Mango

Funny to think that somebody in the org thinks that Jarmo or somebody like him needs to learn the ropes. See my rant against Adams as POHO above, and the fact that this was a thing that somebody, ANYBODY, in the org actually thought, let alone said, is why you cannnot keep Adams in the building let alone promote him to the top floor.

This keeps coming up but I forking hate it with all my heart. This is no more serious of an org with Adams as Pres as it is with him as GM. Adams total lack of vision and direction is the reason he's sucked during his entire tenure here. And people seem cool with promoting him to a roll that is almost entirely...checks notes....vision and direction.... Adams as President is a miserable decision for the franchise. He's a Terry enabler. Look at the Bills, part of the reason they work is that it's McD and Beane vs Pegula. Now do that with Adams as POHO. It's Terry and Adams vs Jarmo. There are now two Pegulas outvoting real life front office people. I think it was @Thorny who made reference to the 70's Steelers turning the corner. But it turned out Art Sr. just handed the keys to Dan Rooney. If promoting Adams to POHO is seen as a real life fix for this org, we are better off just rooting for Pegulas retirement and one of the kids taking over.

That quote sounds like a guy that's already prepared to fight the whose talking about not wanting to come to Buffalo because of palm trees and taxes. Hey Terry, if you're listening, if you can film Jarmo punching Kevyn in the face, I'll sign up for 4 season tickets that same day.

The reason it is a something-burger is because we already jettisoned quality players in the name of vibes and culture. We have spent 6 years replacing them to improve all that, and now it seems we have the core of those players being like "meh, still sucks here". To top it all off, the guy in charge of fixing all that is the guy the brought them here and created the vibes/culture these dudes and HC hate.

I get it but I am also not sure the pre-Vietnam War era of the NFL is relevant to modern professional sports. But if it is, the solution is actually pretty depressing and unfortunate for both Pegula and Sabres fans. Dan Rooney took over the team as GM and then later as President in the late 60's. Then Art Senior died in 1988. So if the Sabres are congruent to the late 60's/early 70's Steelers Pegula will have to give up control of the Sabres to a kid and/or then die. You have actually made the outlook much worse. Like soooo much worse. Like Art Sr. didn't luck into anything, he just relinquished control and then died. Sooooo, thanks for that...enjoy your weekend Sabres Fans! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_M._Rooney#:~:text=By early 1969%2C Rooney was,operational control of the franchise.

I think the one thing Terry misjudged in all of this, is that by doing the very least amount possible, like literally nothing, he's out the final nail in the coffin to convince literally everybody on the planet that he is THE PROBLEM in Buffalo. Like, he could still half ashed dodged the bullet had he fired Adams like everybody on the planet was screaming for him to do. By not firing Adams I think he actually made Buffalo an exponentially worse destination than it already is. And that isn't hyperbole. It's still not too late. Fingers crossed but it's a wet dream I know we are all riding the JA17 high, but I don't know how anybody isn't terrified of the post McBeane/Allen era assuming Pegula is still walking the earth. I truly believe he can permanently ruin all of Buffalo sports if given the opportunity.

This is also where I have a hard time understand the Sabres valuation of $1B+? Like lets go down that road? NHL: The Buffalo Sabres are worth a BILLION US DOLLARS! Fans: OK, it is worth a $1B, so surely it is a good investment to buy the team and keep it here? NHL: Eh, $1B is a tough number in Buffalo. The city can't support that in NHL sales. Fans: Understood, so if it sells you will have to move it to a more profitable city? NHL: Actually, no because it is even more profitable for us to just start a new team from scratch. Fans: Terry, can you sell the team to somebody local who can end the misery? NHL/Pegula: Absolutely not, because valuation. None of this is real.

The scare is that this is the first domino to fall. We can convince ourselves/write off the idea that Byram wants out is also the Sabres not keeping him so it is mutual. But Peterka was supposed to be a long time Sabre. Part of the solution. And it turned out that he was a pretty good forward. So if Peterka asks to leave at the end of his contract, who else? Tuch? Thompson? Dahlin? It could get really messy.

Terry stubbed his toe, and at his age you can never be too careful so he's handing off all ownership responsibilities to literally anybody not named Kevyn Adams or Jerry Forton.

My relationship with Pegula became vile when Adams had that wildly smug disaster presser and Terry didn't come out and Stone Cold stunner him live at the podium, announcing that nobody talks about his hockey team that way. "Nobody wants to come here,we don't have palm trees and we have taxes" should have been cause for a public forking beheading.

This iteration of failure sucks because it really felt like we could have been close. Sure we had better players before, but Dahlin, Tuch, Thompson, Benson, and to an extent Peterka really felt like a unit. These guys had some talent, comraderie, and werent totally miserable to be here. We haven't had that in a decade. And at this point I'm not sure if Pegula is ever capable of putting it together. The best thing Pegula could do is reach out to Danny Wegman or the like and ask for his best and final to keep the team here. If Terry gives one flying fork about hockey in this town he'll find somebody to buy the team and keep it here, even if it's around 85% of market price.

It's hard to think anything other than this is not a serious organization. These aren't real professionals whose main priority is winning games. They're just not. We've all said it, it's been a joke where deep down you knew it was true but hoped. But after Adams publicly lister the reasons why it sucks to be here it, the Sabres needed to show the hockey world we won't be disrespected, at least from the inside of the org. They did nothing then continued to do nothing. The org had a gun to their head to change direction and instead of changing the direction Terrance Pegula pulled the trigger. Pegula is the worst thing to ever happen to Buffalo hockey.

Here's my thing with everything you mentioned. And I want to preface it with that I totally agree with you. But.. My hot take is that I think I might rather have a Peterka, a forward with a bad 200 foot game than a defenseman who can't play defend (cough* Power * cough). One seems way more egregious than the other. Anyways, can't wait for Dahlin to hoist the cup in a different sweater.

wE wAnT gUyS wHo WaNt To Be HeRe Wasn't this the whole point of tearing it down and trading away reql life NHL talent? Instead of earning the trust back of guys in the locker room, we started over with guys so PegAdams could start with a clean slate. Let's not forget we couldn't bring in veteran help because we would be blocking guys like...checks notes...JJ Peterka. Honestly, if I'm JJP and all I hear is I am one of THE GUYS on the market I tell my agent to get it done and get me to Edmonton, Dallas, Colorado, Florida, or Vegas. But there's no way I sign in Buffalo unless they're offering me nearly 2x. 5 x $6M at any of those orgs is way better than 8x$8M in Buffalo. Bet on yourself.

I'm glad that you're so adamant that Power is THE GUY. I am not. He's currently a smaller anchor of one of the worst defensive units in the league. Owen Power needs to take a life changing leap to be an anchor of any defensive unit in the league. At the moment hes part of the problem with th blue line. ATM I think he's a really nice player to have on an established unit. Expecting him to anchor anything is why the perception is that he's failing. Because he sucks anchoring anything (including himself). And when people rally around "power needs a partner", the undercurrent of that is that he isn't good enough. We need better defensemen who are better than OP. $8M defensemen shouldn't need somebody better than them to be good.

I would like to see them trade Byram for something reasonable. Otherwise the Mitts trade is just reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. I like Byram, but I wouldn't say it is super clear that the Sabres with Bo is remarkably better than the Sabres with Mitts. I think at some point this team is going to have to move on from one of its big pieces that will bring a big enough haul to revamp one of our units. If we can get Byram for cheaper than Power and Power brings back a couple of pieces up and down the line up, so be it. I am not sure Power is more valuable to this team than a top 4 RHD and a middle 6F with a strong 200 foot game. I am not saying he definitely brings that back either but that is the type of return I would be looking for and would be willing to pull the trigger on it.

This is where I am at. We can have Byram, but it means we have to trade Power. Or we can trade Power. But we cannot have both. That is outside of the fact that we have one of the most expensive blue lines in the entire NHL, and are arguably a bottom 5 group at actually playing defense. The reason is they both make the other one redundant. After that I eat Sammy's contract and rebuild the blue line from Dahlin out with guys who actually play defense.

I would have believed much more in this curse if Terry Pegula had bought the team in 1976. Honestly, I am not sure that there is any curse worse than one Terrance Pegula. In fact, if they reshot Angels in the Outfield but made it about the Pegula lead Sabres, we would STILL miss the playoffs and the angels would demand a trade.

Dave, Phish,moe., Umph, Mumford, Lumineers,Tedeschi Trucks, Gin Blossoms, Govt Mule, Blink 182. Hoping to squeeze in Weird Al.

Tim Horton, Team Bus Driver

In true Pegula fashion the new hire will likely be much worse. Like historically bad. Maybe even the very worst on ice reporter of all time. It's literally possible because that's literally the state of the franchise since the day he bought the team. But if this was a different franchise/owner I would likely agree with you

Right. That's why Rayzor is basically the sideline reporter and Marty is in the booth. My vote is for Pat LaFontaine. Or get Biz/Whitney and let those guys go to town on this franchise live. They're tools,for sure, but Pegula deserves the smoke so let's just bring it to him.

This is why I've turned so hard against the org. I gave them so many "well maybe...'s" I really thought they were on to something with this current group. But Pegula and Adams have only proven to me that they are without a doubt the dumbest guys in any professional sports room.

It was always clear as day. Spend on quality vets while we take advantage of guys on ELC'S. And as the ELC'S end sub in the home grown extensions and that's when Kulich, Savoie, and even Bensonetc will come to fill the bottom of the roster. We really botched this one. There was a wide open window for the Sabres to really do this right and be a challenger and they botched it as bad as they've ever botched anything in the Pegula era. I think that's why this one hurts a lot more and I hate Adams/Pegula about as much as I've hated any rivalry in Buffalo sports history. We were right there!

I think the short story long of the entire blue line is that you only get 2 $8M+ defensemen. I can be convinced on either Power or Byram in that role. Then we need waaaay more defensive production out of a $5M player that we are getting out of Mule. Somebody said to me earlier, and they're right. The blue line in particular is hurting this team due to compounding cap/production issues.