Taro T

Not only that, but who exactly do they expect will be taking the kids to the game? School field trip with a busload of kids and 2 chaperones? How many of the kids parents work at banks or for the government? Even the NYSE isn't taking this banker's holiday. So, so, so on brand.

It sure does seem like they've quit on Ruff. Clean house. Now. Letting this fester through the entire season so everybody can be let go with no outstanding money owed will convert this from a single additional lost season into an additional 3-4 lost season affair.

Adams back, every single coach back, and ending up with $3MM in cap space after seeming to not get equal value in the Peterka trade lead to this off-season being extremely disappointing. Then not having Kesselring nor Benson available to start the year and losing Norris before the 1st game was over simply compound it. Lyon actually looking like the Swamp Cat version of himself with all the rest of that, even though it's a pleasant surprise, is simply a waste at this point.

Thought they had 4 chances in Beantown. If so, 0-8. Heckuva job there, Appie.

it was an interesting experiment. It failed spectacularly, but it was interesting. Now that there are so many schools with sports management programs, wonder if there'll be any case studies done on these past 5 years. Figure there have to be, right? Presumably they'll switch gears back to conventional wisdom next year; but they really need to make that happen now. They should hold the purge right after they get stomped by the Avs. Maybe if they (ownership) show the good players that they do get it and they will get them support then they won't all want to desperately be gone. This roster isn't that far away if they could add 2 or 3 pieces AND get NHL caliber coaching. Can Adams, let Jarmo or Karmanos decide how to try to make improvements for this season and if they're doing well let them stay on next year; if they aren't, well you have a clean slate to fix the FO and coaching.

With all due respect to the '74-'75 squad which couldn't win a game in Filly to save their lives but due to tiebreakers would have to win at minimum 1 game there heading into that series and as it turned out would've needed 2 wins there which was pretty much impossible back then, the 3 times the Sabres were closest to winning it all were '99, '01, and '06. Yes, Dallas was the better team overall, but there was a reasonable chance that Modano and Hull (and maybe even Niewendyk) would not be able to go in game 7. Take any of them out of the lineup and the Sabres have a great chance to win a game 7 if they can score 1 more goal in game 6 after they drop the puck at the Sabres blue line. In '01 they should've beat the Pens. If they did, they had Joisey's # that year, and beat the Avs in Colorado with Biron in net. So, they had a great likelihood of getting past the Devils and then could've won a long series versus the Avs. Yeah, in '06 they were 20 minutes away from facing a much weaker Euler team, but those injuries to the D and Connolly were killers. Had they been able to stay healthy rather than lose a D-man after every victory in the Semis, yeah, they definitely win that and then hoist the Cup by the end of the next round. It's an interesting exercise to think of which one of those teams had the best chance to take it all. The '93 squad needs mention too. Yes, they lost in the 2nd round to the eventual Cup champs in 4 straight. But all 4 of those were 4-3 games, 3 went to OT, and all 4 they had an injured Fuhr between the pipes rather than the best goalie that ever lived who, btw, was between the pipes when Brad May made Ray Bourque look like Phil Bourque. Each of those 1 goal games also had at least 1 bad goal given up by Fuhr. Get past Moe-ray-all and the Aisles were much weaker and then the LA series could've gone either way. The '80 team had the misfortune of winning their 2nd round too quickly, or so the story goes. They sat around for 9 days waiting for their next opponent and couldn't get back into the swing of things until they were behind the 8 ball facing a 3 game deficit. Thing is, the Aisles sat around for a full week too waiting for Minny and Moe-ray-all to finish their series. They had a chance to win it all, but they always had problems with the Aisles back then and the Phlyers too and even if they got past the Aisles, Filly would've been waiting there for them. Personally felt they were further from winning it all than any of those other teams mentioned here, and were farther than '89 and '07 as well.

Hamsammich didn't patent that. Andrea Kramer was nailing the 2 minute long non-question question on ESPN long before Hammy was contemplating a career in sports journalism. He's merely the cheap 3D printed knock off getting sold on E-bay to unsuspecting collectors. Good for Lyon on not running with Paul's set up. Wonder if he becomes Paul's new Reinhart?

It's rare for the top players to be good coaches. Toe Blakes are pretty much unicorns. Even Brind'Amours are fairly rare. How does Gretzky go about explaining to his team how to understand where the puck is going to be in 4 seconds and where all other 11 guys are now and where they'll be in a few seconds? Answer: he doesn't. You pretty much can't teach that. But the guys that have to bust their arses to get to and stay in the league are, along with former goalies, the guys that tend to be the best coaches and can fairly often translate to management as well. (Though studs seem to have better track records on the management side than the coaching side. There are more of them that make good than there are that make good coaches. Probably because a lot of management is schmoozing with their compatriots and they're the ones that as players were always getting the interview requests and attention so they're good at that part of the job.) Adams fits firmly in that guys who had to bust their arse to get and stay there. Probably should've moved back to the development side of things after running a rink rather than running a team.

Krebs didn't shoot it wide. His fumble of receiving the pass gave Swayman time to get across and get a glove on it. That needed to be a 1 timer. If it was, Krebs would've had the Sabres 1st goal of the year.

Have been very disappointed in Quinn's play so far this year. Seems he's picked up right where he started last year. A smidge harsh; he was absolutely beyond awful at the beginning of last year, this year he's just bad.

Zucker!

Far and away his worst game in years. He's back to baby giraffe level tonight.

A team starts out well but gets worse - the coach is a good motivator but not particularly good at the X & O's. Ruff used to be good at the X&O's. The crew taking direction from him are notorious for not being good at that. Heck, Ruff's predecessor didn't even try to teach the X&O's of D for a couple of years. And Ruff has ALL those same guys that worked for Donny working for him now. (Even Ellis didn't get canned, just reassigned to non-game day on bench duties.)

They've got something like 6 guys on IR and you want the regulars playing even MORE meaningless hockey? How about instead of playing more meaningless games, they get NHL caliber coaches who can run the sort of drills to get them ready to play hockey against actual NHL opponents?

Interesting. Used to be kids were just conceived there, not born there too. 😉

You're thinking of the team under Granato. Ruff had them ready to go in the 1st. Ruff couldn't get them to sustain that for the full 60. Now, it seems he can't even get that 1st period going well. This has the makings of a very long season.

Anybody who's team usually loses so the other owners are happy is a terrific owner for Bettman. And they probably make more $ with a horrible team than any other market in the States would make if they had a horrible team. What's for a Commissioner not to like?

Not pain. Suffering.

Ineffective Momentum-killing Infuriating

Kekalainen, while having Zito under him, did a fantastic job in C-bus. Personally expect a significant portion of that was Zito, but Jarmo MIGHT be good in his own right. You have him in house; if you've been leaning towards making him the next GM while bumping Adams up should things have gone well this year, bump him into Adams role now and find out what you have. If they bring in an outsider this off-season, Kekalainen is likely gone anyhow, so there really isn't anything lost by making the Jarmo portion of the move now. And does it matter whether it's Adams moving players or Jarmo moving players if a different guy is brought in after the season? MHO they're essentially equivalent on that front. But, like stated already, if you give Jarmo a chance now (or Karmanos for that matter), you have nearly an entire season to see how he operates when the man and you'll get an idea through a trade or 2 ahead of the deadline and then deadline day to find out just what you have in him. And, no, they won't do a thing now. But they SHOULD. (Of course that was true the day they were eliminated last season.)

Not thrilled with the idea of Kekalainen either (pretty sure a ton of his success was on Zito); but there is no way he's as bad as Adams. Make him the interim GM and if somebody actually good comes available in the offseason upgrade yet again. If not, at least there is an upgrade over what's currently going on. And personally would be very pleased with them giving Karmanos a shot at running the show. But as others have said, just don't see that happening for whatever reason.

Dang, you put on a pound or 2; when did you start wearing powder blue? 😉 (Yeah, realize that ain't you.)

The bald Finnish guy says 'hi.'

Nah, he'll be back in time for the playoffs. 😉 Now, what could Adams do with an extra $8MM in cap room this season? 🤔

You can say THAT again.