All Activity

There are lots of varying opinions, so it would be wrong for me to say that nobody wants to mortgage the future. I don’t think that is close to the general view of fans though. I was listening to the Athletic prospect show yesterday. They were podcasting from the Combine in Buffalo. At one point, they discussed how the current bottom of the league rebuilding teams like Chicago and San Jose, should manage their draft and prospect capital. The Sabres were brought up as the failed example; a franchise that over-valued picks and prospects and did not understand the need for a better balance between youth and veterans. Simply put, not all the kids will or can play. I think there are very few fans who want impulsive and unthoughtful player moves. Fans just want the GM to manage the team and its roster like a normal NHL team that is trying to win games. And if Adams has been trying to do that, then he has failed and it is time to let someone else do the job.

I do not recall this from Adams but I have seen this recently in real life and it is not good for anyone. An inexperienced and unqualified person is running a $375M project that a company I consult for has a contract with. In meetings he asks us to repeat things over and over again, he constantly stops the meeting and paraphrase's what was just said, then he writes it all down so he can repeat it up his leadership chain. He is not well versed in any part of this business so he does this for survival and we comply as he is the customer and a pretty good guy and well intended person too. I do worry about his ability to correctly answer follow up questions. One morning he called me for help, even though I contract through his supplier. He wanted me to call him back later to explain something in more detail for him. When I did call him back he was working from home, and there were two babies crying loudly. He was taking take of them while asking me to help him figure out some pretty basic things. His stress was going through the roof. Sometimes in business we identify smart people, or people we "like", and we move them along too fast and we hurt them in the long run. Adams has been a GM for 5 years and he was most likely fed with a gigantic firehose. Adams is like this young manager that I know. He was never a scout, only an assistant coach for 1 year, never worked player personnel, never worked in the AHL, never an AGM, never even held a hockey operations job at all, and his first job as GM was to conduct a large layoff of his staff and slowly (over several years) rebuild it. So we can place a lot of the blame on Adams for the teams recent performance, and he appears to be stubborn on doing it his way, but the root cause of the problem is the guy above Adams. The hiring of Staal and Jarmo seem to be steps to get him some help him. With one year on his contract the stakes should be high for him and his staff. But this is the Sabres under Pegula, so maybe they are not.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/why-2025-nhl-draft-could-see-run-of-centres-in-top-10/

But at the time we didn’t realize they were poor prospects. We had Grigs, Girgs, McCabe, Risto, Zadarov. We were even excited about Baptiste and Bailey. And don’t get me started on how awesome Pu was gonna be! lol

I don’t think he’s trying to blame the fans… I think he’s saying that other teams are trying to use the media to manipulate the Sabres. Nothing to do with the fans who they don’t listen to anyways… I get the same sense that people wanted to put lowball the Sabres … Look at what the media narrative was when we got McLeod. We got a guy who was a 50 pt 2 Way center on a good contract with good defensive numbers… And somehow the spin was that it was the worst trade in the last 15 years since Forsburg for erat - and the Hockey news dope who made that statement sticks by that judgment!

Add Stone to LTIR and they can sign Bennett too.

You sound like you need to be in a gym

"Adams overvalues his players" came about by Adams himself when he bragged about his prospect pool and said many GMs are dying to steal his prospects. Adams decided to keep his picks and prospects and not trade them for players that would block them. He said that. He wanted to build sustained winning but he can figure out you have to win first to sustain winning. This came from the league and media because it was true, not because fans made it up. Do you think hockey people in St Louis, Carolina, Los Angeles, or anywhere else listen to Sabres fans? But go ahead and blame the fans. The team has been bad for 14 years because of the fans, and it has nothing to do with how Terry and Kim ran things. You love to remind us that Terry wins with the Bills and the Bandits - so it must be the fans. Coaches and players don't want to come here because of the fans and the city right? Not because they have been inept for 14+ years and counting.

I just don't want to be so wrapped up in disappointment that I can't comprehend good moves and that's what's happened hear, IMO. I'll give you one example. Fans hated Mitts for most of his time. He shines through a little, and I mean a little and KA is trading away "our best forward . I know you read that too. Conversely, If we signed him then - right now we would be killing KA for giving him 5.75 for 40 pts. We can't hate on that, so we switch to KA screwed us by getting Byram for Mitts and we'll lose him and he knew he wasn't a fit, blah blah blah. We have the better piece in Byram, period. Byram played better than Mitts last year, period. Can't we see what he nets us before getting nuts? If that's Misa, we won huge, IMO.

There is no market to move. This is a saying that really does not apply. You don't increase the value of a player by announcing you want to trade him, many times that lowers his value. IF the Sabres actually do anything, they will likely be trading current players, prospects and picks in combination.

I thought the same thing as you when I first saw a link from this site... But they actually list Friedman's 32 thoughts podcast as a reference. If you go to the podcast Friedman actually does muse about this stuff.

Except Murray did not do the exact same thing. He traded NHL players with the goal to lose on purpose. Then he acquired the wrong players and coaches.

Three full off seasons later .... let trade some prospects for players! OK. Looking forward to seeing results.

Is it really wet or does it just create the feeling that it’s wet?

A better approach would have been to have KA working for Jarmo. In general, I'm happy/encouraged with the new staff addition. I'm not sure how much authority he has. Giving advice is different from exercising authority.

The owner hired a person who had little qualification for the job. Then the owner allowed him to stay on the job when his record demonstrated that he should have been dispatched. This is not a normally functioning NHL franchise. This is a Terry Pegula owned franchise. What the Pittsburgh Pirates are to baseball, the Sabres are to NHL hockey. We are a steppingstone franchise for talented young players to move on from. Failure emanates from the top.

Except when Murray got here, he drafted like *****, his predecessor had drafted like *****, and so after he did that, there was literally nothing in the pipe. Versus now, we're the youngest team in the league, we have a list of talented players in the NHL, we have good prospect depth, and we aren't trading everything, just a few pieces. Besides, Murray traded for the booger sugar bros and captain nutjob. At least ror was a good deal.

That why the Jarmo hiring gives me a little bit of hope that Terry is realizing what a mess this is.

No.

My problem is so many of you guys are really rooting for the Sabres to trade picks and prospects for players who help us win now. Almost like “screw the future, I want to win now”. And that’s cool. But it’s probably some of the same people who absolutely chastised Tim Murray for doing exactly that during his time. Now, Murray’s plan didn’t work, but he mortgaged our future to bring in players to help the team win now just like what you’re asking Adams to do.

Of course, Adams should not be in charge, but the arrogance and obtuseness begins at the top. It's difficult to sustain hope when that is an obvious brake on future success. If TP is unable to learn a modicum of humility after 14 years, no amount of rational calculation regarding talent and roster construction is going to mean much. One is reduced to random luck, miracle, or change in ownership as what could conceivably pull the franchise out of its lamentable ways.

But what else is there to talk about?

Go back and watch the Blue and Gold of when he was hired. He states he doesn’t know what he’s doing so he has a little book with him and he says he asks a lot of questions and writes the answers down in the book. It was embarrassing at the time and hasn’t improved.

It seems he wasn’t allowed. That was the point of Pegula flying into Montreal to give his “The answer is in the room” speech. That was the “you guys figure it out I’m not signing off on any deal right now” speech.

Doing nothing when your team loses 13 games in a row is inexcusable. Nobody can tell me otherwise, your job as a GM is to put together a winning roster. You had to know losing 13 games would derail your entire season, his excuse was nobody was willing to come here yet we traded Cozens for Norris at the deadline. Adams is terrible at his job and now we have to suffer another season with this clown.