nfreeman

This is where I am too. I just wish I felt more confident about him staying healthy. But his game is terrific.

I too was disappointed in Rosen. I thought he was in the right place with the puck multiple times and gave it away needlessly. Much too cute and overall not effective.

Geez. Your presence ]is quite a breath of fresh air today. Maybe people can talk hockey on a hockey message board without being mocked?

I only watched the 2nd half of the game, but I was pretty impressed with Komarov. He looked highly skilled and confident and his skating seemed fine.

Will Kulich keep it going? Will Östlund or Rosen make a move? How 'bout one of the big Russian defensemen?

If anyone was at HarborCenter -- please give us a report!

https://x.com/LLysowski/status/1834718720201310222

Yeah baby! Yeah! https://t.co/J7iq213pVa

McD, BB and JA are magnificent gifts to WNY from the sports gods. If we are lucky and conduct ourselves in a deserving manner, we may have them for another decade. And if we are extremely lucky the same thing will happen with the Sabres.

Boom!

Ooooooooooooohhhh. Advantage @tom webster!!

Huge game tonight! JA was freaking incredible on Sunday. His targets weren't gamebreakers but they were pretty good and didn't make mistakes. They'll probably need to score 32 pts or so to win.

I think you and others here are right about this (and I'm optimistic that each of TT, Cozens and Tuch will bounce back this year) but I guess I don't love it -- it kinda feels like they'd be getting it by default. I wouldn't mind -- and I'm not sure, but I think Lindy may done something like this previously -- Dahlin getting the C and the As moving around to different guys over the course of the season until someone unquestionably earns it.

Serious question: since TT, Tuch and Cozens were a big part of the problem last year, why should any of them get a letter?

Who is "following you around?" This misbegotten exchange started when you responded to my post.

I have no doubt that you can claim, all day, to have proven something that you haven't proven, and pepper those claims with lols and lmaos. No one is saying that you are wrong if PTR didn't use the exact words "well, we're lucky just to have a team, so we shouldn't be PO'd about 14 years in the desert" -- that's why I used the formulation "to the effect of". It is the CONCEPT that "well, we're lucky just to have a team, so we shouldn't be PO'd about 14 years in the desert" that I haven't seen PTR say -- including in the posts that you copied, and claimed that they supported your statement that "this is absolutely his stance." Again -- that concept is different from "some fans are so dumb." Now, I will admit that a couple of the quotes that @Cascade Youth posted come closer to implying this -- but I think they are also fairly able to be interpreted otherwise.

FFS. What is the point of having a conversation if you freak out whenever someone disagrees with you? Again: I said that PTR hasn't said "well, we're lucky just to have a team, so we shouldn't be PO'd about 14 years in the desert." You insist that PTR has said exactly that -- but when pressed for an example, you respond with a bunch of tweets that don't say that, but rather that "PTR has been criticizing the fans for years." That is NOT the same thing. (NB that I don't like "ha ha, some fans are so dumb" either -- and I've criticized one poster here in particular whose bread and butter was that type of statement, repeated ad nauseum.)

What material? His tweets? The one you posted upthread doesn't say this. Nor does anything he's posted in this thread. If you've got something in which he says words to the effect of "well, we're lucky just to have a team, so we shouldn't be PO'd about 14 years in the desert" -- let's see it. Not an absence of "anything to the contrary" -- something that affirmatively says what you claim he says. Or, even better -- let's just ask him! @PromoTheRobot -- is this an accurate synopsis of your view?

Good article. Well worth a read. Thanks.

If I had to guess, I think TP's current mindset on the Sabres is something like the following: - I tried keeping on the GM and coach that I inherited, and giving the GM a blank check, and even urging him to throw money at top UFAs -- because I saw that prior ownership refused to spend money on UFAs, or even on keeping our own players -- and that didn't work. - I tried hiring 2 GMs, in Tim Murray and Jason Botteril, that were recommended to me by the NHL as young up-and-comers, and I gave them blank checks too, and they hired experienced coaches and up-and-comers, and none of that worked either. And not only did it not work, it was embarrassing -- the first GM was drunk and ill-tempered in public and traded for a bunch of head cases, and the 2nd guy tried to ice a good team, immediately finished DFL, got bent over in a number of trade and FA contracts and hired a coach who'd been out of the NHL and out of North America for 6 years and who, unsurprisingly, delivered a complete debacle. - Those losers, combined with my big spending, resulted in me losing something like $30MM to $50MM per year -- and then Covid hit, which caused even bigger losses. Then my franchise player demanded a trade. - So, with everything falling apart, I decided to have KA, whom I like and trust, and who has been around the NHL for a long time in a number of different roles, run the team and at least get us through the turbulence. - KA told me, and I believe, that the atmosphere around the team, and the team's reputation around the NHL, had become toxic, and a full rebuild was needed. The team would be built around draft picks and young players with great "want to be here" attitudes and high levels of competitiveness. This was pretty reminiscent of McDermott's and Beane's approaches to the Bills, which has paid off handsomely. - I told KA to give it one more shot with Ralph Krueger and Jack Eichel, and if it didn't work, KA could implement his rebuild. 2020-21 made it clear that what we had wasn't going to work, and Eichel was still insisting on being traded, so in the summer of 2021, I gave KA the green light to trade Eichel and do a full rebuild. - I also told him that since we were rebuilding with young players and weren't going to attract any good free agents, that there was no need for me to lose $32MM per year instead of $25MM per year, so he should stay $7MM or so below the cap unless a really good opportunity presented itself. In the meantime, though, if KA thinks any of our guys is worthy of a big, long-term extension, he has my blessing to lock that guy up -- which we've done with a number of guys. - Those are still my marching orders to KA -- i.e. he can spend if he thinks we'll get good bang for the buck. Hopefully Lindy will get us back to the playoffs this year and off of most FAs' NFW lists, so maybe we'll get a good FA next summer. In the meantime I'm expecting to give out a couple of additional long-term contracts to some of our younger guys. I'm also enjoying the Bills, which is a model NFL franchise, and my daughter's tennis career, while KA takes the slings and arrows from the SabreSpace nut cases.

This is 100% correct. I will also note that one can, and should, simultaneously both recognize that the above is correct, and not feel that "well, we're lucky just to have a team, so we shouldn't be PO'd about 14 years in the desert." I don't think anyone feels that way, including @PromoTheRobot. Recognizing the truth in the above just means that those pushing for TP to sell the team should understand that if that happens, the risk of the Sabres leaving rises from, say, 5% under TP to something like 40%-50%. IMHO, what we should be pushing for is for TP to hire the right guys to run the team and to give them the resources they need to compete. He's struck out on the first measure so far, although not without trying IMHO. The 2nd measure has become an issue since Covid and we don't know whether it's permanent or temporary.