LTS

Actually, I don't. It sounds like you are saying that you understand there are reasons. other than winning, that decisions might be made but then choose to ignore them because you only want to analyze it against winning. What's the point of your analysis if it doesn't speak to what the Sabres are trying to do and rather speaks to something they are not trying to do?

This is probably why you run into problems. You are only accepting that the goal was to win that night and win in the season. The Sabres were never a team that was designed to win that given night or win last season. In fact, many teams do not enter a season with that as the ultimate goal. If managing a hockey team were a one and done scenario then it would be about winning. However, managing a hockey team is about multiple seasons and the development of players over time. Some seasons are not about winning but about improving and developing. As such, using winning tonight and this season as your measuring stick you are likely to find decisions and actions of which you will not approve. You can argue what the goal should be. But if the goal was to develop Thompson then the ruling on how he was developed needs to be held until it's clear it was wrong. You must have missed the tweet someone copied a few pages back. Stan Bowman is not good.

This is all you need to know as a Chicago fan to want your GM out of office. Love this trade, of course. The big fireworks come during RFA arbitration and when teams have to figure out how they are going to sign the rest of their roster. I think Buffalo is setup nicely to make a move.

This happens a lot on here from many people.

Sometimes players want a chance at success and it's not about how much money they could get. It is possible that someone offered him something or talked about it and he said he was not interested. It works out really well for the Sharks though.

Yes, there is a thread for this. A thread where information has been shared. It boils down to there isn't a lot of evidence anywhere to support any claims and people can choose what they want to believe. No side can be wrong, no side can be right. The fact that information has not come out does not mean there is no information, it only means that there might be no information.

A single thread would be tough because you would have to scroll through to find what you are looking for. A dedicated club/forum that had separate topics for each analytics stat and chart used along with an explanation would be great because you could just search it up. It would also contain any commentary to that particular analytic to that thread. If you mixed the analytics together any commentary might be lost or become hard to follow. You could do that in this forum, but it would intermix with the regular hockey talk and could be hard to follow. Also, it would eventually fall off the main few pages and have to be searched all the time. But, any way it gets cut.. it would be a great resource.

Pre- 1994?

That's exactly how I interpreted your response. It is a lot of words and unfortunately in the absence of a lot of words, people just assume *****. Not saying you, but in general, that's what happens. So you can be verbose and people ignore you or you can be succinct and people dismiss you. It's a wonderful world we live in.

Heaven forbid a discussion forum contains long civilized discussion. Although I don't think we are getting on anyone's nerves. I'm pretty sure the mods would prefer the level of discussion that was happening over the discussion of what is or is not a troll.

Aho didn't want to compromise. He would take $9.5M over 5 years. However, no one was offering that because in order for Aho to get it the team would give up four 1sts. So, Aho's value in the RFA market was not worth $9.5M for 5 years. He wasn't going to get it by holding out with Carolina and he wasn't getting it from any team in the NHL. Since he couldn't get what he wanted, he did the next best thing, force Carolina to give him a contract on terms he's willing to accept. There was negotiation prior to July 1. At least so far in each side made an offer. Once July 1 hit, Waddell is effectively handcuffed. He's not letting someone else negotiate for him, the negotiation no longer involves him. Aho negotiated with 30 other NHL teams. He negotiated with Bergevin to get a deal he liked and Waddell is forced to accept or take the compensation. Waddell cannot be said to let something happen if he has no ability to stop it from happening. Well, of course, he could stop it from happening, if he agrees to the players terms. In which case there is still no negotiation that occurs. There is just accepting the players terms and its done.

Yes, here we are. The world devolving to "speak your mind, as long as it agrees with mine". Sigh.

I never considered it as a hockey term. I only considered it as a term associated with women and used because they were a women's hockey team. I disliked the name from the moment it was put out there.

It's not like that really happened here. The two sides had met and were reportedly off by $2M and the term was a factor. Aho's option is to not sign any offer Carolina gives him and sit out. The Canes know this, but the only way to make sure another GM does not offer sheet him is to give him the contract he wants to sign. So, the Canes would have had to offer up $9.5M at 5 years. Now, a GM knows that for THAT offer sheet to happen, a team is going to have to give up 4 1sts. That might be tempting to take. As much as you like Aho, you don't want to pay him $9.5M for 5 years and then really have to pony up in UFA. Instead, you might take the 4 1st rounders. But that did not happen. No GM wanted to give Aho $9.5M for 5 years. So Aho's camp was effectively backed down into accepting a deal that was more than what the Canes offered but less than what he wanted. Why? Because no one was giving him $9.5M. The Canes, while having to pay more, now have the player under a contract they found acceptable because it's better to have 5 years of Aho at $8.5M than 3 more picks in next years draft.

I think what beauts is associated with most is going to vary from person to person and also relative to the context in which its used. For me, when used in the context of a women's hockey league team, I did not think hockey first. I thought it of it first as a reference to beauty/appearance. If it were to be used, as in the Da Beauty League, I would think it of it as being more descriptive of the play. If there were a men's team with the same name, I would think of it more in terms of how they play the game. How people associate words is not something we can dictate. It's purely subjective and highly variable.

I'm not sure he was operating a meritocracy last year. I think there were clearly players that could have been up in Buffalo but were kept in the AHL simply to experience winning and success. He might have also done so to keep those players from being coached by Housley, if he knew he wanted to replace the coach anyway. I think trading a late first was possible. I also look at it this way. Until the Sabres traded for Montour they had 3 first round picks. It was at that time they could have made the move. If they had, they would have only had 1 first rounder left to use on the Montour trade. If they traded that away, they would have only had a single first round pick in this year's draft and no second round picks. So, by not making that move, they kept two first round picks which gave them two picks before the third round. Reshuffling who is up and down? I think I address why in my take on he wanted players kept in the AHL. Other trades? Very open ended. I can't debate too much about it. It's possible those trades were not there or by doing so it would have created a situation where a player needed to get pulled up from Rochester and again I believe he was operating under his own restriction to do that only as a last resort. I don't blame Housley, I didn't blame him last year. The team was not as good as some people believed. Housley certainly made some head-scratching decisions and he certainly did not get the team motivated enough. This may be for many of the reasons you state. I think the fact that Skinner re-signed with the team demonstrates that the locker room was not completely lost. He could have gone elsewhere or even played the market and that did not happen. I think the players, despite wanting to win, can accept what Botterill is doing. In some cases it might be "grin and bear it" because there's nothing they can do about it. Again, I think, at my core, I disagree with your premise of meritocracy and because of that I view things a bit differently. I agree with your points, operating under your assumptions however.

It really starts with the coaches and parents instilling safer play in their children and helping officials when they make the calls. Most of this means that as a fan you shut up and as a coach you engage in a respectful conversation about calls. Good luck to that!

The strategy must be to not give up any goals when lines 2,3,4 are on the ice. You do this by playing all defensive players. You turn line 1 into the full offense power line and score when they are out. I'm not going to use the GIF here, but it is a bold strategy. ?

Love your arguments, I honestly do. There is a ton of thought put into them and they are laid out very well. Through all of your writings, you appear to presume that Botterill is being held to the standard of win now. I think that's the primary failing. I don't believe the plan is or ever was, win now. I believe the plan is, build the team for sustained playoff appearances. As such, the same reasons you provide for Botterill being a poor manager could also be used to provide support for him complying with the plan. On pure execution, Botterill did not secure the appropriate roster resources to provide better success, even within the framework of long term, sustained success. However, it does not mean he did not attempt to make other trades that simply did not pan out. The bottom line through all of this is whether or not you will accept the possibility that there are unknown factors (unknown to the public) that are dictating what might appear to head scratching results. Ultimately, it then boils down to, do you believe Jason Botterill is competent at his job or not. If you accept the possibility that there are influencing factors that might be leading to some of the head scratching decisions, then you don't necessarily presume he is a poor manager or incompetent. You simply do not know. This is where I am at. I allow for the possibility that there are some influences that come from above and some longer term goals (regardless of fan angst) that can lead to a reasonable level of support for the seemingly head scratching decisions. It is not unprecedented that a person would make decisions that appear extremely ignorant to those outside of the situation. Personally, I was fired from a VP position, because I refused to continue to play along with the directives of the CEO and finally questioned him. Similarly, I was told yesterday that I needed to move something forward that, in my opinion, was an incredibly stupid thing to do. However, given that the decision likely came from an SVP who would not take kindly to me calling it incredibly stupid, I moved it forward. Why? Because I need to remain employed at the moment. This, coupled with other things, may lead me to seek alternate employment, but that's not always accomplished overnight. Now, that might be an isolated incident. I've already been questioned as to why I put this item forward and I have to toe the line. It makes me appear like an idiot. I don't like it. However, I do enjoy receiving a paycheck. Jason Botterill might not like the current situation. However, he's in his first GM role and he could choose to straight away quit his job. It probably won't bode well for his long term future. So he'll make the best of it. When he goes to interview for his next GM position (assuming things don't play out here) I am sure he can then speak to the constraints that were put upon him by ownership. He can speak to how he did not betray his employer and still worked to do the best he could within that framework. The new owners will appreciate that kind of commitment. Now, naturally all of this is pure speculation. We simply do not know. We can see head scratching decisions, we can ASSUME we know why. The reasons can't always be given in public. I'm not ready to close the book on the guy, so I leave open the fact that he could be operating under certain directives that can provide an explanation for the moves that are made. As a fan, I am left with a few possibilities. Assume the GM is incompetent, and that the team is not going to have success as long as he is making decisions. This sets me up as waiting for the next GM to come in so we can start this process over again. Assume the GM is incompetent, however the team might get lucky and still have success enough that it will be enjoyable enough for me as a fan, until the next GM arrives and potentially everything changes. Assume there is a longer term goal and the GM is abiding by it. I can then accept this longer term goal and hope like hell they execute on it. Assume there is a longer term goal and the GM is abidin by it. I can then NOT accept this longer term goal because I want them to win now. There's no right answer in the above options. No one has convinced me that any of the above are accurate. Your arguments, as well laid out as they are, do not sway me from accepting that there might be factors dictating those decisions and that the ultimatum was not win now. Final caveat: I think that the ultimatum is out now. Pegula has said that it's time to start winning. I actually believe that was the public statement that removes Pegula from the situation and puts it all on Botterill and his coaching staff. There are a few remnants from prior management, but indications are that they are likely to be moved out. So, the clock might be ticking now on Botterill and that he will need to show remarkable improvement this season, although I don't think he's fired this season. I think that remains a 2020-2021 decision.

Video, and then submit to USA Hockey and the media. It's about the only way you have to create change these days. It's why I record every hockey game my kid plays in. It has nothing to do with watching video to improve and everything to do with providing evidence should it be needed.

Yes, Brayden Point and Sebastian Aho have the same agent, Gerry Johannson. The word is that Montreal was looking at Point and Johannson steered them to Aho with the idea of the offer. Johannson's agency (The Sports Corporation) represents Brendan Gallagher, Carey Price, Joel Armia, and a couple of other Canadiens. They actually represent a lot of players (33 according to Forbes). So, Tampa is near the cap and wants to let Point sit (and hope there is no offer sheet). In order to establish a comparable, the agent encourages Montreal to create a great offer sheet for Aho (and a fair one). One that gets his client to UFA status in his prime. Aho is happy with the money and signs. Carolina agrees to the terms. Aho wins no matter what, he gets paid and he hits UFA. So, that leads to the agent returning to Tampa and telling them. Hey, Aho just got this. There's your comparable, step up. Because if you don't, Montreal might be back knocking on the LIghtning's door with an offer sheet to Point. Which, if Tampa matches, will put them over the cap ($7.9M). They will need to move cash out somewhere in order to make it happen. and still will have very little to sign the rest of the RFAs. It also handcuffs a division rival. Now, if I were Montreal, I might threaten the offer sheet and see if I can't shake something else out of Tampa. Tampa signed Schenn and McElhinney. They have to be looking to ship out Domingue ($1.1M) and another D just to free up space. That's still not much as I assume they aren't getting rid of Hedman/McDonagh. In any event, you have to figure Point is going to push for the same 5 year term... that's going to strap Tampa fierce unless they consider trading out a big gun.. because they are going to also have to sign Sergachev and Cirelli next year. Anyway, the agent part of the theory comes from Twitter (@theFlopFIsh) and mentions by LeBrun, but it seems quite plausible given how easily Carolina matched the sheet. And it certainly makes one think about how agents can also play in this game when they represent a few big names at the right time.

Everything I am reading points to the agent using a relationship with Bergevin to help his cause and ultimately put more pressure on Tampa.

If only the world could live by this motto... Good lord, I hated NYC. The good news is that I have not been there in so long now that I might almost find it tolerable for a few minutes before I go back to hating it. But, he did have a preference, and he was able to take action to help make that happen. Now he's back in Buffalo, and will be able to go wherever he pleases after next season. Hopefully it results in an asset for the Sabres.. be it the player himself or something acquired via trade.

Ahh, right.. well then. Either way.. I'm not too worried about it (you knew that). Botterill seems to be much more a trade person and has said so. Right now a lot of teams are doing really stupid things that are not going to amount to much next season. It should be fun.

You might be operating a bit too linearly. Just because the Habs offer sheet was accepted after the Sabres acquired Vesey does not mean the Sabres didn't know what the offer would be that they would have to beat. In fact, they may have decided that they did not want to go that route when Montreal stepped up and then decided to go get Vesey. Gah, I was trying to get that into the post but was failing. It's classic though. I need to retrain myself on the embedding tweets...