Mango

I'm just north of Albany these days and it has to be one of the worst pizza regions in the country. It's.just.not.good. Actually it's worse than that. It's terrible. I have traveled a ton for work. Coast to coast and internationally. And the capitol region of NYS is horrendous. Them being on this list at all is crazy to me.

I would generally agree. But this group seems to play disrespectful hockey fairly often and under a couple of coaches. They've gotten the buddy coach. They've gotten the structure coach from Ruff early on. At some point the kids need to be slapped upside the head.

Very curious to see how the team bounces back after their HC just told the public that they disrespected the entire game of hockey.

To the bolded. I think that part of this their ice time was fairly accurate out of the gate. Benson and Kulich are young and do things the right way, and maybe ice time doesn't change but they often move up the line up. Quinn is averaging 2 less minutes per night in March (13:17) than he did February (15:14), and 3 less minutes compared to January (16:17). That seems significant. It is his low water market by nearly 2 full minutes. (December 14:54)

I think both are true. The team needs a culture change. Yes. That is the players. But Adams has preached culture since he came in. So it is certainly a slap in the face, however indirect. Then Adams stuck Ruff with the entire previous staff to keep pushing said culture. So a big part of the need for culture change is the GM and coaches in the room. Ruff is a pro though, so he isn't yelling that they sucked. He is saying "we need a culture change". It is clear to me that Lindy commands as the alpha in the room. Now it is up to Pegula to be willing to actually clear the deck of the rest of these schmoes.

The NFL printing money doesn't really have anything to do with boxing Pegula out.

This is fair. I was just painting with a broad brush for the group. Cozens was often lost out there on the ice as a player and lost in the locker room as a leader. Having a performative leader in the locker room isn't healthy.

I guess that is sort of my point. I think the roster is likely to get rid of the loudest/laziest/most useless and help get some of the top talent that may also be sort of floaters a bit of help. I envision the young guys like Kulich and Benson will push the Peterka's and Quinns but they need some more help from veterans above them to pull them along. Moving Cozens I think is a part of that. The dissent in the FO will be that Adams built this team around Cozens, Power, and Muel. They are soft and lazy. Now it is time to tell them to fall in line or GTFO. The culture change I think Lindy is pushing is "show up or get out". The culture change that Adams pushed was "please be nice or we will trade you to the most favorable destination possible"

A couple of notes: - That Zucker conversation was so odd. Like why is that a round table discussion like that on contract negotiations? While he says "I am going to do x,y,x" But he isn't telling the room "this is the plan". He is asking the room "is this the plan?" He does this over and over and over again in the video. He doesn't behave like somebody who is in charge, and leading a collaborative room. He is talking like a guy who needs to be lead. - I hate that they are leaning on the US Dev people still. Leaning on Granato/Apperts relationship with Norris drives me crazy. Get these (coaches) out of here. - Low key slap in the face to Adams by Ruff. "We need a culture change". Adams entire ethos has been, culture, vibes, and wanting to be here. And Lindy is just like "Yoooo, this locker room blows. Culture stinks". That comment alone makes me think that Lindy thinks Adams is a dud. That is glimmer of hope we see some change.

I have been screaming this. McBeane run a masterclass at manipulating and controlling Pegula! It is the number one reason I have zero interest in moving on from either of them. The moment you bring in a new third to that relationship is the moment that the Bills could take a dramatic slide.

That was for cost over runs for the stadium. He is nearly a billion in the hole. He didn't sell off shares to restructure players.

This is a little disingenuous. This was post lockout. Buffalo was still 14th/average in terms of butts in seats. They beat out the Bruins. Devils, Blackhawks, and Penguins. All pretty decent and important fanbases for the NHL. https://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph_season.php?lid=NHL1927&sid=2006

Billionaires don't keep much cash on hand (relative to net worth) and avoid taxes by taking out loans rather than extracting from their businesses because they would both lower the value of the business and have to pay additional taxes compared to loans. The Bills are willing to restructure anybody and everybody who needs to in order to manipulate the cap. Which requires a lot of liquid cash every year. Curious if a big part of the reason the Sabres exist (at this point) is that Terry uses them to leverage money for borrowing. As far as I know he is not doing much in oil/gas anymore.

Coming in late so I might be missing some things. I think this is more complicated than Pegula is the only reason we have a team today. Sure I think it is, but part of that is because the franchise is such an embarrassment. He didn't buy an embarrassing franchise. He bought the 4th highest total P% in the league with an attendance of over 99% and a top 5 NHL TV market. The Sabres were easily the winningest franchise in the NHL to not have a Stanley Cup. At the time of purchase I don't think the NHL wanted to leave Buffalo. Now the team is bottom 5 in attendance, losing for over a decade, costing the owners money, and they are the team that is the butt of most NHL jokes. And even though we don't show up to games anymore we still watch more Stanley Cup Playoffs/4 Nations than 90% of NHL cities across the country. So yeah, now I think think that Terry is the only thing anchoring the team in Buffalo. But that is mostly because Terry Pegula has made it that way.

Terry Pegula likely won't hire somebody more qualified and give that person nearly as much trust. More than half the problem with the Sabres is the owners fault, not the resume's of the people in the building (over the course of Terry's tenure). You cannot just talk about "best available" when it comes to Pegula Sabres hires. You have to pick the best person that Terry will actually hire and give control to.

One quick thing on the third bullet. Part of the problem with the franchise has been that everybody has had a direct line to Terry, which muddies the waters between who his passing and failing at their actual job responsibilities. The Bills operate the same way, but McBeane have a longstanding working relationship so they don't go to Terry as individuals they go as a unit (more times than not). The key to the Sabres turning this thing around getting a GM and HC in absolute lockstep about how to run this thing. That way Terry is never the constant tie breaker. That said, that flat management style means that Adams needs to GTFO of the building in its entirety, because there can't be anybody else that doesn't roll directly to Lindy and Co. in the building. Part of the issue right now is also trust and I think Lindy likely has that from Terry. He is our best shot at turning this thing around outside of just plain blind luck.

I haven't listened yet but I heard he said that the "Big Move!" was trading Cozens and not to expect anything bigger this summer. Or something along those lines. It's wild to me that that was also part of the same conversation that Dahlin "felt good" about. Imagine being an NHL player on this roster. Having a special 1 on 1 about the direction of the franchise and the GM says "We traded Cozens don't expect anything bigger than that". ...Then walking out and thinking "man I feel really good about the direction of this franchise"... If this is true Dahlin is either definitely asking for a trade or the least competitive guy to be a top 10 player at his position in league history.

It's the fourth e.

It exists

It's kind of crazy that Both UPL and Reimer are both scored on in that tricky commercial. Another feather in the cap of GMKA

I find it so annoying that we seem to almost exclusively wear that goat heads against other black and/or red teams.

He said they rented their own lane on the opposite side of the kids, spent 10 minutes with the kids and the other 110 minutes bowling and drinking beers just the two of them.

I met a guy who used to do regular bidding on players for a charity he worked with. He said he got Eichel and Reinhardt for a kids event at a bowling alley and they were rude, flippant, arrogant, and spent less than 10 minutes with the kids. He mentioned he had been doing this for like 20 years and had never had one issue with any other players. Maybe they grew up? Maybe it is the org or the city? But if you can't put on a smile for some sick kids WTF?

The family had to sell the team to get over the hump.

Adams has done nothing but ship guys out who want a trade, so why not ask for it? I don't know how Terry cannot fire Adams. The city HATES GMKA. His last two pressers were embarassing. The team blows, now it's rumored that "the core" are asking to leave. This isn't an Eichel/Reinhardt issue where the players are toxic. Dahlin hasn't just been a good soldier he's been a great soldier. The call is coming from inside the house Terry.