Million set of circumstances playing out. Otherwise the franchise itself would have to be sold to another owner and that would have a high likelihood of it being moved which defeats the purpose. Hell I'm still concerned as to what will happen when Pegula dies seeing as his estate would have to split his assets which not only would put the Sabres in jeopardy but the Bills as well.