Taro T

We do agree that the playoff drought would've ended. How much more than that they'd accomplish is pretty much impossible to say. Were Botterill still the GM, and in a world where he doesn't punt O'Reilly (as he did with ownership's blessing at a minimum if not their prodding) he very likely would've been retained longer, doubt the team would be a true contender though do expect they'd've won at least a series or 2 by now. It's a team that would have a perennial Selke candidate on it, a perennial Norris candidate on it, a Vezina candidate on it, and as it turns out 2 other F's that can play pretty responsibly in their own end now that they're actually adults. But ownership very well may have tired of Botterill. Thing is, with all that on the roster, you aren't compelled to move Kevyn Adams into that role when Kim and Terry decide it's time to move on from J-Botts. If we get lucky and they tire of him when they did, Bill Zito is still available, and considering he was interested 3 years earlier and the Sabres "tank fruit" are finally ripening there's no reason to believe he wouldn't still be intertested in the job. (We know he likes a BUNCH of Sabres from that era.) It's all what ifs and conjecture and there really isn't much point to the exercise, but not much else going on now as we have absolutely no idea what Kekalainen is recommending to Adams and likely won't until close to the end of the month when the draft finally arrives. (And am VERY much looking forward to the day when the draft is something that we don't really put a whole lot of energy nor interest in as picks in the 20's and 30's definitely aren't expected to help out for at minimum 2 more years and more likely 3 or 4 more years.

No "perfect world" at all there. Well, O'Reilly handing the keys to somebody else the night he decided to create a new drive thru at Timmy Ho's, but that's the only item necessary to let the rest of it play out. And, does it REALLY take a perfect world to have a decision that seemingly insignificant at the time to have been made differently. (And yes, that decision could've had much more tragic results, but it didn't.) Btw, they HAD a goalie - Ullmark. One more key piece allowed to simply walk out the door. And, yes, that core would need players added around it. Obviously. But that core about 2 years ago would've been in a position to be winning a round or 2 and when you have that who knows how the chips may fall through the rest of it. And had it actually been allowed to play together it should've been able to at least get to the dance earlier than that. Remember, winning the lottery after Housley's last year gave Botterill the ability to "pivot" so we never saw O'Reilly and Dahlin play together as teammates. But, literally, the reason this team is on a 14 year playoff drought is because they not only decided to tank but decided after that to switch direction at minimum 3 times and arguably at least 4 times and with each major reset you take a couple of steps back before you can just get back to where you were.

Truly don't expect him to make any trades for prospects and picks. (Unless, say it's Rosen for a D prospect that is on that same ~1 year away timeline.) Ruff and Kekalainen aren't going to be on board for any sort of a tear down now. There aren't going to be any roster players traded away for just prospects this summer.

You'd better be able to get a 2W and 6D for Byram. But if all you're expecting back that's useful is a 2W, then why not add a prospect or other sweetner to the deal and get a top 4D as part of the package? They don't need any more bottom pairing D and should be able to find as many as they may want in FA.

Looooooooooong time ago a friend had heard there was a good hike in that area and talked about 10 of us into making a day trip of it. Started out uneventful enough and after 15 or so minutes we'd gotten down to the creek. Saw a couple of other hikers. Still nothing eventful. But after we went around one particular bend, holy schneikees, we ended up in a scene that was a cross between a town fair and Deliverance. The most interesting sight was the chick under a blanket doing her best imitation of a Columbus hockey player on presumably her boyfriend. Saw several other rather nekkid people there and really not sure why when you randomly run into nekkid people in real life they're NEVER the ones you WANT to see nekkid. Wifey and the other women along on the trip were like, yeeeeaaaah, we're heading back to the car now. Oddly enough, never went back. And, though am listening to Rush's 2112 right now, it keeps getting drowned out by Dueling Banjos. Uhhhhhh.

He does seem to do a reasonably "good" job drafting. Problem is, when his plan to finally get us out of the desert is to do it through the draft, he needs to be EXCELLENT at drafting.

The poor Liger would either be on suicide watch or a serious candidate to go postal. Please, no Ristolainen. Think of the children! (No, not saying Liger is a child.)

Hey, hey, hey, hey now. Are you trying to imply the Sabres COULDN'T be at least the 6th best team in the AHL if they wanted to be? Sheesh, thought at least you of all people would see a possibility of the Sabres being at worst top 10 in the AHL. 😜

They AREN'T ready for the roles they're given. Kulich was servicable as a FIRST LINE CENTER at age 20 when he wasn't playing against top teams. He was horrendously lost when he was. If the other team's top guys came full steam at the net, he'd lose his coverage. And that isn't a knock on him. It's a knock on the roster building that put him into that spot. Should he be in the NHL right now? Probably. (Would prefer to see them bring in enough reinforcements in the off-season that he's an Amerk on Day 1 once again, but that is unlikely.) Is he a #1 C? Not even CLOSE. Not against playoff competition. So, he wasn't rushed INTO the NHL. But he sure as heck WAS rushed into the 1C role. Why was Power, nearly 1 season removed from his draft brought in as the Sabres 3D? Was he ready for the NHL? Yes. Was he ready to be the key man on his pairing? NO. Quinn was written in ink, coming off a leg injury that kept him from training nearly the entire off-season into a top 6 role. Again, he WAS rushed into the role he was given. GOOD teams don't have rosters that are this young. And GOOD teams don't have this much youth in key roles. The Sabres DO in fact rush their young players into roles they aren't ready for because the managing philosophy is (or at least it was for several seasons) "no blocking."

Thank you for the reply. That does clarify what you were saying. 🍺 (Don't agree, but do understand.) The RESULT is the same thing. You can say it "isn't rushed" but if at the end of the day ...

Pretty sure a more accurate description is, unlike the Eulers who let their "big 2" and the guys they identified as key (Nugent-Hopkins and Nurse) additional pieces of their core actually grow into men, who pretty much "all of a sudden" became good enough to actually build around though they weren't when they were kids, the Sabres gave up on the idea right about the time that Eichel and Reinhart (and McCabe and Montour and ...) were entering their primes. NEVER should've traded away O'Reilly. Keep O'Reilly and build around O'Reilly, Eichel, Reinhart, Dahlin, and McCabe and still bring in Montour. That would be a really good basis for a team today and for the past couple of years. Skinner never gets brought it as they'd've already added Sheary and wouldn't have the money for both Sheary and Skinner with O'Reilly still around.

Disagree all you want. Other teams (particularly good teams) don't have youth in key roles to anywhere near the extent that the Sabres put them. Can you please expound upon this thought? Not sure the point you are making here.

Well, in fairness, there are 2 components to the "they rush their prospects to the NHL" line of thought. Their players get to the NHL a tad earlier than other teams youngsters get there, but once there they end up getting thrown into top 6, top 4, and starting goalie roles. MOST of the guys on other teams end up eased into the NHL in the bottom 6; 4/5/6 D; or or backup roles. The Sabres have them centering the 1st line after 2 years in the AHL. And that puts the kids into roles that other teams don't force them en masse into. Adams seems to have run an experiment believing that it isn't so much growing into fully adult bodies that translates to effective NHLers but rather experience in the NHL that translates into effective NHLers provided the players have the talent that they should be in those roles in their primes. In general, we're seeing that yeah, players really need both to be effective in top of the lineup roles - they need to be men and they need experience. Yes, there are some very rare exceptions, but in general, they do need both.

Perhaps. And not saying it's causation. But there is a distinct difference in the changes in the hockey department pre early-2022 and post when the team has underperformed yet again.

One thing that I wonder about in all of this is how much, if at all, this situation would be different had Kim Pegula not had her heart attack which essentially resulted in a stroke. The 2 were most definitely a team and without her around now it sure seems from the Fairburn article that Adams and Terry are now that team as far as the hockey side of things goes. Maybe he'd be even more entrenched were she still more involved, but wasn't a significant portion of the ouster of their 1st GM hire a perceived or real insubordination towards her and a significant portion of the 2nd GMs ouster was the owners "not feeling heard" (or something to that effect). (Pretty sure it was her idea to can Brandon too.) Might Kim have been a bit more pointed in the questioning of what was going on at the end of season reviews and during the inseason low points? Terry made some sort of boast when he bought the Sabres that he'd never fired anyone from his Energy East company. But he and his wife sure did fire a lot of people in their 1st 9 or so years of owning the Sabres. Maybe he's a softie and she's the one that has more of the stomach for that sort of thing. Since the team's taken a step back from 91 points we've now seen Granato fired, the S&C coach fired, and Ellis demoted and that's the entirety of the removal for performance in the past 2 years. (Not counting alterations to the playing roster to date.)

Knew that. But that fact alone didn't really seem to explain the response to Tom's post. Pretty sure @Dr. Who's response which gave some more insight into Staal is correct.

Charlotte probably would've beat the Amerks had Ra-cha-cha been able to get past Laval. They took the season series 3-1-0 with both teams getting blow out SO wins down in LTL and the Checkers winning 2 - 1 goal games in Ra-cha-cha. Not sure that the likelihood that the Checkers (that finished 2 points ahead of the Amerks in the regular season) would've beat the Amerks in the 3rd round means that Ra-cha-cha didn't have a good season nor that there are no players down in the former Flour City that can help Buffalo in the near future.

?????

By any chance, were any of them "flies on the wall" during the last NFL draft so they could not just get to use the Bills war room but see how the people in it used it? Expecting the answer is 'no' but hoping that they were.

But southern cities (especially Texan ones) aren't condensed like northern cities are. They sprawl greatly and many areas that would be suburbs in the north are incorporated within the city limits down where you're at. In cities like Houston without zoning (at least that was zoning less 30 years ago) wouldn't be surprised at all at there being areas with livestock within city limits. So, not sure a lost goat sign IN ENGLISH necessarily confirms you're in the Barrio. Btw, once hit a deer within Buffalo's city limits.

Correct. Nothing like the NFL's "cap." A true hard cap with very few opportunities for players to earn bonuses. One of the very ways to partially, sort of, circumvent the cap is to include signing bonuses that get paid on day one of a league year but count against the cap like an ordinary contract (~1/187th counting against the cap each day during the regular season). So, a team could pay the player a significant portion of his salary on day 1 then trade him and the team trading for him has the whole remaining nut that season count against the cap but only having to shell out the actual remaining $'s for that season in that season. And those sort of bonuses can only move money around within that particular season. (You can't sign an 8 year contract with 90% of the total value of the contract paid out as a signing bonus at the actual signing of the contract.)

Guessing the OP's Q is now moot. (If it wasn't at the time it was asked. 😉 )

Just cut it back to just Dahlin, Tuch, and Thompson. My 2 cents. YMMV.

Hey, hey, hey now. Nobody wants to hear about your neighbors' wives. 😜

No data. But one thing to keep in mind is that Adams says he talks with Beane fairly frequently and we know Pegula talks to him as well. And there's now Guelli overseeing the business side of both teams; he might've had a small role in it as well. (Because let's face it, HIS Sabres job becomes MUCH easier if the team doesn't #### dead donkey #####.) Beane tends to have a LOT of experienced guys working for him. If he actually likes Adams (no idea if he does or doesn't), he might've suggested to him that the smartest bosses don't work in a vacuum and getting input from people well outside the normal circle he relies on could be extremely beneficial. And having an outside voice with relationships that Kevyn doesn't have (from a cursory glance, the 2 don't seem to have much overlap in their past key coworkers list) could be a huge benefit in an organization as insular as the NHL seems to be. As stated above, no idea who's idea it was to get Adams the help. Honestly, hope it was Adams (the one who professes he consistently is looking for ways to improve what he does and who professes he tries to have honest conversations (and if you can't have an honest conversation with yourself, you can't truly have one with anybody else) who realized what HE needed help with and went out and got it (hopefully he chose right in finding advisors to help and also hopefully they're still looking to shake more things up; but will expect them when we see them (or at a minimum @Brawndo tells us they're in the works)). As for Ruff, yeah, expect that the plan for him is still the same as it seems when he took the 2 year deal to come to Buffalo. If things work this year, he becomes an advisor to new PoHO Adams and if things don't work this year, he becomes PoHO. Can't see him simply retiring after this season nor him heading to some other organization next year.