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Calling Kulich and Quinn “untouchables” is high comedy - that’s not hyperbole. You cannot actually be serious. Not “only for the right return” you are calling them off limits. Absurd. You sound like rangers fans re: Eichel There’s a certain comfort in retreating back to having zero expectation and “collecting” your team ala EA sports nhl don’t really need to win if you can just be happy talking about your little collection of players online - in language you feel comes off balanced and reasonable but actually, demonstrably only exists in that form as a means to an end in and of itself: the laying out of the players you are mentally collecting in verbiage you find satisfying. Its objective horse *****

I’ve enjoyed watching you slowly morph back into Kevyn Adams this summer We’ve gone back to 2022 Need to have patience with the Adams plan

I’m getting my hopes entirely too high. Unfortunately the Sabres have made these players the exception, not the rule. It can’t be said enough how this org failed to recognize where the league was at and decided to “skill it up” thinking this league ran by dinosaurs was ever going to submit to that kind of effeminate play. North Americans, Canadians in particular have a certain image of a man in skates. It’s not Jack Quinn or Owen Power. It’s Josh Doan, it’s Brady Tkachuk, it’s Sam Bennett.

Whatever, Trad-Boomer.

Every photo I saw of him after Sabbath, he looked like Sharon Osbourne. Not exactly what a teen metal head wanted in their hero.

I turned on Ozzy's Boneyard in the car hoping for some music. Unfortunately it is going all out talk show tonight with a lot of "we'll get through this together" talk. Unfortunate, I was hoping for a better tribute.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm reading.

Pasting the entire article from a paid site? This should end well.

Wouldn’t it be cool if he ended up being more impactful than peterka What the Buffalo Sabres are getting in Josh Doan: ‘He’s a winner’ Matthew Fairburn July 22, 2025 8:00 am EDT BUFFALO, N.Y. — Josh Doan grew up surrounded by palm trees in Arizona, where his father, Shane Doan, is hockey royalty. Josh played for the Jr. Coyotes while Shane was wrapping up a 21-year career with the Coyotes organization. Josh then got drafted by the Arizona Coyotes and played college hockey at Arizona State. While the Coyotes ended up relocating to Utah prior to his full-time arrival in the NHL, that organization was a core part of Josh’s life. ADVERTISEMENT So when Josh got the news on a late June evening that he’d been traded, along with Michael Kesselring, to the Buffalo Sabres for JJ Peterka, there was some shock. But when Josh called his dad, he got the type of response he’s come to expect. “It’s always good news,” his dad told him. Yes, even getting traded to Buffalo, a team that has the longest playoff drought in the history of the NHL. The small market, lousy weather, high taxes and constant losing have made the Sabres an undesirable destination from the outside. But the Doans have never been wired to see the downside. The challenge is the opportunity. “I don’t ever remember hearing him complain or be negative about situations,” said Notre Dame coach Brock Sheahan, who coached Josh when he played for the Chicago Steel in the USHL. “He’s going to pull guys in the fight in the best way. That’s a credit to the way he’s been raised. It’s just who he is. If I’m in the Sabres organization, I’m ecstatic to have him as a part of the organization.” Josh could have complained around Sheahan, too. In Josh’s first year in Chicago, the coaching staff made him a healthy scratch for some games so he could get extra strength training in. So in his first year away from home, Josh had to grapple with that. At that level, it’s not uncommon for a coach to have parents and advisers in his ear complaining about a lack of playing time. Shane could have used his status as an NHL player to put more pressure on the coaching staff to get Josh into games, especially during his draft year. “They were all able to see through that and just trust the process,” Sheahan said. “A lot of people try to get overly involved. We never had the parents in our ear like, ‘What’s going on?’ They were more so asking, ‘How is he doing?’ And it wasn’t about hockey. That shows you the type of people you’re dealing with. It’s more about the human being and family than it is about hockey.” ADVERTISEMENT The next season, Josh saw the coaching staff’s vision. He was stronger and ready to break out with 71 points in 53 games. That helped him go from undrafted in his first year of eligibility to becoming a second-round pick in 2021. Greg Kozoris, a strength coach for the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers who also owns a training facility in the city, first got to know the Doan family before Josh was born. He started training Shane Doan in 1999 when Shane was four years into his NHL career and had a total of 22 goals and 40 assists. To that point, Kozoris hadn’t trained a player of Shane’s caliber. Shane was going back to Kamloops, his wife Andrea’s hometown, for the summer and needed a trainer. He found Kozoris via an internet search and decided to give him a chance. “He’s got this hardcore trust that most human beings are inherently good,” Kozoris said. “Trust them first. Don’t make them start at the bottom and earn it all up.” Shane, who grew up on a farm east of Red Deer in Alberta, showed up to work with Kozoris with plenty of size and strength. The focus was on getting him faster and making him more lean. They focused on speed and velocity lifts. Shane lost 11 pounds, and the next season he had his first of nine-straight 20-goal seasons. Kozoris had a client, and a friend, for life. Three years after Kozoris started working with Shane, Josh was born. Josh was always hanging around his father from a young age and started seriously training with Kozoris in sixth grade. Few people have seen Josh’s maturation from a skinny, late-bloomer to a 6-foot-2, 200-pound man the way Kozoris has. And this is not just a case of NHL bloodlines giving Josh a genetic advantage. “Nobody outworks Josh in the gym except for his dad,” Kozoris said. “They have no problem being told the raw truth. It’s just, ‘How do I do it? Whatever it takes.’” ADVERTISEMENT Unlike Shane, who found Kozoris at 22, Josh started training with Kozoris at the point in his physical development where he needed strength and muscle mass. Strength and size are no longer issues for Josh now at 23. That’s why he and Kozoris put an emphasis on speed in recent offseasons. Kozoris helped Josh narrow his skating stride to create more power. They do on-field change of direction drills to emphasize short-area quickness. Every time Josh does a lift like a squat, Kozoris has him following that lift with something plyometric to emphasize post activation potentiation so that the strength he’s building can be transferred to game situations. The best part about Josh is a quality Kozoris noticed in Shane years ago. He trusts the coaching and does what he’s told. That’s the reason Kozoris is often using Josh as both the standard bearer and example for other players in his training group. He’s constantly telling other players, “Be like Josh,” or “Work like Josh.” And Josh is the one who will take the younger players out for breakfast after training or organize rounds of golf. “This is the human you’re getting,” Kozoris said. “I get goosebumps just talking about him. I’m 57 and here’s a 23-year-old who is a role model to me. I want to replicate how he treats people, how he has all the time in the world for people … You won’t get a human with this much humility at a professional status like Josh. He’s the most mature 23-year-old you’ll ever meet in your life.” It’s not a surprise that Josh is like this, either. Throughout his life, Kozoris said it’s always been Shane who is there for him in his toughest moments. Kozoris has lost numerous people close to him in recent years, and Shane has always been the one who is flying out to see him and calling to check on him. “The Doans are loyal people,” Kozoris said. “In this day and age, it’s so hard to find loyalty. Good people do exist in professional sports. We get tainted by money, success, fame, poor me, trade me to a contender. And that’s just not them.” ADVERTISEMENT The Sabres have talked about the need to change their culture, and Josh is the type of person who can help lead that change. He watched his dad stay loyal to a Coyotes franchise that struggled on and off the ice for most of Shane’s 21-year career. Despite opportunities to play elsewhere, Shane was committed to building something in Arizona. Josh is like his dad. That’s how he ended up at Arizona State. Sun Devils coach Greg Powers first coached Doan when he was 16. Powers was coaching at the Rocky Mountain district camp that fed into USA Hockey national camp. Josh was on his team, and Powers noticed his presence on the bench immediately. “There’s players you coach where you just think, ‘You’re going to win with this kid,’” Powers said. “That’s just the way it felt with him. He’s a winner.” Powers had known about Josh for a while. Being in the Phoenix area, Josh Doan was no secret. He was the son of an Arizona hockey legend and one of the best players in the Phoenix Jr. Coyotes program. A few days after that district camp, Powers was in the Doans’ living room trying to convince Josh to stay home and play hockey at Arizona State. Josh had options. He could have played major junior in Canada. He could have played college hockey elsewhere. But he wanted to stay local, play in front of his family and be a part of building something. Powers said it was “a breath of fresh air” that they didn’t let a Doan slip away. “People think of hockey in Arizona, the first name that comes to mind is Shane Doan,” Powers said. “Shane wanted to build the Coyotes. That’s where Josh gets this from. Shane had opportunities to leave and go to contenders his whole career, but he loved Arizona. It was home to him. He was a fixture in the community. He helped grow hockey in Arizona, and he understands how important that is. That’s where Josh gets that from.” Josh Doan has scored 28 points in 62 career NHL games. (James Guillory / Imagn Images) That’s why Josh has told everyone around him how excited he is about the chance to come to Buffalo. He gets the opportunity to play a big role, build something and potentially reignite the passion of a hockey-mad town. Josh hasn’t yet played a full 82-game season in the NHL. In 51 games for Utah last season, he had seven goals and 12 assists but also showed he’s a top-end forechecker and steady defensive forward. ADVERTISEMENT According to AllThreeZones tracking data, Josh was among the top forwards in the league in forecheck pressures per 60 minutes and recovered dump-ins per 60 minutes. Josh figured out quickly in the USHL that if he was going to make an impact, it was going to start with forechecking. He wasn’t the biggest or strongest yet, so he learned how to knock pucks down and strip opponents of the puck to create chances. “Can’t get the puck from him once he has it, and he’s so good at getting it back,” Powers said. “He has the best stick of anybody I’ve ever coached for sure. He’s worked so hard on his skating, and it’s there now. He can hunt pucks and close space. And when you can do that and have the stick that he has, it’s a hell of a combination for forechecking and stripping pucks and getting pucks back.” Now that he has the size, strength and skating to go with the stick skills, Josh has a forechecking package the Sabres need. The next step is scoring more. “Something I want to focus on this year is when I do make those plays, building on it and turning it into offense,” Doan said. “It’s one of the most sacrificial things you can do as a forechecker is sometimes you might not get the puck back, it might not be yours, but you’re going to force a turnover for your linemates, and it’s going to create separation for them. Sometimes you have to go into pucks giving yourself up for your group … It makes you a fun player to play with.” Doan can score, too. Kozoris is convinced he can be a 20-goal and 70-point player in the right role. He loves playing in front of the net, reads plays well and has the shot to beat NHL goalies. Kozoris noticed Doan is just like his dad in that he is more effective late in games, the more minutes he gets. He has the ability to wear opponents down. “He’s coming,” Kozoris said. ADVERTISEMENT A lot of the discussion around the Sabres’ trade of Peterka was about what they lost: a 23-year-old, homegrown top-six winger coming off a 68-point season. But for all of the scoring ability Peterka brought, he still lacked a strong game away from the puck. That’s what Doan can bring. “Josh Doan will make at least 11 other people rise up,” Kozoris said. “That’s the cool thing. When he speaks, people listen because he’s not always speaking.” The Sabres haven’t added a top-six forward to replace Peterka. The internal candidates are 20-year-old Zach Benson and Jack Quinn, who’s coming off a down year. Doan could compete for that role. There’s untapped offensive potential if given the opportunity. Powers always thinks back to the night of Josh’s first NHL game for the Coyotes. The son of a franchise legend was playing in his first NHL game in his college arena, filled with people who were already Josh Doan fans. The expectations placed on him were high. Powers always tells his players at Arizona State that what you do outside of the moment determines how you perform when the moment comes. Doan, he said, lives the right way outside of the moment 24/7. So, of course, he scored twice that night. “That was an incredible moment that just embodies what that kid is all about,” Powers said. “You give him the opportunity, he’s going to embrace it and he’s going to seize it.”

You are relying on hope that they get to the performance level needed to get in the playoffs. Where there is no evidence or data, there is only hope.

It’s not about hope. It’s simply that we have different judgments on players.

I saw Ozzy for the No More Tears tour with Sepultura and Alice in Chains, Max Cavalera was ill so Sepultura never showed but Layne Staley played in a Wheelchair and had a broken leg, he was incredible and was the star of the show at least imo but Ozzy was awesome also. I also saw hom at the Merry Mayhem show with Rob Zombie and Mudvayne, that show was a blast, Ozzy was on the big screen as different characters, one of his characters was Miss Cleo (the fortune teller woman back in the 90's who ripped people off), I was laughing so hard, partly do to all the drugs in the air and it was really well done. The costumes Rob Zombie and his crew had on were unbelievable, they came out on stilts and all different types of crazy monsters/space aliens, it was wild. I think that was Mudvayne 1st actually tour show so I really liked them and became 1 of my favorite bands for sure. Nothing but good experiences at those shows!

Hope is not a plan.

Helenius is not off- limits for me. I’m not dooming anything. If one believes that the young players you listed will be better players next season and thereafter (as I do), why would I want to see them dealt?

Fairburn with a Doan feature that will inject some hopium. If toxicity and apathy are issues, he sounds like part of the cure. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6502688/2025/07/22/buffalo-sabres-josh-doan/

So, if the team we have can’t win, and you refuse to even consider moving the young players we aren’t winning with to obtain good older players that know how to win, how do you expect this team to start winning? Power off limits Benson off limits Quinn off limits Kulich off limits? Is Helenius off limits too? That pretty much leaves us no quality ammunition to trade for good experienced players. You are dooming us to repeat what already didn’t work.

I’m sure it was a combination of reasons. None of us are insiders so we don’t know what the full story is/was. What is obvious is that he was determined to leave and play for someone else. He wasn’t willing to sign here but once traded quickly came to terms on a new contract with Utah.

I remember seeing Black Sabbath concert when I was in college -- in the early 70's It was an out door concert at Manhattan College in the Bronx, which was right by the overhead subway. It was the loudest concert I had ever been to. It was so loud that it drowned out the sound of the trains passing by. I thought Black Sabbath was one of the true pioneers of the heavy metal sound. They were one of the few groups to write their songs primarily in minor scales, which gave them a unique sound. Thought Tony Iommi was a hell of a guitarist, and thought Ozzy had a great rock voice. Those days will be missed.

Absolutely yes he was on my no trade list. No secret about that. But go back to my post saying why that it didn’t play out the way I and even the GM wanted it to.

It's an accumulated sense of things. That wedding picture is consistent with it, I suppose. Moreover, getting married nowadays when you're 22 years old is part of it. Dude just comes off super trad. As does Thompson. And like I said: I'm not sure what to make of it. Does it inhibit team bonding? If I'm being cynical and sh1tty about it (haha - which means I'm about to be): It's almost giving Mormon vibes. Then again, Brigham Young fields some competitive ass football teams.

Before Peterka’s wishes became public knowledge was he on your hell no list? Don’t say no to a trade until you see what’s coming back.

Full disclosure, my Sabbath fandom lasted only a few albums and then I got much deeper into so many other music styles that "metal" as a genre never crept further into my record collection. I do not consider the early Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin to be metal either, although others refer to them in that genre. RIP Ozzy.

Still waiting for somebody to show me where the futility of the Sabres was the reason for Peterka’s departure. I’ve heard he didn’t like the city. He acted like he didn’t like the coach(es)

The Peterka situation was completely different from the players mentioned. JJP made it clear to the organization that he wanted to get the freak out of this ghetto franchise. He was not going to sign a new contract and was going to allow his contract to run for another year so he could be an UFA. The GM publicly stated that he wanted to keep him. The player essentially said F no! Once traded he quickly signed a new contract with Utah. In my view, the GM handled the situation reasonably well.

Did you get that impression from the pic above, or something else?