darksabre

Just because they're our best players doesn't mean they're worth a sack of potatoes.

Who should I blame instead? Joel Giambra?

I'm not interested in stats as justification for chaining ourselves to players who don't get it done when it counts. We've been playing that game for like 20 years on this site. How many massive losing streaks have Tage Thompson's Sabres experienced? What's Tage bringing to this team when he's getting shoved off the puck in the corners despite being 6 foot 6? Guess the Sabres shouldn't have traded Pierre Turgeon either. Anyone still showing up is a fool anyway.

[one finger on the monkey's paw curls]

It's a matter of trust. Terry took a lot of advice from a lot of people after he bought the club, and I suspect he feels betrayed. These outsiders led him astray. Snakes in the grass. Deceivers. Kevyn has been with him a long time, and seems to be the only person he thinks isn't playing games with him. He's never going to fire the guy, not in any way that fans want. They may "reorganize the front office", but it'll always be in a way that Kevyn is able to save face. As long as Terry owns this team, KA is going to be around.

I think the Sabres consistently have too many players that don't have an extra gear. We see flashes of it from time to time, but mostly they're just overloaded with okay players who thrive when surrounded by players who do have that extra gear. Sam Reinhart, for example, isn't a better player now than when he was here, he's just in a better mix. I don't see Sam plugging back into this roster and the team suddenly making the playoffs, ya know?

Getting the mix right is a factor too. Even with good players this team is bad. The personality of it is unchanged for over a decade. Low effort, constantly injured, apocalyptically streaky. It doesn't seem to matter who the players are, who the coaches are, etc. The sum is never as good as the parts.

FWIW, I think maybe 2-3 guys from the current roster will be on the team the next time they make the playoffs.

Pretty amazing that the wrong choices get made every single time. Unprecedented consistency.

We gotta do something to make the team better! No, not like that!

Yuuuuup. It was bad enough they aborted Regier's plan before it was really even out of the gate. But the constant changing of courses afterwards just made things even worse. GMTM's whole thing probably works if Lehner wasn't constantly hurt and/or on drugs. He also probably could have used someone to act as a buffer between himself and the Pegulas, since he very clearly thought they were annoying morons. The fact that he hasn't returned to hockey management in any capacity means whatever he did, he couldn't come back from it. But I don't know if he was wrong...

Lotta people in this place too attached to garbage. Interesting.

This is the thing, right? He had a plan. He executed the plan. And then everyone got mad for not understanding the plan. Pegula should have sucked it up and rode it out. But he couldn't do that, because he thought he knew better. He figured he could just "business genius" his way out of things.

That was the whole point! They knew it was going to be unwatchable!

There's nobody in the building now. Pegula was and still is a coward.