Mango

He seems to be talking A LOT about effort, grit, etc. He even mentioned that it was a problem day 1 of training camp.

"This team is craving accountability and structure" Ouch, what a shot at Donnie.

Adams is very fiery. He is either getting this thing under control or he is spiralling. Either way the success or trainwreck should be entertaining. I would prefer an absent Pegula. A highly involved Terry is bad for hockey in this town.

My very spicy take is that I do not believe that Terry's management style has changed pre and post Kim's health concerns. He has still be present at nearly Bills camp and Bills game, no? Still at the draft table on draft day for both orgs? Sitting in on player interviews during both combines?

It was speculated fairly recently that Briere requested the same autonomy from Ter-Bear and he declined. But again, that is speculation, so maybe he is wising up? I can dream I guess.... The one advantage that McBeane have is that they have a nearly 10 year working relationship from outside the org before they ever shook hands with Terrance. There is no weird flat management between them and Terry because of it, and even if we move on from McDermott Beane still has the upper hand at this point. I think Ter-Bear fails miserably if tasked with a Bills rebuild (sans Allen).

For those who keep saying "There are only 32 NHL HC jobs in the world you always take it if offered". David Carle is saying exactly what I have in this thread, that for some coaches the right opportunity is more important than the next opportunity.

It is not about "the roof" that has been leaking on fans in the upper deck for YEARS. It is about the willingness to invest and solve in the most basic solutions facing the team and the fanbase. The NHL is set up for bad teams to have great prospects and good teams to have bad prospects. It is because the worse you are the higher you draft and vica versa. Buffalo has been the worst franchise in the league by P% since Terry bought the team. They are supposed to have decent prospect. The only notably achievements are when teams like Ottawa have really bad prospects or last years NJ Devils were ranked super highly. These rankings also flip quickly. NJD went from a top prospect pool to a bottom prospect pool pretty quickly. If the Sabres don't get over the hump their prospect pool ranking will tank in short order. You can claim it is not about saving money all you want. But Pegula himself has said that the franchises goal is to be efficient, effective, and economic. It is really difficult to separate a failing building, minimal spending to the salary cap, and one of the smallest scouting departments in the league from that statement. That is a bridge too far for most people.

The biggest issue won't be the roster. It will be the unwillingness to fix a leaky roof for years, having half the scouting department other franchises do, and an unwillingness to spend much of the cap.

Institutional support is a very real concern. It can be managed or even improved upon, but it is a reasonable concern for any candidate. Imagine being an assistant basketball coach at UConn and you get an opportunity to take over Dayton (ranked 24th). But Dayton only has 9 scholarships (EEE) out of the maximum 13 and the roof of the arena has been leaking on fans for years (just like the KBC). Staying at UConn isn't an issue with the candidate it is an issue of a track record bad institutional support.

Turn down interviews or turn down job offers? I am mostly speaking to job offers. I am not an NHL or NFL coach, but have worked with the NCAA and USOC. There are 2 types of coaches that will turn down a chance at a HC position at National Championship/Olympic level. 1. Senior Head Coaches with accomplished resume's. They will take a year off, work as an independent contractor, advisor, etc. before the enter a program without institutional support. 2. Assistants in top tier programs. Those coaches have stability and are already competing for National, World, or Olympic Gold Medals. At that point in their career they will hold out for the right promotion, not take the first promotion. Of course there is a whole slew of coaches who don't fall into either of those buckets who would certainly take the first NHL HC job offered to them. But the rule you are playing by is not hard and fast. Sometimes no credit is better than bad credit. The Sabres seem to have the stench of "bad credit" at the moment.

I think there is some grey area between the "There are 32 jobs, you take one if offered" and "Nobody wants to work here ever". If you are a long time NHL coach with a background of success who is on a lot of teams shortlist year after year it isn't crazy to turn down job offers. SImilarly there will be assistants in very stable organizations who compete for championships and see a path to a HC in their future without tarnishing their reputation who won't want the Sabres position either. Sometimes "no credit" is better than "bad credit". There will be coaches old and young who view the Sabres as "bad credit" and dangerous for their career going forward.

The Sabres have a large fan and marketing problem. Brining in a long time member of the community with a long track record of success helps alleviate that....at least temporarily. I do know that Lindy would not allow the stupid fan protest BS.

A quick google says this position pays between $49k-$79k. Knowing the Sabres he is on the low end. Imagine being an inside support rep at Ingram Micro and them tweet out that you were fired. Working under Pegula sounds wonderful.

This is a very real and gigantic hurdle for the org. I think the best and most realistic chance of righting that under Pegula is likely something like bringing Ruff back in, getting us back into the playoffs regularly, and then "retiring" as President of Hockey Ops and being able to shelter the franchise from Ter-Bear.

When it comes to hires the Sabres need to find a candidate who overlaps all three things. In that model I think Ruff is probably pretty close to the top of the list. - Who they should hire. - Who Terry is willing to hire. - Who is willing to take the job,

Totally agree. I kinda feel about Donnie the way I did about Gailey. I think Donnie was needed to get these kids to take the next step but ultimately wasn’t good enough to see this thing through. I do think with better ownership and better vision from GM he could have gotten this team to the playoffs but never a contender. Unfortunately anybody who comes into Buffalo as HC will have to overcome both the GM and ownership.

Fair. I am sick of getting excited about prospects mainly because when you are a bad hockey team for a really long time the system is set up to so that you have a great prospect pool. Buffalo has been historically bad, their prospects are supposed to be great. Boston has been historically good, their prospects are supposed to be bad. The interesting stuff to look at are when a young team like NJ is on the rise with a good looking prospect pool or a bad team like Ottawa's suck. But the worst team and the best team over the last 10 years having the best/worst prospect pools is the way the system is designed.

It is weird to me that you separated these two things, but attributed "winning multiple cups" to the path of the Sabres and not the Bruins. Boston puts their young prospects in a position to succeed and win multiple cups. Buffalo promotes prospects for "experience", putting them in a position to fail, and have struggled to finish a season 16th ot better let alone win Stanley Cup.

There are more than two buckets. It isn't "final product" or "prospect".

Forget experience. Power and Dahlin signed MASSIVE extensions. How can you be a prospect when you sign an 8x8 second contract?

It should be noted that Quin and JJP were allowed to bake in Rochester where as guys like Cozens were forced into action immediately. Cozens has been much more inconsistent getting up to speed. I know others are sky high on Cozens, I am "eh" on him at this point and sky high on JJP/Quinn. Levi needs/needed to bake in Rochester. Benson is weird because he is way too talented for Juniors and this team so not talented enough for the NHL at the moment so he sort of accidentally makes the team.

Since January 1 this team is something like bottom 7 in the league in xGA, HD Shots Against, HD Chances Against, and Shots off the rebound against. I don't understand how anybody can watch these games and think the defense has been good. GA is a very high level stat that doesn't tell a complete story. There is a strong argument to be made that UPL has been a Vezina level goaltender from January 1 on. How is it even debatable that UPL single handedly bailed this team (and defense) out of a top 5 pick in the 2024 draft. If everybody on the bench and in the FO is brought back they should all give a portion of their paycheck to UPL. Without hyperbole, he has carried that much weight in keeping this team out of the dumpster this year.

It isn't just feeling. It happened. They had two "winning streaks" of 3 games. That is it. I said it early, I don't think teams lose by a point or a game. It is an 82 game season, the sample size is quite large. Teams miss the playoffs because of trends and tendencies. A 16-17 game season like the NFL can be largely impacted by luck, or a call, or a game. But (for the most part) teams don't have enough luck/unluckiness with such large sample sizes in the NHL, NBA, and MLB. The Sabres xGA and high danger chances have stunk, face offs/puck possession, are embarrassing, they lack a quite a bit of physicality, huge defensive gaffes, lack of effort, playing well in meaningful situations, and the PP has been embarrassing for about 18 months now. This is why this team isn't good enough. The problem is the Sabres "solved for a point" instead of "solving their tendencies".

Pegula considers himself a hockey man and not a football man so I believe that changes a few things. The rumor swirled around Danny Briere coming in as President of Hockey Ops but Pegula refused the clause. When it comes to the Bills McBeane have one major advantage and that is they more or less came as a package deal with a pre-existing 10 year working relationship. Pegula's weird flat, independent, and inconsistent reporting structure doesn't work because they came together and have been doing this together for a long time before Buffalo. It is impossible for Terry to get in the middle.

I think the first period numbers are the symptom and not the disease. They have two compounding issues: 1. Not enough try hard. I don't know if they aren't prepared, they think they are doing enough, or are just simply not trying. 2. Too many boneheaded decisions, defensive gaffes and high danger opportunities that leave their goaltender out to dry far too often. The high danger metrics and xGA metrics indicate that this team would be picking in the top 5 if not for UPL.