nfreeman

I have enjoyed the Athletic while being less-than-optimistic about its business model and ultimate prospects for survival, at least in its current form. I hope this isn't the beginning of the end. It doesn't seem like it necessarily is the beginning of the end, though, as they laid off "only" 8% of their staff -- 46 people, which means there are over 500 employees. That's more than I was expecting, although I have no idea whether those are FTEs. The rest of the employees all took pay cuts, starting at 10% and escalating with the higher-paid employees. Here's some background: https://www.thewrap.com/the-athletic-layoffs/

Leaving aside the pleasant tone of your post, have you now come around to believing and trusting OSP? When during his ownership tenure you had nothing but antipathy and mistrust for him? Again: it is manifestly self-serving for OSP to claim, without any verification, that he heroically ensured the team would stay in Buffalo. Perhaps the offer was made and the NHL made it clear to him that the answer was no sale if moving the team immediately was a condition. in that situation, one could claim that one "turned down a better offer" and be technically accurate while still being highly misleading. Or perhaps one of his golfing/tennis/yachting/exploiting the proletariat oligarch buddies was yukking it up with him after an afternoon of lobster and champagne at a fancy club in a tax haven and boisterously told OSP that he'd dig out $260MM from the floor of his Maybach and give it to him for the Sabres as long as he could move them to his ranch in Montana. Perhaps a million things. But not this, at least not based on just OSP's vague and unsupported statements: OSP wasn't going to lose a ton of $$ to keep the Sabres in Buffalo. I agree that there are significant differences between the 3 situations. But there is one overriding similarity: it always comes down to the Benjamins, and if there is a significant net economic loss associated with keeping a team in city XYZ, including Buffalo, no sports league is going to insist on keeping a team in that city.

Y'know what fans from cities like Buffalo shouldn't do? They shouldn't blithely dismiss the chances of losing their teams with "it'll never happen." Oakland and San Diego, both of which are bigger cities than Buffalo, have just recently lost their NFL teams, and Buffalo would've probably lost the Bills if TP hadn't bought them. And the NFL is a much stronger league than the NHL.

What you are glossing over here is that TG was demonstrably willing to sell the team at a handsome profit. We have no idea how much or how little he cared about selling to an owner who would keep the team in Buffalo. Here's an alternative fact pattern: - TP's offer never materializes, so TG continues to own the team. - The cap continues to rise from $39MM when he bought it (NB that the Sabres' payroll that year was $28MM), to $60MM 6 years later (when he actually sold it), to $81.5MM today. - As the cap and floor rise, the team incurs increasingly large operating losses. - TG, who was never interested in owning a team that lost, say, $5MM per year, gets increasingly antsy as his cash burn mounts and, after running up about $20MM in losses over 4 years, decides to sell the team. - He initially wants to sell to someone who will keep the team in Buffalo, but no one materializes who will do so and pay a competitive price. - After another 2 years and $10MM of operating losses, TG says "to heck with this" and decides that he'll sell to whomever will write him a respectable check. - The new owner tells the NHL that he'll keep the team in Buffalo if it reaches break-even within 3 years -- but if it doesn't, he wants to be able to leave. - The NHL, realizing that this is the best that they are going to do, agrees. Now: what is more realistic: this scenario, or the magical appearance of a billionaire who doesn't care about funding operating losses and is determined to keep the team in Buffalo come hell or high water? That's why "keeping the team in Buffalo" is really freaking real.

I completely agree with the bolded. I just think no one should kid himself that the owner commitment to staying here depends on some clause in a contract that no one has seen and that doesn't seem realistic. As for whether the NHL could prevent an owner from moving a team -- that is exactly what they did with Balsillie, including, IIRC, winning a court case -- and I think it happened with Balsillie twice.

I too expect that some kind of no-move clause is in the contract. I also expect though that it is subject to various conditions that would render it ineffective -- i.e. allow TP to move the team -- if the economics aren't good enough. Of course, regardless of the contract, any franchise move (including any move following a bankruptcy, as we saw when Balsillie tried that maneuver with the Predators ) would be subject to NHL approval. I think that approval gives Buffalo greater protection -- although it's still far from bulletproof -- than any alleged no-move clause.

Well, it's entirely in TG's interest to tout the no-move clause and it's also in the interest of LQ and local politicians -- who are good candidates for being JW's other sources (assuming there were any). If @john wawrow read the contract himself and saw the clause, I'd love for him to say so here. Otherwise I'm quite skeptical.

My inclination is to blame goaltending first, coaching 2nd and defensive execution third.

I'm going to urge anyone who wants to discuss Jake Fromm's comments to do so in a new thread, preferably in the politics club, so we don't have a replay of the poopstorm from a few days ago.

Bump. My complaint: I was back in NYC for a couple of days this week for the first time in nearly 3 months. NYC is flawed, like everything else, but I love it. And it felt like it's taken some body blows. FU, Wuhan flu.

I freaking love cheeseburgers.

My confidence comes from living on the planet earth and being familiar with how things generally happen. Tell me: if you had to bet your house one way or the other — ie either that the commitment to stay in Buffalo is ironclad and unconditional, or that there are loopholes — which way would you bet?

@Brawndo — there isn’t much detail in that piece. Until I see the agreement, I will continue to be confident that while lip service is probably paid to keeping the team in Buffalo, there are various conditions relating to economic results (among others) that leave the commitment fairly toothless.

Again: notwithstanding Larry Quinn's claims, none of us has any idea whether this is true.

I've been binging "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime -- I'm about halfway through season 2 so far. Pretty good sci-fi/outer space action thriller, with some Game of Thrones-style machiavellian plotting, if that's your cup of tea. So far it's a solid B-plus.

Wonderful. Time to wrap this up.

Well, I think there are only a handful of NFL coaches with as much authority as McD, and none with as much as the dark lord Belichick. However, I can't think of any NHL coaches who are similarly situated, so I agree that it would be pretty unusual if RK were to take on that kind of role.

I think this is in the ballpark with the Bills' model -- i.e. I think McD's role is pretty similar to this.

But if the 3-season period started in 17-18, didn’t that period just expire?

Hold the phone. It has been accepted SabreSpace canon for at least 6 months that TT has to clear waivers next year, and that accordingly he will almost certainly be in Buffalo and not Rochester. I have not learned the waiver rules and may never do so. If @Brawndo says it, I am inclined to believe it. Does anyone want to dispute his truth?

back bacon and toast, hold the toast, eh?

Yes, but Chad's point (which echoes what a number of posters here have said) is valid: JB didn't take over a terrible cap situation, and he hasn't created a great cap situation. He took over an OK cap situation, and he's managed it into...an OK cap situation. There is certainly nothing about the Sabres' cap situation, either when JB took over or now, that excuses the team's performance under JB.

I don’t see any possible way Pilut is top 4 on the Sabres next year.

I feel like the viral marketer’s evil doppelgänger has joined and is blasting away at the castles made of sand.

This raises an interesting (IMHO) question: how badly would the Sabres have to start next season for TP to pull the trigger? Darcy was fired in 2013 after 20 games (in which the Sabres were 4-15-1). I think it's pretty clear TP doesn't want to fire JB, and I think the main reason is that he wants the organization to be perceived as stable and professional. But if they get off to a terrible start, and the arena is empty, and whoever is there is booing -- it could easily happen again. And at that point, TP will richly deserve to be criticized for not having pulled the trigger now.