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Even if (just shoot us all now should this come to pass) all three of the "Big 3" decide to bolt, they don't HAVE to rebuild. They'll almost definitely want/need to overspend on a top UFA, but it doesn't HAVE to be a rebuild. (PLEASE dear Lord, do NOT let us get to the point that Dahlin, Thompson, and Tuch all want out of this dumpster fire. That would be beyond depressing.)

Hire the right POHO/GM and maybe he doesn't have to rebuild, just retool.

Two of the three people we are waiting on have been here recently, so I’m not counting them out. Not sure about Norcal though. He hasn’t been around since January.

Not enough good rich people in the world.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/19/politics/trump-slavery-museum-smithsonian?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us Getting people to forget about the past so you can repeat history. Officials from the Florida State Board of Education recently released a new history standard that has caused an uproar in the education community. The standard includes controversial language that claims, “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”-2023

During the off-season (and the feeling was dispelled in fairly short order) when Regier and Ruff were brought in and the top GM got canned and the Jack Adams winner got effectively canned by offering him a 1 year deal that effected the desired reaction from said Jack Adams winner. You had a guy who'd never been a GM before coming in. Yes, he'd learned under Al Arbour, but he was part of some very bad teams and he was extremely milquetoast in demeanor. And the new HC had been a former team captain, but had only been an AC with the Panthers. AND one of the local sports radio stations had a personality that at the time didn't just hate the football coach who'd hired and subsequently fired him but also hated the new GM at a minimum. Things also seemed bad a couople of years before that when Muckler traded away or let walk every star on the team not named Hasek or Lafontaine and brought in an inexperienced HC who'd had success in juniors but no NHL coaching experience. Those are the only 2 points in time IMHO that were viewed as bad as or worse than what we've got now. Even the bankruptcy year didn't seem this hopeless.

You were right about Jack, and you were brilliant in your hyping of the season - it gets me excited every year even though I have no hope 😂 It’s not your fault the GM doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain

Damn that 2nd post was fantastic. Im clearly past my prime. Trade me to another board and give me my cup.

Wasn’t only Thorny that wanted Jack to stay ^ YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE

I’ll always remember vividly your post about Taylor Hall looking like “a shark that wasn’t quite hungry yet” during camp 2021. How excited you were, and how excited you made me about it there’s no way that guy believed the core should be exploded to the tune of a long form plan based on 56 games, of which Jack played, what, 21? While severely hurt? There’s no way you’d draw that strong of a conclusion based on 21/56 games - I don’t buy it Jack and Sam had to go? You felt Adams had the right idea? It’s not plausible

i’ll still give up a chuckle for his war with Canada Geese. (and, moreover, his campaign to get local government to take it on as a public cause.)

You didn’t want Eichel traded until you heard he asked for a trade In fact you frequently argued against the necessity of it until it happened Talk about revisionist Again, you didn’t want it blown up You didnt want a 5 year rebuild you just argued splendidly and intelligently for why it could work, after the fact - its what you always do. You proclaimed the merits of how the plan could work, and if Adams was actually trying to build a winning team in the way we want one, he probably could have done it by following your strategy

I agree with this. I suppose there is an argument for not firing an assistant until you are certain you can hire a better replacement. But, the proper way to do it (my view) is to start by firing the assistant you want to replace. This accomplishes a couple of things: 1). It creates an urgency or necessity to find someone better; and 2). It serves to cast a wider net than you would by merely calling a few coaches you hope might be interested. In other words, interested coaches will contact you. I’m ambivalent on Wilford. Better is better. I imagine though that we would all swap Ruff for Brind’Amour before we would swap Wilford for Tim Gleason.

No, I’m talking about how I absolutely wanted that team blown up and you didn’t. I don’t want to revisit that discussion but it’s a fundamental disagreement that I think is fueled largely by our perception of that year.

I don’t hand wave 2021 as a quirk of the pandemic at all, that’s far from accurate. I deem it as something that should count towards the evaluation of the 15 years for exactly the amount of games within that stretch it counted for. 56 games. 56 out of 1157 using that anomalific sample size as justification for a 5 year rebuild is incredibly stupid yes

91 points had many if us on thinking we were on the brink of the suffering being over (it has Montreal fans thinking cup contention. Six points less and we wanted Adams and Granato launched into the sun. Objectively 6 points are three bounces or borderline calls, but what matters is how you feel,

There’s no reason the lenses should be different. I’m judging him purely by the record of the team during his time as GM If you aren’t judging him by that after 5 years, I strenuously disagree with you. If you are, the lens is the same

Who is going to lament the Sabres not signing Looch to a PTO?

It’s about bad on top of bad. We’ve kinda had this conversation before: you kinda hand wave 2021 as a quirk of the pandemic, I consider it one of the 2 worst years of my Sabre fandom. We judge Adams through those two different lenses.

It’s mostly the fact we are splitting hairs between bad and bad Better is still bad here. The reaction is going to be more in line with the bad, not the fact it’s squint and you see it better than putrid

I’ve clarified, but I’m not sure it matters to the point: wins and losses matter, but what matters more is how the team makes you feel. Montreal fans like their team more than Torontos right now.

And I’m glad you didn’t because Adams being probably worse than Murray and Botterill (looking at his full 5 years and not just 3) doesn’t stop him from being definitively worse than the competition when compared to a single real GM in Darcy

Only nearly true because of one season carrying the weight for the following two that downgrade, and then downgrade and also not true: 11/12/13 we averaged 89 points per (and made the damn playoffs, to boot) We’ve averaged 84.7 the last 3 (2013 of course a prorated total) You could have used 14 years as the cut off but alas you did not so

It can’t be results because the Sabres are coming off their best 3-year run of the past 15 years. Posted mostly tongue in cheek, but the above is straight up factual. 2011-13 was marginally better. The current run is also better than 02-04 and about the same as 06-08. In terms of regular season results, this group feels worse than it is.