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So, has the clock struck twelve on Colton Ellis?

If any other hockey market had to deal with the Pegula era Sabres the team would be moved because no one would care or support the Pegula product. But Buffalo is a small market and lives in fear of losing this team. If the team moves the odds of getting another one are not good. Should this continue another 5 years I think that will be enough to break the spirit of this abused fan base. Can you imagine a 20 year drought? Going to games in that facility and losing for this long is torture.

Forton was the source of the story. He told it on Sabres Live one day

Alex Tuch has not been good on the power play in a few years. His production has dropped on the Power Play every year since 2022-23. He went from 20 PP points in 2022-23, to 11 PP points in 2023-24, to 11 PP points in 2024-25 (in more games so less points per game) and this year through 20 games he has 0 points on the PP.

Maybe not. But I’m thinking that this terrible team culture is unique to Buffalo. No NHL team has a worse reputation either. The Blues and Flames came limping into Buffalo and won. Both teams on backs to backs, both teams playing back up goalies, both team have less talent, and both wins were dominate. These teams knew that the Buffalo game could be wins, and they did everything they could to make it happen. The Sabres players lacked the maturity, leadership, and self awareness to be ready and win the obvious games that they should. Home games at that. Culture is important. Culture is defined by what you do.

Some funny comments, but I have nothing against this guy. The problem is not Geertsen, it’s the people who thought he could help.

He was holding them back against Calgary

It’s two way and I doubt that he’ll ever see the NHL roster ever again. I hope he enjoyed the little bonus.

Bryam actually has almsot 23 minutes penalty killing, 4th on the team among D-men. Not a lot, but the team has allowed 2 goals in his 23 minutes on the ice short handed. When Timmons and Sameulsson are on the ice, they have allowed a total of 1 goal in 117 total minutes. https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerteams.php?fromseason=20252026&thruseason=20252026&stype=2&sit=pk&score=all&stdoi=oi&rate=n&team=BUF&pos=D&loc=B&toi=20&gpfilt=none&fd=&td=&tgp=410&lines=single&draftteam=ALL

Because the answers are in the room. Duh!

They cut Geertsen, what more do you want.

All of that passes the eye test. (Not sure about the Byram being bad at the PK, don't really recall him out there much for that, but the rest of it, yes, it passes the eye test.) And the reason IMHO that the PP is most effective with Benson, Zucker, and Doan all on the ice together is all 3 are willing to go to the net to help create havoc and at least 2 of them can regularly score from down close to the goal. Zucker has proven it, Doan has a couple from there at least 1 of which was bounced in off him, but it still counts and if he wasn't down there in the dirty area it wouldn't have gone in, and pretty sure Benson has scored from there, if not this year then last year at least. Whether Appert is too dumb to get other guys go there when they aren't on the ice or the other players are too stubborn to do so, the rest of the team doesn't go there on the PP. And either way, the PP doesn't work in large part because of it and the predictability it has when they aren't out there. This PP SHOULD be top 10 at worst and really could be top 5 if it stayed healthy and somebody that knew what they're doing was running it. Would not have Tuch on the top unit because he should be able to play that down low role but for whatever reason he isn't effective there. Wouldn't have Quinn on the top unit because he'd be best served to be in Thompson's spot, but Tage is WAY better at it than Quinn is. Let him be the 2nd unit's Tage. Would never take Dahlin nor Thompson off the 1st unit. But would have both of them, and the other 3 guys moving. Dahlin does a bit. Thompson pretty much only does it when they're entering the zone, but he's able to do it as well. Get rid of Appert and let somebody have the guys that are good near the net do their thing with a lot of movement between them. And, personally expect Dahlin's #'s both real and E are reduced due to the fact he's ALWAYS out on the PP and it spends an inordinate amount of time NOT entering the zone and then doing dumb things. His analytics will go up a lot when they stop being coached to do dumb things. MHO, ymmv.

They didn't lose to the worst team in the league, that like many other teams over the past decade, are going through a rebuild and still kick our butts and doing it with attitude!

Putting aside the 'eye test' and looking instead at some analytics, I wanted to see who was the best/worst on the PP for the Sabres this year among forwards using some basic analytics: Basically, I looked at how many goals the team scores every minute these guys are on the ice (actual production) and then how many 'expected goals' they have per minute the guys are on the ice (how many/how good of chances they generate) Among forward, The good: -Benson: 1 team goal every 4.7 minutes PP time he is on the ice, 1' expected goal' every 5 minutes. -Zucker: 1 team goal every 6.8 minutes, 1 expected goal every 5.7 minutes -Doan: 1 team goal every 8.65 minutes PP time. 1 exptected goal every 6.6 minutes Among forwards, the "OK" -Tage: 1 team goal every 9 minutes PP time he is on the ice. 1 'expected goal' every 7 minutes Among forwards, the bad: -McLeod: 1 team goal every 28 minutes he is on the ice. 1 'expected goal' 10.6 minutes. -Tuch: 1 team goal every 19.5 minutes he is on the ice. 1 'expected goal' every 9.6 minutes -Quinn: 1 team goal every 9.9 minutes he is on the ice. 1 'expected goal' every 8.8 minutes its still 'kinda' early in the season so its not a huge sample size. but clearly the PP functions pretty well with Benson, Zucker, Doan, and Tage are on the ice....and it suffers pretty badly when McLeod, Tuch, and Quinn are out there. https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerteams.php?fromseason=20252026&thruseason=20252026&stype=2&sit=pp&score=all&stdoi=oi&rate=n&team=BUF&pos=F&loc=B&toi=20&gpfilt=none&fd=&td=&tgp=410&lines=single&draftteam=ALL For D-men, there are only 3 with significant minutes. The "good" -Dahlin: 1 goal for every 7.9 minutes. 1 expected goal for every 7 minutes. The "not so good" -Power: 1 goal for every 14 minutes. 1 expected goal for every 9.7 minutes The "Bad" -Byram: 1 goal for every 20 minutes. 1 expected goal for every 8 minutes (BTW, if you do the reverse of this and look up how good/bad they are penatly killing, Byram gets some ice time but he is the worst there. Of all the D-men used PK, when Bryam is on the ice they allow both the most goals per minute and the most expected goals per minute. Samuelsson and Timmons are the best. Power and Dahlin in the middle)

It’s not like it will matter if Adams gets fired either way. Terry is just going to hire a budget GM.

And then he’ll run the Sabres goalie and everyone will just watch.

Eh, with Bounceyball, the question isn't points equalling fun, it's WHAT points equal fun. Is it the ones going up when a team puts the bouncey ball through the big metal ring multiple times a game or the ones the players/refs decided to make sure they shave off the line to assist their friendly neighborhood gambling syndicate make large amounts of money? 😉

No front office changes will be made until the season is over. By then the Bills will be done and Terry can unveil his next new plan. If the team completely quits on their coach then Ruff could go, and Appert can get his look. Adams fate will be decided after the season.

Why not? Simple… Terry doesn’t give 💩💩 about the Sabres. He hasn’t cared since he bought the Bills.

All of the above bolded is true in my opinion. There is no amount of 'finesse' that can fix this. No one or 2 moves. No returning injured players. None of that is going to turn this team into a team that is dangerous in any way in the playoffs. I have been patient with this management group and Adams. I have thought their defense is young and d-men take longer to develop than forwards so it may take a few years. I have thought they young guys (Dahlin, Thompson, Tuch) are now just 'in their prime' and they are ready to carry the team. I thought that UPL had it in him to be the goaltender he was 2 years ago and last year was just a bad year. I thought that the young guys in Rochester would progress slightly faster than they have. All of those things COULD have been true, but they don't look like they are. I had patience through 3-4 years of this front office, I was losing patience last year..but in year 6, its just too long. Changes should have been made 1-2 years ago and they weren't. I was OK with waiting a bit longer but if even "I" have waited this long and nothing has changed, well, something does need to be done now. Its long enough (even for me, one of the more patient people on this forum) Clean out the entire front office NOW, so anyone new coming in can have their (hopefully) accelerated evaluation period and then they can start making roster change. If you wait until the offseason to make changes, then the new Front office will have the excuse they need 1 more year to 'evaluate' the team, then changes might not be made quickly, and we are just putting up with the same thing for longer.

And he's got an NHL contract for next season, too.

Exactly. Plus, in between they saved their season in the 3rd period vs. Detroit and then had a dominant win against big bad McDavid & Draisaitl. They're safe from change until at least an eight-game losing streak.

No one gives executive advisors free rein. One aspect of the job is to provide alternatives based on your past experience, current research, and know how. No has to listen or follow the advice either, your advice could simply serve to make the full time execs feel better that other views an alternatives were considered. If Dudley had free rein to hire and fire he would actually be the POHO or GM and he would be accountable for the results of his decisions. That said, Dudley would have been a good guy for the Sabre to have. Zito in Florida hired him for advice, and rewarded him by putting his name on the cup, so he must be pleased with him, but Dudley does not to run the show. Duds is not easy and he is not a pushover. He is considered an “old school” hockey guy. Terry might not want that.