In The Buff

Or on the flipside, maybe we'll have to wait longer to hear Keefe is the guy.

For as good as the Amerks looked for 2 periods, how quickly things can turn around. The Marlies started this 3rd period with some urgency. Really hope we find a way to pull this one out.

To the point of the players not listening to the coach & their sense of entitlement & all that. After finishing in the bottom of the NHL all these years, why should they feel entitled to anything? After having multiple coaches fired for their poor performance. At what point do they step up & take responsibility for their play on the ice & say no more to this bs. No more to the mental mistakes, no more to the losses, no more to the passive aggressive interviews with the media after bad games. No more firing coaches. No more excuses or any of it? I gotta think that whoever the next coach is, if these guys have even half an ounce of self respect & are sick of losing, that they'll do whatever it takes on the ice to not have this next coach get fired. Because if a team goes thru 3 or 4 coaches with the same core group of guys & has the same result, then the problem isnt with the coaching, its with that group of players you got.

I have a link to a 1080p stream online if any of u guys want it. Just pm me. I just remembered a few minutes ago Roch was playing tonight so i missed most the game. 11 minutes to go in the 3rd, down 0-2. We need a comeback!

Yep me neither but Botts is really jammed up against a wall with Skinner. We need Skinner more than he needs us imo. But 9mil is a ton of money to spend on a player who is valuable & a great asset but perhaps not an integral player on your team. Someone like ROR for instance you could justify spending that money. Mark Stone is another. Those players add more value to your team than a Skinner does. But if thats Skinners asking price, idk how Botts lets him walk & doesn't pay him. Either with that 8th year at the end of the term or by a higher AAV. It'll sure be interesting to see what happens & if Botts takes the bold route & lets him walk & goes after other players or if he just pays him.

hey it can't hurt right? At this point I support us trying anyone/anything.

Given the lack of scoring from our forwards, we definitely need to resign Skinner, i mean he's one of the few guys we had that can score. But all things being equal, I'd much rather pay that kind of money to a player like Mark Stone, who will most likely command the same type of contract, but who has shown he can create & produce offense on his own. Whereas the bulk of Skinners offense came from being with Eichel. Eichel is such a good playmaker, you could probably put Oloffoson on his wing next year & he'd be good for 20 goals easy. But you put Skinner on the 2nd line away from Jack & who knows how much he'd score. So is Skinner really worth $8-$9mil to your team? Or would that money be better spent on your 2C? JBots has some difficult decisions this summer. I don't envy him thats for sure. It'd be a helluva lot easier if our supporting cast performed better. But when 50% of your forwards suck, you don't have much margin for error going forward. And you can't let players like Skinner walk without having a replacement for their production already lined up. We're pretty much stuck between a rock & a hard place imo, Skinner has all the leverage. But like all you guys here i'm excited to see what happens this summer because regardless, changes are coming.

Yeah he was one of my early guesses when this all began as well. Fits the portrait so to speak as he was the coach of the Penguins AHL team: Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, when Botterill was the director of hockey operations in 2007-08. Probably one of the hottest assistant coaches out there looking to get the big job & has had some pretty good success with the bolts. I'd rather have him than Taylor. Give me Richards & Gronberg as his assistant & hope for the best lol.

I'm watching the Toronto/Bruins game & just now Don Cherry is on Coaches Corner going on about Ryan O'Reilly again & he asked "how in the world did Doug Armstrong ever got ROR from Buffalo?" Made me feel sick to my stomach I'll take that. Heck i'll even give them 100 wings & some free bleu cheese & carrot sticks & celery. Make it happen!

Sabres gave a 3rd RD pick for Bylsma back in the day. idk if thats what u were thinking of

You have a good memory https://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/GARTHS-CORNER/Grnborg-Is-Where-The-Heart-Is/6/93062

Hopefully 1 day soon we'll be singing We Will Rock You & We Are The Champions... instead of where we are now looking for Somebody to Love. No doubt JBots is Under Pressure to get this hire right, or the Hammer Will Fall ?

Chris Taylor is the coach you promote after Housley's replacement gets fired. Not before imo. He's had 2 good years with Roch, but its not like they've been winning titles down there or that he comes with a pedigree of experience or results. Taylor would feel like Rolston all over again & thats not what we need right now imo. But given how JBots fired PH, i'd have to believe that he already had a replacement in mind. Perhaps not officially set in stone but at least an idea of who he'd like to bring in. A responsible GM just doesnt fire their coach without 1st thinking of who could replace them... at least i hope so. But if he picks Taylor I think that just might be it for me & i'll throw in the towel. It'd be like we're right where we were years ago.

If we go for Taylor it'd feel as if we're just settling imo. I'd rather we go get AV before going with Taylor. I think its best if we keep Taylor in Roch to continue learning & having success down there. Just think If he comes up here & fails then now you have 2 problems & you stunt Taylors coaching career. 1 good season in Roch doesn't make me think he's the right guy to turn the Sabres around, nor think that he's ready. But my opinion is just one of some dude on a message board haha

I can't believe this CENSORED CENSORED. CENSORED Chicago jumps from 12th to CENSORED top 3, while we lose 2 CENSORED spots. Who came up with this CENSORED CENSORED system? CENSORED

sorry, i had multiple threads open & posted in the wrong one One of the drawbacks i guess of multiple threads on similar topics, even tho this one was meant as a "joke" snicker snicker

McLellan has pretty much coached his entire career on the west coast. His family & friends I'd imagine are predominantly on the west coast as well. I wonder how much those other factors will work into his decision, if it indeed is between us & LA. As much as I have no idea where he'll end up, just looking at it all it seems he'd pick LA over us. Especially if LA lands Hughes, although he may have to make a decision before then. At least the name being mentioned today wasn't Chris Taylor lol

Yeah i agree, analytics & stats like Corsi only tell you so much Those chances turn into goals when your roster is filled with more players who can finish, like if we had Draisatl here instead of Okposo, ROR instead of Sobotka. That style could work if you have the talent at forward to put those pucks in the net. Otherwise you get what we had this year, tons of games where imo we outworked & outshot the opposition, only to lose the game because the puck just wasnt going in the net. Later in the season PH shouldve adjusted the scheme once it became clear that style wasn't working for us. But on another team with more forwards that can finish, I think that system can be pretty effective. Perhaps thats why many of us argued whether the issue was with PH or with the roster JBots assembled. Kind of like the chicken or the egg debate

Yeah Torts would make more sense than Trotz since he's with the Isles, but Trots was closer to Trotz so i had no idea which way that one was going. Torts would need to be fired though but rumor is that could happen Thing with Q is that ive read he already turned us down once before. I read the same thing about him wanting to go to a contender, but would the Sabres be that much closer to the Cup than Florida? One could argue Florida is closer. But I'm sure theres other factors as well. Prior relationships are one thing in Florida's favor. Economics & financials are another. Salary aside, he'd pay less taxes in Florida & that's something else he'd have to factor in I'm sure. I don't know much about Boudreau, but I know he's been very successful thruout his career. Pretty much taking every team he's coached for a full year to the playoffs, some teams that weren't necessarily that great either. Either one would be an improvement over what we've had in years & given where we've been, we could do & have done much worse.

Also with Rikard Grönborg hiring him would make some sense since we've been stockpiling Swedes here. Plus I've read that he is really good at developing relationships & getting the most out of his players. Not only evaluating the talent of his teams himself but asking the players to evaluate themselves individually & as a group. And just look at that photo of him above. He shows more of a commanding presence in that 1 image than what I've seen all year from PH. Whoever it is, JBots better not screw this one up & do whatever it takes to bring his top candidate in here.

Also Coach Q has that relationship to Florida GM Dale Tallon, who was the one who hired Q to coach the Blackhawks back in the day. With how fast the news came, it would lead one to think they had been having discussions for some time. AV I definitely wouldnt want. Boudreau would be cool if Minnesota fired him Trots? Who's that? Barry Trotz?

You can make arguments for both of them to stay or go imo. Like RJ is too old or Skinner fading the 2nd half of the year or having his numbers inflated by Eichel & not worth the money we would have to pay. But at the end of the day i'd like both of them to be here. They're both Sabres in my eyes & bring a net positive to our franchise than a negative. But if i had to pick i'd say Skinner. A player is obviously more important, especially one who can finish & score, which is something we don't have much of

While i'd obviously love to have him here, given his feelings towards his current situation, where Edmonton just got eliminated from a playoff berth, what makes anyone think he'd want to come to us? We'd probably all consider just being eliminated from the postseason now "a good season", where someone like Connor views it as a disappointment & must look at what Eichels been going thru here & be thankful we didnt win the lottery that year. Any discussions about trading for McDavid are just pure folly really. But yeah its nice to dream

1 thing i found interesting from that article was this quote: Other highlights for Toronto of the NHLPA poll, taken between training camp and Jan. 6, put Babcock fourth among coaches they’d like to play for at 7.5%, back of Joel Quenneville, Jon Cooper and Gerard Gallant. Interesting to see so many players polled named Coach Q as 1 coach they'd like to play for. That says something imo. Same for Smith but at least with Coach Q you know he's respected. Even though i read a couple weeks back that Chicago fans aren't really missing him & have warmed up to Jeremy Colliton. The more we lose like we are, it just seems theres more writing on the wall for PH to go. Idk if a coach like Quennville would even want to come into this situation, but a younger guy like Smith or Keefe who is hungry to break into the NHL might be willing to take a crack at it. Thanks for sharing the article!

Me neither really. But in all the fire Phil threads & posts, rarely will you ever see anyone come up with a solution or replacement, hence why I was asking for other potential coaches we could bring in. Its one thing to fire Phil for the sakes of firing him, its another thing to bring in a quality coach who can take us to the promise land. If anyone ever does name names, Coach Q is the name most spoken. Then McLellan or Vigneault who I wouldn't want. And then you'll hear Sheldon Keafe once & awhile, who hasnt ever coached in the NHL before & i really dont think we need another rookie coach right now. Just curious if anyones got a potential coaches name to hope for haha