thewookie1

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

I wonder if Eichel was effectively making a call for action to both Botts and the Pegulas to right this damn ship.

I love how we went from overpaying and overzealous GMing with Murray to sleep inducing with still some overpayments in contracts with Botts.......?

Technically we could acquire Monahan prior to whenever the new league year starts thus avoiding the NTC.

Well I wouldn’t either; we are all suffering but at least he gets paid to do so. If I had to guess Eichel and ROR likely did have some bad blood but not enough to warrant a trade. Remember Matt Duchene and at least two other players have had this kind of love hate relationship with ROR. He may just not be a great teammate for a long bit of time but a great guy thus short stints work fine. Winning also likely helps with his seemingly negative vibe he gave while here.

The idea Botts destroyed the Sabres akin to Milbury on the Island is a tad overkill. The ROR trade was a monumental failure and at best could be only a bad trade if Tage and Johnson figure things out in the long run. However regardless of what happened with the Blues, the Sabres jettison a handful of great players & prospects for a singular over-hyped center or draft a goalie 1st Overall with an already star young goalie in their pipeline. That being said he hasn't done well either but I'd temper the "end is nigh" sentiments for now. COVID-19 saved his job, let us see what he does with it. I pray we get more of the Jokiharju variety and less of the Vesey or ROR type. What seems so strange to me is how he can bumble so many different things yet pull off that Kahun trade. Maybe he has like one pro scout whose incredibly gifted and thus creates these anomalous top tier deals.

Technically, but a lot of it comes down to exactly what the trade parameters were. We know Calgary didn't see Risto = Monahan yet Larsson + Risto and a lesser unknown = Monahan and Bennett So based on that, unless we do a sign and trade, we would need some reworking done. That being said if Calgary gets booted yet again perhaps his value goes down. Its a very interesting situation.

I give him 1 more year, if he fails I hope his effigy is tarred and feathered in Knox Plaza

I meant the Monahan thing

Do they think it will be revisited?

I get the sense there may have been draft picks involved based on those trade proposals.

I’m good with crafting stories and such, but with trade ideas I get a bit more fan biased ?

Post: 6/25/46: With Dahlin announcing he'll retire recently I felt we should look back on his incredible career. The 20's started with the whole COVID-19 thing and missing that expanded playoffs must have seriously ticked off some players as we saw afterward. 20-21 and 21-22, were fun but accomplished little besides playoff berths and 3 rounds of playoffs. 22-23 however was a different story, they seemed to find what they were missing and would run on an incredible 20 of 25 run with the young UPL and more elder Ullmark backstopping. The playoffs we got lucky with Detroit's Larkin getting hurt in the final week of the season leading to their quick demise. Toronto was a tad tougher but Eichel being their kryptonite ended the series in 6 games. The Conference Finals were a doozy with the Sabres matching up with a Rangers team that had only lost once thus far in their playoff run. However at the end of 7 games only the Sabres remained in the East. The West had been a bloody battle through their three rounds; while the Blues made it out at the end, the Oilers - Flames series was by far the most entertaining. The Sabres were healthier than the Blues as well as younger whereas the Blues held the experience and home ice edge. I may have lost a few years on that series but we had finally done it, winning in 6 games with 5 going to OT. Ironic how Ryan Johnson would be the guy with the GWG to end it all. Kyle Okposo walked away with a ring and 2 goals in the Cup Finals a very happy man. 23-24 and 24-25 were plagued with injuries but somehow we snuck in both times only to lose. 25-26 we played great and made it to the Conference Finals only to lose to Detroit who went on to win it all. 26-27 and 27-28 should be renamed the Buffalo years. Winning 2 Stanley Cups back to back and our 2nd Super Bowl of the decade was great! Not to mention denying Edmonton and Seattle was rather fun in the Finals. 28-29 was a slow year between departures, injuries and just sheer exhaustion 29-30 was only noteworthy due to the Vancouver ending the Cup Drought in Canada in a n epic 7 game series with the Islanders. I'm glad they finally won, at least there wasn't a riot this time around. The memories of the 2030's Sabres teams can be remembered mostly as the falling action of the mid to late 20's. The 2030-31 Sabres would win their 4th Cup in 8 seasons, knocking off the LA Kings in 6 games. It was nice to see McDavid not only snub the Leafs but join us for his 1st career ring. The Sabres would remain competitive throughout the mid 30's but would make it to another final until 2038-39 which would be remembered for certain. The prior offseason Sabres legend Jack Eichel hung up his skates and chose to go into coaching his younger sons; partially due to a nagging knee injury he had sustain the prior season. However the 38 year old Rasmus Dahlin, thought to have become the greatest Sabres defenseman, and potentially Top 5 all time wasn't anywhere close to being done. With only one other prior teammate, Dylan Cozens who had been in Calgary and Washington the past 6 years, returned to be a vet 3rd liner. The Sabres were a strange mix of guys under 23 with 4 players over 34. However they found ways to win, Dahlin tied his career high with 88 points and seemed to will the team into the playoffs. Again, come playoff time Dahlin lead his team to series win after series win with the Cup Finals being decided by his 10th goal of the playoffs. Only thing that made it any better was us beating Dallas all these years later. God do I wish we could go back to their primes, missing the playoffs 4 years in a row isn't fun; granted it is way better than when we had drafted Dahlin......

It was from some report on Twitter, I can't remember though if it was the NBA's plus Bettman's desire for the 60 day thing just combining in my brain. I'd guess the lottery will happen during the Seeding Round