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If he needs to call rival GMs to get input on hiring Lindy then he is way over his head. This is another lost opportunity. When you do conduct professional and fair job interviews you learn a lot. For example, you learn who the other good candidates are, which helps in the future. You learn that maybe a person you thought you could work with is no longer an option. You might even learn of a few sleepers that are intriguing candidates for other positions. All he did by not seriously interviewing veteran candidates is lose the opportunity to learn, and to gain credibility, and to be honest with a long suffering fanbase about his effort. The fact that other GMs might do the same thing is immaterial. There is a right way and a wrong way. It is no wonder this organization is where it is.

Leafs will extend to game 7 only to get bounced again as usual.

Wow, was just reading up on that and it's no joke. Can be triggered by anesthesia or simply by intense exercise for people with it. Basically it's a genetic code defect that's inherited and the body cannot cool itself off properly...said most people when exercising sweat to keep the body around normal temperature but people with this disorder can have their body temperature rise to over 104 degrees and can even lead to death in more severe cases due to "burning up from within". Scary stuff...sucks that he has it, but he has learned to deal with it and manage it well enough that he can lead a semi-normal life, just not enough of a normal life to play pro hockey.

I understand folks not liking that Adams was real loose with the truth when he said he talked to "double digits" people in connection with this search for a HC. I think it's @LGR4GM who'd been saying it from the start: It was always Lindy. Always. I think it's clear that there was no "search," per se. Adams "spoke to" a dozen or so people (and, again, we will include his family's dog, Tinsel, in that count) about the vacancy. We may safely infer that he was asking people who were not candidates about their thoughts on people who were candidates. Moreover, it sounds like Adams, in speaking to those people, was looking for confirmation that he was poised to make a good hire in Ruff. That's all. "Hey, Danny [Briere]. It's Kevyn. ... Kevyn Adams ... the GM of the Buffalo Sabres. Yeah! Yeah. How ya doin'? Yeah, okay here. Oh, a little gloomy. Waiting on spring to finally arrive. ... Hey, listen, I need you to keep this between you and me, but I'm thinking about bringing Lindy back as our coach. What do you think. Good idea?"

“Double-digits” offends me about as much as: “We have no interest in firing…” “player X is not on the market” ”we couldn’t believe he was still available” and “we like the team we have” It’s pretty much a job requirement that a GM has to spin certain situations certain ways in front of the cameras.

His smile bothers me too. A puppet with no individual agency. I’m amazed when anybody speaks about him as if he is making any of his own decisions.

I think either destination is permitted. He was one day short of going to Roc this season if memory serves.

That sucks.

Adams is a mouthpiece perpetually glued to Terry's sphincter. I believe nothing coming out of this sheep's mouth.

I have been there and done that!!! I wish you the best in your new/old job!! Hope it provides the QOL that you deserve!!

In my view Ruff has largely been a coach who gets as much out of his team as could reasonably be expected. That’s good. He is not a coach whose system or intellect or force of determination will push a team to be more than the sum of its parts. I don’t think that changes for the better at this point of his career. The 23-24 Sabres are maybe marginally better with Ruff than Granato, but they are not a playoff team. I would argue that the outlier from the Granato era is that he somehow dragged the 22-23 team to within a point of the playoffs; that was a greater coaching achievement than the 23-24 season was a failure. We will be as good as the team that Ruff is provided to coach. Great roster improvement is needed for us to be in playoff contention.

Sadly it looks like Cody’s disease has resurfaced and he has retired from hockey again. Our sad franchise could use a person with Cody’s drive and heart. Best of luck Cody. Hey Kevyn hire Cody as a development coach. He could teach our kids a thing or two about hard work. https://theathletic.com/5464327/2024/05/02/cody-hodgson-hockey-retirement-comeback/

Is Savoie a Rochester player next year? Or does he have a chance to make the big club like Benson did with a stellar camp? Also, can he play both the wing and center positions in the NHL level?

I need a different line of work

I am a huge Lindy fan. He will soothe the casual fans that have left this team - fans like my daughter and my wife. Neither has watched a game in many years because this team stinks, and they have for a very long time. Fans are excited to have him back. Lindy will help on the hockey side too. We can only hope he has strong input on which NHL players to go get, because Adams needs help. Adam’s is becoming a farce. He didn’t even talk to a Stanley Cup winning coach that took a team from last to first. Ever. He probably never interviewed Gallant either. So the guy that gave Adams a start in the NHL becomes available, it’s a perfect opportunity for Lindy to give it one more shot. Why not hire his friend and neighbor in Clarence. It could work? Maybe being in the right place at the right time is Adams true skill?

😡😡

Can't do nothing about it unless I want to leave them and start following another team. Winning matters. That's all I care about.

I saw a clip regarding the big RB the Bills took from Kentucky (Davis?) — parents imprisoned, so he was frequently homeless and then placed in foster care. If not for being really effing good at *something*, his life would likely have turned out very differently. But he had coaches and team parents who started to get involved in his life (informally fostering him, taking educational guardianship) — and that made a big difference. I wish the young man good fortune and great success!!

A little local flavor from Dallas. Bally Sports is still televising the games in this market, with local commercials. This one is by a health care chain and depicts Jake Oettinger as a superhero:

So you will hire a “royal butthead”, and you will settle for Lindy - who you already said you did not care for, but you don’t care that Adams exhaustive and detailed coach search never happened? You don’t care that he didn’t do the work he said he would do? Does honesty and credibility matter anymore?

I could not disagree more. Post-pandemic, 90% of NHL fan-bases would be so lucky to have such a fraudulent team to root for. Just looking at their roster and at who is producing for them night after night and it seems to me they have reached that point of critical mass where they have a high # of players who are either in, approaching, or just coming out of their prime performance years. Once you get down to 8 NHL teams, the road is tough (this is not the NHL I grew up watching where 12/16 or 16/21 teams were in the playoffs). Watching the Oilers and watching all the former Sabres who are in the playoffs, just reinforces how terribly the Sabres managed the post-tank years. It is really just the past couple of years that we should be a top 5-6 contender.

Link went bad. Sorry. Anyhow, it showed his tough youth in Louisiana. Insane HS stats in football, where he had 36 catches his last year with 22 of them TD's. Scored 64 in a basketball state playoff game. Single Mom with 5 kids. She grounded him for a month when he got a C in a class. The things these poor kids have to get through is incredible.

I don’t have any strong emotions regarding KA pretty much lying to us, but it has altered my perception of him. It’s hard for me to not see him as a bit of snake. Maybe they all are. No idea. Don’t really care. I do know that what he says from here is not taken at face value any longer. Transparency is no longer assumed from my chair.

I got debt coming out of my eyeballs. Once I get past that, I can reassess where I’m at. I also think I can reduce the stress of my old job. I have a different perspective and a lot more resources than I was used to.