thewookie1

I'd almost put money on it, if Maurice were to get fired by WPG; Krueger would immediately bring him on as Associate Coach, work him into the team dynamic then bequeath HC to Maurice and become PoHO

Any cap decrease would have to be done with an equal % contract change thus effectively meaning no difference. The last thing the NHL is going to do is drop the cap without any reducing cap hits because they would put 3/4th of the league in untenable positions. That's just plain bad for business.

Trade McCabe for our 3rd and a 2020 3rd with the Rangers Trade Risto to CGY for Bennett, their 2nd in 20 and their 4th in 22 Trade Montour to ARI for a protected 1st in 21 and a 6th in 20 Trade Pilut's rights for a 4th in 20 from NJ Trade Thompson and the CGY 2nd to Carolina for Haydn Fleury and a 5th Offersheet Cirelli at 5 years 6 mil per Sign Edmundson at 4x4mil, Hamhuis at 1x1.3mil, McKegg at 1x1mil Resign Reinhart 5x6.2mil, Olofsson 4x3.6mil, Ullmark 3x3mil, Kahun 3x2.4mil, Fleury gets 2x1.5mil, Lazar 1x950k, Larsson at 3x3mil Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart Olofsson-Cirelli-Kahun Johansson-Cozens-Bennett Asplund-Larsson-Okposo Dahlin-Miller Edmundson-Jokiharju Fleury - Borgen Ullmark Hutton Subs: Lazar, Hamhuis, McKegg Even with a 1.25mil cap penalty we still have 3.2mil in cap space

The cap won't go down in literal number but it may not move for a few years.

The head coach in Winnipeg, whose name escapes, me would be the 1st person I'd think of due to their work together on the Team Europe staff.

Maybe the Sabres can bring him in some backup announcer duty or something once RJ retires. He may of been spotty as the years went on but he always spoke from his heart and I'll always respect him for that.

If Botts was the reason behind the ROR trade and he'd been trying to trade him since early that prior season; I could easily see Terry telling him that you've had 6 months to make a trade and I'm not paying 7.5 mil to a guy who won't be here next year. I can honestly understand that sentiment especially if Botts didn't give a good explanation on how paying it would better the return specifically. If Botterill told the Pegulas they would get a better return but never gave them a specific reasoning/example I too would likely be a bit unconvinced. Plus, depending on the Pegulas level of actual hockey knowledge; the ROR deal looked good from a less savvy point of view. Your first assumption is that Berglund and Sobotka must be pretty good based on their contracts and you're getting a 1st and a prospect too for just one guy. If all Botts gave him was a more general "well we could get a better prospect" most people would balk at $7.5 million to "upgrade" a prospect. For all we know Terry actually liked ROR and was hoping to deter the trade. One other quick comment on the whole thing is if the Pegulas hated ROR after his Tim Horton's incident why didn't we hear any rumors about it while GMTM was still here or even the months prior to Botts 1st season? The famous quote may have brought them to Botts side but it seems unlikely they'd tell Botts to trade ROR 2 weeks into the season for no apparent reason.

As long as sell to another Buffalo-only owner. I never want our teams to move and any team sale strikes the fear of God into me.

I'm wondering if I should mail them my resume for a position in the front office; I have a Masters in Sports Admin after all.

My uncle brought up that perhaps the Pegulas know the NFL season may end up delayed or cancelled and are trying to brace for a lack of revenue streams by purging the Sabres staff. While the Pegulas seem to be incompetent franchise runners that doesn't necessarily mean they are completely incompetent in all aspects of business. The past 9 years the Pegulas have muddled and befuddled and thrown bags of money at the Sabres to no effect. Any businessman would eventually get confused by the fact his money doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything. Remember in 2011 we were a small market team with potential and a GM who was actually not bad at playing with a small budget. The Pegulas came in and threw money at the team which in a basic sense should have improved everything but I think things just effectively blew up akin to the Leino contract. Essentially the team went through what most lottery winners do; oh my god I have a ton of money where can I spend it! Thus they expanded rapidly putting on a ton of new scouts and team members, signing huge contracts, etc. Then we have our first GM changeover and Tim Murray receives more money and puts band aids on things, tanks, and the Pegulas revamp the locker room. Changeover number two occurs and while differing in philosophy Botts gets money and does much of the same in replacing a guy here and there and patching up holes. The point is since the Pegulas bought the team we have effectively just poured money into the team expecting good stuff to happen, which the Pegulas are also to blame for, but its human nature to try and throw money at problems. (Just look at the government of either party) The pessimist in me says we are just doomed as always but besides the team leaving we are truly already in hell. The optimistic approach is that Adams figured out the front office was a mess of multiple GM iterations, old guard, and such and decided to gut the building down to the frame and rebuild the house. And since the Pegulas want to have less overhead and no regular GM would ever want to downsize why not give it to a guy who has the Sabres best interest in mind and experience in a myriad of roles. The one thing about Adams is he's from here and is a Buffalonian; so he has no ulterior motive for helping this team. We don't have to worry about him being overly obsessed with Ottawa or Pittsburgh. Step 1 of purging everything seems about done but I'd still want to go through what's left and make sure everyone is on the same page. Then you go and find a couple vets of front office stuff like a Dudley and you painstakingly rebuild the front office from the ground up. We have until about October/November for the draft so we have at least 3/4 months and a bonus month to fix everything. Krueger set up one or two entire hockey programs and Adams set up and ran the Hockey Academy so building Hockey Operations seems to be up both their alleys.

I’m curious as to what Adams will be philosophically for his team building. His Amerks comment does make a lot of sense. We need Rochester to win due to youngsters being led by vets not youngsters just riding shotgun with lifelong AHLers. One good thing that may come from being slightly more frugal is a heavier investment into analytics as the bang for the buck is rather good.

Yes

Like with any new president heir first 100 days is seen as their introduction to the whole of the country on their leadership such as do they uphold campaign promises. You are Kevyn Adams, you can't fire yourself or the owner, and I'm going to pretend all the teams are available to be traded with. What is it that you would do? For me: 1. I'd get rid of most of the scouting staff, the pro scouts especially based on their performance. 2. I'd create an Analytics department that uses both high and low level analytics 3. I'd hire new scouts for "the eye test" 4. Analytics and Classic scouts work together on prospects/as for pro scouting I would have scouts hunting for trade candidates work separately for intervals to lessen the bleed over of either side effecting the others' judgements. (Obviously if, without knowing the other, both sides are intrigued by the same player they are likely a great candidate.) 5. Find out what Ralph and Jack think about ideas. Ralph would get player names whereas Jack would be more in a general arena. (What type of player are you looking for to help the team structure, etc.) 6. Hire a Cap guy and contract negotiator. (Can be 1 or 2 people) (Essentially what Botts did in Pittsburgh) 7. Hire a GM for the Amerks/Assistant GM Alright, have at it

If he can channel his competitive nature into fixing this team we will be in good hands. But we all have to wait and see. Show me!

Botts must of really made one hell of a blunder recently in his discussions with the Pegulas about the team. I'd guess the Pegulas are mostly tone deaf to the fans based on prior statements but something must of put Botts in hot water. Perhaps his plan was to bring up youngsters again and Krueger and Eichel told the Pegulas that doing the exact same thing is just plain insanity. Adams seems like an odd choice but he's likely giving a good deal of power to Krueger who has at very least built up foreign hockey programs. While he's one of the Pegula's people he is by far the only one that seemingly has had success in his positions in PSE.

Just so you all know, if you don't already, the Sabres/Bills have been going through staff mergings since about 2018. Essentially they have been moving/eliminating many duplicate positions that existed between the Sabres and Bills (primarily) For instance, a portion of PSE staff members who were originally just Bills staff along with some former Sabres staff have been moved above the Labatt experience bar thing. Due to this I would suspect that in the long run they intend to merge the entirety of the non-sports related staffs into a singular entity under the PSE title. Now hopefully that would mean eventually they may hire someone to run the hockey/football specific jobs while Kim retains command over the PSE marketing, sales, etc departments.

Well... that really sucks. I’d guess Ullmark’s injury likely sunk any previous plan of having Hutton go get it taken care of sooner. I don’t think the Pegulas knew about it and it may be fun for some of you to dogpile everything but this would of been something the team’s trainer, doctor and eventually the coach and GM would hear about. If they knew about it I doubt it was until much later. If I were to theorize, Botts found out about it around January and that’s when we start seeing more of Ullmark. Ullmark gets hurt and plans change. Botts decides that a visually impaired Hutton with exercises and Johansson give them a better chance than Johansson and the Hamburgler in Buffalo leaving Rochester in a real bad spot with a inexperienced UPL whose growth is vital and likely a signing or trade for another AHL goalie. Likely the latter torpedoes the Amerks and thus he chooses the former. Was it right? Who knows and in late January Buffalo’s chances for a berth was far smaller than Rochester’s odds. One last thing, perhaps that is what happened during the Toronto OT game where Tavares scores one off the glove top.

What does it say? I can't due to lack of free articles

Stronger yes, but the NHL honestly wants a team in Buffalo. We bring in great TV ratings, we have US dollars instead of Canadian dollars which would happen in any move to Hamilton and we are a rather old franchise at this point. Not to mention most other owners would rather move Florida before moving a team in a hockey hotbed. The Panthers hemorrhage money and just look plain embarrassing with their crowd sizes to the point even players have poked fun at it. The one other point of serious contention would be whatever small fear the NHL would have that if the Sabres were to leave they would very likely lose their most consistent National TV viewership numbers. We don’t have population density but we certainly help their average ratings.

My only hang up on Reinhart is the fact I need him to make Monahan useful. Monahan is a finisher not a playmaker and we don't exactly have many actually competent passers. Is Ehlers a playmaker or another finisher? You only have to watch Monhan's highlights to see how he's more of a shooter and receiver than a puck carrier and distributor. Interestingly enough this year he looks different for better or worse. My other hold up is Eichel; Reinhart is the only friend he has left here and I don't want to leave him lonely.

Here's an idea Monahan & Bennett for Risto, Mitts, and our 2021 2nd that can become a 1st if we make it to the playoffs.

I just can't trade Reinhart, he's Jack's friend and I really don't want to take away all of his teammates he's close with. My other question is how do we fit Dahlin and Joki's contracts in next year? The cap is unlikely to go up by much if any amount.

In theory if Miller does decide to play for one more year and we could jettison Hutton I actually could believe he'd be willing to come out here for a single season to finish up his career. While he wants to stay in California, I could honestly see him deciding to come back to Buffalo as it would only be about 6 or 7 months. December through May as I do think we somehow end up in the playoffs next year. (Mostly because I think Eichel and Dahlin will just will them into the playoffs with average goaltending from Ullmark and Miller. Regardless, I think within 2 years he retires as a Sabre either playing a full year, a partial year, or one of those day contracts

I wonder if Krueger knows of any GM candidates? While his strategy is mediocre he has certainly made Eichel turn into a true captain and seems to have the players' support in general.

Sounds like fun lol I like parties