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i've always thought @Brawndo was Sam Ventura's computer program after achieving consciousness. But yes. The board should be celebrating.

Full disclosure: I've only watched him a handful of times. But isn't invisible kinda the point? You're not expecting hits and you're not expecting offence. If he succeeds, it will be as a Bill Hajt kinda player: calmly break up a play and move out the puck. Leone seems happy with him on that level and that's kinda what he showed the first 2 playoff games.

Anyone else think that as Brawndo went to his car this morning, a black SUV pulled up and a menacing man said, "Get in"? Brawndo did as told. Battista instructed him to get on SS ASSAP and ask the smartest and most loyal fans anywhere what they would think about the arrangement the braintrust is considering. Folks, it's happening. Anyone?

I have more hope for every single other dman in the Sabres org. RyJo has been as unimpressive as a player can be without getting scratched for every game. Not sure what’s happened with him this season but he’s been invisible.

Dudes picked up what I was laying down. If Terry's still in EEE mode, his CFO has to convince him that change, real change, is needed to help the bottom line. And as much as Guelli has his finger on the pulse of the fans (he's surely getting feedback from the poor staffers who have to recruit/retain STHers), he has to convince the aloof Pegula that it's also the humane thing to do for the tortured base.

Further to Montreal and where they are in their rebuild. The Habs have no big ticket RFA’s this summer. They have 3 UFAs (Armia, Dvorak, Savard), who they probably let walk. They have $17ish million in real cap space. They have 7 picks in the 1st three RD’s in the coming draft. Montreal has always been an attractive destination for certain NHL players, and perhaps more so now than recently. My bet is that they will not rely on internal growth as a primary off-season strategy. Maybe I’m just a pessimist, but it feels they may be about to pull away from us.

It should hurt. And then it should outrage us to the point that we refuse to take it anymore and remove them from office. But the complacency in this country is off the charts so I hold little hope that we will muster the courage before it’s too late. ‘And Then They Came for Me’ should be mandatory reading.

This video hurts me. I played it twice, but should not have.

F the jets

I don’t want to overstate anything. It could just be that Montreal had a similar nice year to what we had in 22-23 and it just happened that this year it was enough to grab WC2. However, I would bet on Jeff Gorton, Kent Hughes, and Martin St. Louis as a hockey braintrust over Kevyn Adams and Lindy Ruff.

Well, Johnson next year should compete for a job. But maybe trade bait for some of the others?

You have brightened my day, because that is probably the best I was letting myself hope for. Probably just deck chairs, but I can tell myself the good things that have be done, have been due to Karmanos and Ventura and the things that are crying to be done are the fault of Kevyn. I’m glad you keep hammering this business angle. Its the most obvious incentive for change.

Why do you think Guelli can save this? please explain.

All we need to do is wait another 3-4 years and we’ll be fine.

Montreal could easily back-slide in 25-26. But I agree with you, we didn’t have the collection of vets in important roles that Montreal does. Earlier this year, Montreal’s GM, Hughes, gave an interview where he specifically referenced learning from the mistakes made by Buffalo, Ottawa, and Detroit. It remains to be seen if they have achieved something sustainable, but no question they have passed the Sabres.

They’ve got Josh Anderson and Arber Xhekaj, I’ll give you that. Not really seeing Gallagher and Armia as upgrades on Okposo and Girgensons, or Laine and Dvorak as the type of vets that Sabres team was lacking. Savard’s retiring. I will say Nick Suzuki looks to be head and shoulders over Dylan Cozens and they are better coached. Their progress will be determined by how good guys like Slavkovsky, Demidov and Guhle can be, just like the Sabres has been by the progress or lack thereof of guys like Power, Peterka and Quinn

Can't we keep them all? How does Florida afford all those great players?

Reality check: the NHL is a business, for the fans it's entertainment. Standing pat hurts both sides, perhaps very badly (@Sabres Fan in NS). You promote Lindy to POHO. You hire Sullivan. Karmanos is fine, he's just the git er done guy. Lindy and Mike hold the power and have The Talk with TP. KA can be special envoy to Pucks and Caicos. Then you shake up the roster. It would be more than enough to rejuvenate the fans, at least for awhile. Probably enough to at least kick this can one inch over the playoff line. Again I implore: save us, Guelli!

Thank you for the link to that data. Looking closer at it, Byram was on the ice for 46% of Dahlin's 5v5 minutes plus Dahlin missed another 12% of the season during which Byram was usually, if not always, their top guy in ice time. So, @dudacek's contention that Byram faced the other team's best forwards more often than not looks to be correct.

Pegula's mistakes are his mistakes. I don't accept the notion that because he believed he was steered wrong by previous advice that the appropriate response was to go off and make follow up nonsensical wrong decisions. Terry Pegula agreed to be an owner of a sports franchise. There are no guarantees. When something doesn't go right, then you analyze what the reasons were for the failures, and take corrective measures. His foolishness has been gone on for nearly a generation. He's made this franchise a laughing stock and irrelevant. His team is on more no trade clauses than any other team because it is recognized by all in the business that it is a dysfunctional franchise. It's bad enough that players don't want to come here but also some of our best players desperately wanted out. This is what he has done. I would love to see him get on his big assss boat and float away. I'm tired of his clown act!

It's at least a move in the right direction. Is it enough? Who knows. Many of the kids are actually pretty close to being men. So, the moves Karmanos makes might be enough provided Ruff actually still can find a useful assistant coach. Personally won't be happy if Appert is still in the organization. (And fully expect Appert will still be in the organization.) Do all of the above and move Ruff to Special Advisor with Sullivan being brought in and believe that would be enough. (And is likely the best we can hope for with things as they are..)

One of my biggest criticisms of KA is less about talent evaluation as it is about roster construction. There are promising young players on the roster and in the system. But they are not sufficiently surrounded with experienced players with varied attributes (ruggedness) to put them in a position to succeed. As an example, there is a noticeable imbalance on the roster as exemplified by the makeup of the blueline. There are too many puck moving and finesse oriented players on the unit that needed maybe a couple more defensive players to be paired with the skaters. Constructing a team is not simply about having pieces. You need pieces that fit and can play the required roles that make up a well-rounded team. I would take that internal shakeup and be reasonably satisfied.

With Pegula, each mistake serves to complicate the next decision. He feels he was steered wrong by NHL people, so he hires his guy in Adams. He trusts Adams, but Adams is not qualified for the job and is failing. He needs a qualified person, but he doesn’t know any, and doesn’t trust anyone to give him advice, other than Adams. Because of all the firings through the first 7-8 years, he has a reputation for being inpatient. So, he likely feels he will further damage his reputation if he doesn’t give Ruff another year. So he will go into the coming year with a lame duck GM and coach who he knows have not done well enough to grant extensions to, but who he also can’t fire due to trust and reputation issues.

I generally agree. I think we are still in a spot right now where we could transition to a new GM/HC combo, without a full restart. In effect, we could change the culture by hiring new people to run the team. A year from now, I’m not sure. If the speculation is true and Ruff is going to have an outsized role in roster decisions (and there are no NHL teams that operate this way), then the potential is there for this to go very badly. We could be moving on to rebuild #4.