nfreeman

Well, I think it depends on what is meant by "major rebuild". I think this team was deeply flawed and needed a major rebuild. You may be defining it differently, if you view a major rebuild as being mutually exclusive with the elements you mentioned upthread: I think a major rebuild can, and should, include these elements (with my tweak in bold), especially in the Sabres' case. Certainly Eichel's trade demand was part of it, but IMHO it was only a part, and probably less than half.

I agree and would also point out that not expecting to win next year would effectively be giving KA a 3-year pass, since his first year was a DFL debacle despite spending close to the cap. There's a reasonable argument to be made that giving him a pass for his first year in light of inherited lousy coach, injured/wanting out Eichel, huge disappointment Hall, covid, austerity measures in FO and cost-cutting apparently ordered by TP -- in fact, it's one of the strongest cases I can remember for giving a GM a pass for a crappy season. But even so, it's more than fair to hold KA accountable for the 2020 decisions not to extend Reino and not to upgrade the goaltending.

From the Athletic today, in an article partially entitled "The Taylor Hall Problem": Hall reminds me of former Bills QB Rob Johnson -- he has all the tools, and sometimes looks great, but something critical is missing -- and the net result is that he's just not effective. I am really glad the Sabres didn't give him a long-term deal.

I don't think there was any linkage whatsoever between the decision to sign Butcher and the decisions KA made on goaltending.

This is an excellent post. I agree with almost all of it, with the huge exception of giving KA a pass on the goalie debacle. I don't doubt the accuracy of the examples you gave, but IMHO the unavoidable facts are that KA has had 2 offseasons -- not one -- to improve the goaltending, that a ton of goalies play musical chairs every summer, and that KA didn't come up with anyone -- and that there is a high risk that what KA has provided in net is going to materially harm the development of the kids on whom the whole rebuilding plan is based. I simply cannot believe that he couldn't have done better than what we've got now. Separately, I agree with those upthread who do not understand why @GASabresIUFAN keeps harping on the Butcher signing. It seems completely inconsequential to me. And as always I agree with @Thorny that the results are all that matter. I also agree with much of @dudacek's post, but not with his assertion that the results for this year don't count. Everything counts, especially yet another terrible season that is over by the quarter-pole, and especially when that outcome was 100% foreseeable and is the direct result of terrible execution by KA at staffing the most important position on the team.

The offense produced 1 TD. They also produced zero points in 2 red zone possessions when the game was there to be won. If JA is going to be paid like an MVP, and the team is going to be constructed around him, he needs to deliver more. Otherwise they aren't going anywhere.

Another crappy game from JA.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

If KA were willing to give Ullmark a 3-year deal @ $5MM per year, he could've, and should've, found another goalie for that kind of contract instead of settling for the losers the Sabres currently have at the position, which he should've known would've chained an anchor to a team struggling to keep their heads above water. They've now lost 14 out of 17 and look utterly lost and like they expect to lose. We've seen this movie before. There is an unacceptably high risk that another bottom-3 finish will suffuse this group of kids with an ineradicable stink of losing in the same way the prior tank did to the prior group.

So you've forgotten...Cozens, Mittlestadt, Dahlin, Joker, UPL, Portillo, Olofsson, Johnson, Asplund, Bryson, etc? Who has ever suggested the bolded trade?

I would not fire him now, but there is a real case for doing so IMHO, and it goes like this: - KA’s choices at goalie indicate either an unacceptable inability to evaluate talent at the most critical position or a decision to tank this season. - If he’s decided to tank, he’s made a stupid decision that is highly likely to mire the franchise in the same quicksand it’s been in for the last 8 years. - Even worse, he made that decision despite having the results of the last stupid decision to tank staring him in the face. - In addition to the tank decision, he had the most precious asset in the NHL — a franchise #1 C — and he couldn’t keep him happy. And now he wants to tank to have a chance to replace that franchise C? No thank you. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the above, but it’s not from outer space.

Then it's a stupid freaking plan, just like the last tank was. Both of these are obnoxious.

Please let him be a count or some other kind of royalty with a cool title...

I like mountains too, but I think Charleston is great. Of course that’s based on a handful of visits, not living there. I have friends who live there too and love it.

For some reason I too am feeling perhaps irrationally confident about this game.

@Taro T -- just to be clear, do you think the Sabres offered Ullmark $5MM x 3 years at the trade deadline and he turned it down, and the Sabres should've offered him $5MM x 4 years at that point?

You keep making this point. Do you really not think the Sabres have a problem in net?

Antonio Brown and Mike Edwards of the Bucs have been suspended for using forged vaccine cards and will miss the game vs the Bills.

Who reported this? The only person I've seen say this was our own estimable @Brawndo.

As I've said repeatedly, about a million goalies changed teams in the summers of 2020 and 2021, and 95% of them were better than the losers currently manning the position for the Sabres. It's KA's job to identify and bring in at least one of them. More specifically, I wouldn't have lowballed Ullmark with a 1- or 2-year offer (per Vogl's report) and then been left emptyhanded when he bailed.

So he turns 28 in a few weeks, has not played a-tall this year (anyone know why?), started 14 games last year, and 19-20 games per year the 4 seasons before that. He's making $850K this year, after which he's a UFA. Looks like another member of the JAG Corps. But I'm glad KA at least took a shot at improving a dreadful goalie situation that he is 100% responsible for creating.

They do that at the Barclays Center in Brookly, but it's on a seat-by-seat basis, not entire sections, and waiter service isn't included for most seats -- you just go to the concession stand and they scan your ticket to confirm that you are entitled to "free" food and drink.

Florida lost in the first round last year and did not make the playoffs the prior year (or the 3 years before that one, for that matter). They have made the playoffs 3 times since 2000, and have not won a round in the playoffs since 1996 -- which was the ONE time in franchise history that they advanced. I shudder to think what attendance would look like here with results like that. Frankly it might be zero, as the team might have moved. In any case, if the Sabres have finally hired the right guys and started to build a team the right way, as the Panthers appear to have done (except of course for a coach who looked the other way at the worst possible time), we may be on our way out of the desert.

Well, Mr. Grumpy, the Panthers have been mediocre-to-terrible for pretty much their entire existence, so I don't think it's unreasonable for the fans to take a bit of convincing that the team is worth coming out for. If they have a couple of seasons with good playoff results, I'd expect them to develop into a team with good attendance.

Maybe Power is the Prince who was Promised. Blind squirrel, etc. I sure hope so.