darksabre

And honestly, GMTM probably would have gotten more time if he had been better at the actual day to day management part of the job. He was focused on talent evaluation and probably was doing okay at it. But having no idea what was going on with Bylsma and his team was what got him fired. Botterill will get more time than GMTM simply by actually doing every part of his job and doing it professionally.

I only have so much info to base my conjecture on, but I think it mostly boils down to the simple question of: who's team is it? The Sabres were, for all intents and purposes, O'Reilly's team before they became Jack's team. Who's team was the Avalanche when he was there? I think what we have is that a line needed to be drawn about who's team this is, and it's obviously Jack's. An unpredictable future will allow us to evaluate with hindsight whether that is a good thing or not.

Good catch, you're right. Everyone was wearing A's after Gionta left. It doesn't change my core argument though.

I think the trick here is that the veteran leadership thing had run its course. With Jack signing his long term deal and becoming the defacto captain of the team I don't think there was room for him and O'Reilly to share leadership duties, especially with guys like Bogo and Okposo very much in Jack's corner on things. I get the feeling Jack wanted to lead the team his way and O'Reilly wasn't on the same page with him a lot of the time. We know there was conflict between them, although the extent of it was probably overblown. But I don't know if stripping the C off of O'Reilly and giving it to Jack would have made things any better. FWIW, I don't think this is an indictment of either Jack or Ryan. I just think these are two guys who don't "fit" together. And as @dudacek has said, we tend to undervalue things like fit around here.

Bitch about how Botterill is a stupid failure without being able to see into the future to know if that actually ends up being the case?

I said back before O'Reilly was traded that, if it happened, it was never going to be for reasons you could look at on paper. And I also said the return wasn't going to be what people wanted because of that. His production was never an issue. It was always "other things" that were going to see him out the door, and I think every GM in the league knew it when O'Reilly was on the block. My assertions continue to be correct, but whatever I guess.

There is a lot of research that shows most men don't really "grow up" until their mid to late 20s. There's a lot of evidence in the criminal justice community that says men tend to "age out" of crime around that time, and I have to imagine there are plenty of men who aren't criminals who don't age out of certain behaviors until well into their 20s.

If anything this proves my point. On the Sabres that self-imposed pressure manifested itself negatively. On the Blues, in a locker room where other guys can take the edge off for him following a loss and comments like that, you end up with a much better result. You end up with an O'Reilly who comes out in game 7 and looks relaxed, not wound up tight. It's a lot easier to play the best game of your life if you're not worrying about needing to play the best game of your life because your teammates are there with you sharing that load.

I think Jack was a noticeably more mature in a lot of his post-game stuff this year, and I think that likely reflects the added responsibility he was carrying this season. Despite all the losing I thought his attitude was better. He was much better with the reporters, there was a lot less eye-rolling. Hopefully a leadership core can develop under Kreuger out of all these kids. Lord knows we need to move on from Bogo and Okposo wearing A's.

I know what "the room" was like because I drink and I know things. O'Reilly is toxic if you're asking him to lead a room on his own. He's fine if you can plug him in to a team with an established leadership group already in place for him to feed off of. Without it he gets crazy and puts everything on himself. We saw the evidence of that first hand. And we see now how much better things are for him on the Blues where they already had a guy like Pietrangelo wearing the C and a bunch of other vets who have been grinding it out for a long time. Ultimately, the O'Reilly trade says more about the state of the Sabres than it does about him. We heard all the stories about the splits in the room under Gionta, various cliques, clashes of personality. O'Reilly isn't the kind of guy you ask to unite a locker room and teach young players how the game works. We can argue that the Sabres should have been more patient and let that leadership group develop, but my personal opinion is that it was (probably) never going to happen with O'Reilly here trying to do it all himself. I think they needed to expose Jack and put that responsibility on him as the franchise #1 center. I don't know if it would have been any better to keep O'Reilly and strip him of the C, but it's essentially what needed to happen to get the rest of these guys to take some responsibility. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I reiterate.

Extremely cool for Binnington. 16 playoff wins by a rookie goalie for the first time ever.

Welp, there it is.

Breaking the seal early in this game was so important for the Blues.

This game has the stuff.

Blues doing a great job of keeping Boston to the outside.

Ooooo

I've stated previously that my biggest area of concern was the lack of improvement from Ullmark. Apparently Botterill wasn't happy with it either given how quickly they replaced that specific position.

Allen was the goalie coach and he definitely needed to be fired.

The best case scenario for the Blues, imo, is for either team to score a goal early in the game, just to break the seal. The longer this game goes scoreless, the better it is for the Bruins.

O'Reilly said something to the effect of "game 7 needs to be the best game I've ever played" after the last game. So it's obvious that he's already in "it's all on me" mode. And if he's that tightly wound up then there's a good bet the whole team is. I could see this being a blowout if the Bruins can weather the early Blues push and crack Binnington.

Maybe we should make this the Optimist thread.

Oh yah. Unless he gets hurt he's absolutely going to surpass 60.

The poll was about last season. I figured we could use a new poll for a new season.

Okay, Alex Nylander Watch is closed. Please move discussion to Alex Nylander Watch 2.0