nfreeman

Well, a cracked rib would explain the slowdown in his play, to some degree anyway.

@john wawrow -- I hope you've been keeping well. We'd sure appreciate your thoughts on whether RK is going to get canned and whether Eichel will be traded!

This has the cold ring of truth. I sure hope it is somehow not the case though.

Huh? The Sabres were 30-39 last year and are 6-13 this year, for a total RK record of 36-52.

I think it is a certainty that KA cannot fire RK, or vice-versa, and that either such firing would need to be approved by TP. I also think TP is likely on the phone to KA pretty frequently, and that the topic of terminating RK has to have come up. I also think the most likely outcome is that the Sabres are unable to pull out of this nosedive and RK is fired, but not KA.

Welcome!

Do you know when specifically? The guy who retweeted it made it sound like it just happened. I will also note that Eichel doesn't appear to use twitter much -- his most recent tweet was a week ago, in support of McCabe, and the one before that was over 4 months ago. Having said that, him scrubbing the Sabres from his twitter page -- if that is what happened -- is quite consistent with asking to be traded. Has any of the Sabres beat writers straight-out asked him whether he's asked to be traded?

I don't either, and I don't think TP does either. My concern, and I think TP's concern, is that the more coaches you fire, the more the franchise seems like a Mickey Mouse operation. However, if we go another week or 2 like this, that concern is likely to be obliterated by the urgent need to make a change. I really hope they find the right guys this time.

I don’t love the idea of firing another coach, and this time only 19 games into a very screwy season, but OTOH, this is the earliest a season has been over since the tank. It should be unacceptable.

Huh? When?

Hang in there @Indabuff. We are pulling for her.

But it's not a bigger treasure trove than the tank. They had a zillion high draft picks from the tank teardown. That also was a chance to "do it right." And it bought us 8 years and counting of the worst stretch in the franchise's history. As @Taro T has astutely noted many times, when you effect a total teardown, too many things have to go right, along a long road, for you to end up as a contender. It happens once in a great while, but the likelihood is too low. You want to trade Hall, Staal, Montour and Eakin at the deadline? I'm in. You want to trade Reino for presumably go

Serious question: has RK implemented a change in the system since last year that has turned Eichel from a legit MVP candidate to a shell of himself?

I get the frustration, but I think a teardown, like the tank, is much more likely to result in another generation in the dumpster than in a positive outcome. What’s needed is patient and prudent addition of a few key pieces, and, more importantly, for the right guys to be in place to make and execute the decisions.