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Any thoughts on whether the other owners can actually get Pegula to punt Adams? Can see them being torn on the issue. Yes, Buffalo could bring in quite a bit more money into the system if they'd rejoin the league. BUT if they do rejoin the league, then the other owners are competing against 31 other franchises rather than just 30. They already took Arizona back into the league (though they relocated the club, it is quite likley now an actual rival rather than a joke / afterthought), do they really want NO byes on their schedules?

Physicality has never been a part of Power’s Game. His height allowed him to get away with it in the USHL and NCAA, yes he needs to be more physical but he has demonstrated a significant improvement in his defense metrics in each of the last three seasons. It’s too bad they could not get Jay McKee or even James Patrick to coach the defense. Both have experience with younger players on top of NHL Careers would have been beneficial.

Evolving Hockey defense percentiles for his first full three seasons at 13th, 34th and finally 78th during his first year with Ruff. I was ok with the Ruff Hiring as his teams usually see a bounce his first season, that certainly did not happen with the Sabres. It also stopped Adams from hiring His First Choice in Seth Appert. Now I hope we get a completely new coaching staff in 2026-27.

I believe there are a couple reasons the league has not stepped in. First there is a general sense of sympathy towards the Pegulas for what Kim is going through. The league had to clean up two situations with Ownership of Ottawa and Arizona needing to change hands Getting the new CBA done. There probably is an overall reluctance by the other owners to strip a franchise from a fellow owner as they would not want the same thing happening to them. I imagine the decreased revenue coming from the Buffalo Market is a bone of contention for the other owners, there probably will be a strong suggestion about hiring someone with experience into the GM role, Hello Jarmo, and spending to the cap coming in the next season or two

Hiring Ruff after no search was the canary in the coal mine... and it died.

Agreed. But the system isn’t Wilford’s. The system is Ruff’s.

Can you imagine how good Power could be if he used his size to move someone out of the crease or check someone along the boards or get in the way of passing lanes. These are fundamental skills for a defenseman that Power doesn’t have or won’t do. The system is part of the problem, but most of the blame lies with Power.

All this talk about “games played”, while important, when it comes to such young players, physical maturity is just as critical in a player’s development. Power isn’t at his physical peak, is yet to acquire his “man strength”, and most likely has a few more years to go before reaching it. That’s why I think we would regret jettisoning him in a few years. We can say that about a few other players on the team as well. Get him a dependable partner who can handle the more physical demands of the position and let him play to his strengths as he matures.

If a team like the Sabres are recipients of revenue sharing, at what point does the NHL step in and encourage him to sell the team. The NHL did so with Alex Meruelo and the Coyotes, found him a nice buyer, and eventually tripled his money in less than 5 years. This had a lot to do with the Coyotes not having an NHL arena to play in. But, I wonder if there are any by-laws stipulating revenue generation as requisite for ownership? This is likely why there is a new stadium for the Bills being built. The Sabres revenue growth over the past 10 years must be negative. ChatGPT says the owners must be in the bottom half of revenue, have a small market, the owner must not have too much personal wealth, and lastly, this: Effort to Improve Revenue Teams must also show that ownership is making “best efforts” to increase revenue (e.g., through ticket sales, sponsorships, arena improvements). The NHL can withhold funds if the league believes the team isn’t trying hard enough to improve financially. Would be interesting to see if withholding revenue sharing could lead to an ownership change.

Not a fan of Terry at all so I have no reason to defend him, but you are correct this did not happen

I am going to disagree on the cap situation, that one is all Terry. Matthew Fairburn mentioned that the Sabres have had almost 60 million dollars in unused cap space over the past five years and only cap dump the Sabres have taken on was Ben Bishop to get to the floor. They are one of the franchises that receives revenue sharing and yet they never retained or acted as a third team broker to retain salary. How do you think the owners of the teams that pay into revenue sharing feel when their organizations are performing salary cap gymnastics in a flat cap world while the Sabres are sitting on unused space. Adams is complicit in the fact he is still willing to do this entering his sixth season as only two teams have made the playoffs in the past decade that were in the bottom ten for spending. Sean Monahan and Calgary’s First was offered to the Sabres as a cap dump, something that Adams actually wanted to do, but was ultimately told no. Instead Montreal ended up with two firsts for their trouble. I understand that GMs have to check with their owners about potential moves, but could you imagine Jim Nill or Joe Sakic calling their respective owners to ask about trading Henry Jokiharju for a 4th at the TDL?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YblnsHKDto Little over a Year away!

Truth.

People don't realize criminals like Trump shape the future for themselves and for no one else. Remember Bernie Madoff? He was very heavily involved with shaping the regulations in the finance world. Giving Trump all this power is just insane and with everything that has gone on people choose to ignore it. It's why people like Elon are trying to create AI to be able to control how people get answers. It's why the tech sector mostly sided with Trump even though he used to attack them. They all want a piece of the pie and can see how easily social media has made that for them. Why do you think red states don't value education as much as blue states, keep you fat and dumb and you will vote how they want. Here we are sitting on a line of 2 extremes b.c there is no middle anymore. Get everyone over the age of 60 out of office. This old power needs to go.

What’s weak sauce is this organization not demonstrating that it is serious about winning. The fact that GMKA is entering his sixth season despite the regression and failure to make the playoffs, coupled with the fact that Wilford, Bales and Ellis are entering their fifth seasons. Competent organizations make changes to their coaching staffs all the time, Colorado hired Dave Hasktol earlier this week. Sabres Fans cannot even receive that simple change. Wilford is a symptom of a much larger problem that starts with the owner. The reason I singled out Wilford is there was a candidate they reached out to about replacing him with who ultimately turned them down. This is another serious concern about the organization they seemingly focus on one potential solution, if that doesn’t work they do not pivot. The organization feels there is an opportunity to improve, but decides to stay with the status quo after the only candidate turns them down. Could you imagine Power in a competent defense system with numbers he is putting up?

Pam Bondi said she had the list right on her desk. Now all the sudden there was never any list. Missing part of the prison footage. Stop with this pretending. Asking me to give you evidence that the people in power are actively suppressing, the same person who made it one of the things they ran on president for. Now it's "not important" to talk about anymore. Trump asking people why they keep bringing it up when he talked about it at every rally he went to before hand...

He is 22 and should not be making $8.35M - that is a problem, especially with the general fan base perception of him. I agree that the Sabres gave him too much to swallow, and too fast - along with Cozens, he is another example of "no blockers" and big contracts that have gone wrong. Expectations heaped on a kid that are beyond reasonable. What is worse is that Power gets no top cover. Now they bring in 25 year old Kesselring (only 152 NHL games) to support 22 year old Power (242 NHL games). I like Kesselring, but I don't see the legitimate execution of a plan from the Sabres FO. Maybe a whole bunch of players will step up, grow up faster, and end this dam drought? It will take that and a goalie to emerge from the group of three.

It bothers me a little bit. Terry needs to inject something new into the organization, especially at the top of hockey operations. Shanny's results as an exec may be mixed, but he is a HoF player and well connected throughout the league. Buffalo is said to be a place players don't want to go to, stated by their own GM. If Shanny is calling the owner to talk about a position then invite him down to the yacht and talk. Maybe he can help? Maybe he knows others that can help? Maybe he can attract help? I am skeptical that this ever even happened.

No data. Personally, expect he'll start being what he actually is going to be the season after this. But, also, starting this season, there's a very good chance this team isn't an "internal cap" team any longer. Unless they punt Byram and bring back less salary than he ends up making, they'll at most have $5MM in cap left and if they make a move for Rust or something else to help the top 6 they'll have less than $2MM in cap (again, presuming Byram doesn't go out the door for less salary than he'll be getting).

In fairness to Peters, even if he was an individual of average intelligence in his youth, in his late adolescence / early adulthood he became a hard core user of andro (since banned for NHLers) and his job description included taking haymakers to the melon on a fairly regular basis. Of course he isn't even remotely the smartest guy in whatever room he's in presuming he isn't the only guy in the room (and even then it's debatable).

How long do we have to wait? Another 160 games? Longer? Again, if he doesn't engage physically he will never be worth the $ he is being paid. We need to win NOW! Waiting forever for Power to get a clue is no longer worth it. If he was on a bridge contract I'd be more willing to wait, but on an internal cap team ever $ wasted on a player who doesn't earn his contract (or at least close to it) is a player the needs to be replaced.

But it does make the addled decision making this team has been notorious for the past 3 or so years seem understandable. It WAS a joke. But, though that may be, considering the results, in a vacuum the theory is plausible.

Agree that Power MAY never become what the Sabres hoped/expected when he was drafted, but personally can't look past his only being 22. To the bolded, pretty sure that Adams convinced his boss (or maybe it was the other way around) to run the experiment to see if the threshold players need to pass is that 200 game or so threshold to become what they're going to be or if they needed to be mature enough to actually be MEN when they start getting into the meat of those 200 games and that they won't reach their prime at any sooner by facing stiffer competition at the earliest they can without getting blown up. It WAS an interesting experiment. And perhaps some other owner/GM at some future point will try to replicate the experiment by changing something that Adams or his coaches did that "corrupted" the experiment (in the eyes of those bold enough to repeat the experiment; and most likely the variable that owner and GM will try to fix will be getting legitimate NHL coaches to implement the plan as choosing NTDP coaches to implement the plan MIGHT've doomed the experiment but it probably was doomed anyhow) and we'll see THAT attempt to prove that it's games played and not maturity PLUS games played that dictates when pleyers become what they're going to be. But right now, the one time the experiment has been run on a non-expansion team and arguably the one time it's EVER been run has shown us that it ISN'T just players reaching the games played threshold to reach their primes. They also need the maturity for the players to be effectively (for lack of a better word) growing with those games played. Yes, Power has played 242 NHL games. And he's been the better player on his primary pairing for probably 200+ of those games. At this point in his career, that 200/40 ratio should almost be the exact opposite of what it actually is &/or he should've been 3rd pairing, not 2nd pairing for ~160 of those games at least. He still has runway to try to take flight. EDIT: And hopefully it is never a Buffalo based team that tries to run that experiment again. Let some other fanbase be the guinea pigs stuck having to hope the hypothesis being tested is correct.

Considering her health status I just don't see that.