Randall Flagg

The last time Jack played in a meaningful hockey game

It's this easy. Too bad we will get this: 1.) Retain Krueger through the season, so that we can fire him several days after it finishes to not have 2 coaches on payroll. 2.) Not only are the lost games of spring 2021 wasted in this sense, but they will be wasted in terms of player development. Bryson and Borgen (when he gets back) will continue to rotate to the bench so that Irwin and Davidson will continue to receive significant amounts of playing time. Rieder-Eakin-Okposo will survive a nuclear holocaust and continue to churn out minutes in front of our 2 bad goalies. Mitts will play about 35% of the time, a few minutes per game, Tage will play about 20% of the time. Cozens will get one rest day per week. Asplund will get about 5 more games. Joki will spend more time on the taxi squad than off. 3.) We will trade 1 or 2 UFAs, but cite the pandemic and the market dynamics as reason for lack of moves. We will re-sign Hall, setting the stage to move Reinhart first thing this offseason. For middling picks and B prospects 4.) Upon the relief of Krueger's duties, the ensuing press conference will include an announcement that Nate Leaman is the new head coach. Kim explains that we didn't need to go through an interview process, as we remember him from last time and really like his attitude and demeanor. Who is Gerard Galland or Bruce Brodeur? Also, we really feel that we are set for the draft with what we have, so the lack of WHL, Russia or Finland scouts will be permanent. 5.) To shore up the center spine, we add Brandon Sutter and Riley Nash. Patrick Nemeth and Jack Johnson will do wonders to add grit and a veteran presence to our defense group, and we like the growth mindset of Jonas Johansson, so we will keep him on at backup G. We love the development of our young guys, so the rest of our improvement will be through their continued development. 6.) 40% increase on tickets and concessions

DON'T BRING ME DOWWWWWN, BRUCE DON'T BRING ME DOW-OW-OWN, BRUCE

I don't think you are very in tune with the general narrative on Matthews over the years. Jack has never done anything like what Matthews got in trouble for a couple summers ago, and as recently as 5 months ago the narrative was that he was immature/incapable of being a leader. On the ice, he would disappear for long stretches, being useless when he wasn't scoring goals, since he's a pretty average playmaker. He's certainly going off right now, through 25 games in a division in which there are maybe 2 playoff capable teams in a normal format, and where none of the teams involved have played a lick of defense all year. But as of this past offseason, I would have been extremely uncomfortable with the idea of trading Matthews for Eichel 1 for 1. They have the same amount of playoff series wins as each other ,and considering the rosters and coaching both have received, that says something

Let's goooooo Howard burger

How can they think a rookie NHL head coach is going to be able to come in here and fix this

Yeah, that old boys claim doesn't make a lot of sense. Even Bylsma doesn't really qualify to me. He had one job, then was out of hockey a bit before he took ours. I've never seen a member of what I would consider to be the NHL's old boy's network get hired by Pegula's Sabres. An unproven commodity 'recommended' by people that can be considered a part of the network is not the same thing as hiring from within that network

Or maybe it should give us a new perspective on priorities in building a hockey team. A lot of us (me included) were sympathetic to the idea that addressing those two areas could help us cover reasonable ground. But the reality is, most of hockey is played 5v5 and it's where the most goals are scored. A house should have its wiring and plumbing and roofing completed before you start the interior design work

What typically happens when a player is out for the year? do they go home, or do they stick around with the team, travel to games, rehab, still go to meetings etc.? If they just go home it could be good news. If the latter, then Jack would probably be back quarantining no matter what the diagnosis is

These clowns are going to do this, their social media intern will enter their office crying, and they'll be completely baffled as to why Unbelievable

We need to organize with hfboards and reddit like reddit did with gamestop. nobody buys a ticket until Bruce is our coach. I don't care how tempting the tickets are, fellow fans! HOLD THE LINE, WE'RE GOING TO THE MOON CUP

Terry and Kim, I beg of you - do not screw this up. No coach is a savior, but the stability that someone of this track record (who the Sabres have not had since Lindy) can provide is well worth the cash, it's well worth paying two coaches, and it will help immeasurably in our trek out of this quagmire.

See I'm getting this vibe too, and if this guy is open to coming here and we wind up taking a college coach I think that will push me over some threshold with the Pegulas. Or it'll just push me off the nearest skyscraper. Not sure which They would be unfathomably stupid to reject a real coach with a real track record to hire some guy from some college called Providence

Can someone list the pool of coaches that have taken the NCAA -> NHL route, and highlight the successful ones? Why do this? Why pass up on coaches that have a degree of success we haven't seen since Pegulas took over, every single place they've gone? What purpose does this serve? I just don't get it? They can't be that put off by the Bylsma experience 5 years ago, which went notably better than the rookie hires since? I would want to hear from someone I trust that all 3 coaches laughed us away before being okay with doing something like that

I don't want a college coach. Also, that Boudreau clip was one in which I was fearing the worst, but listening actually made me think he was at least making a joke about the fact that the Sabres are an interesting follow because of how they might pertain to him...but of course I may just be hearing what I want to hear

Sabres fans are always quick to edit wiki lol

So it seems fairly likely that we will keep Ralph until early May, and then fire him. I hope Bruce/Gerard are still around at that point and are willing to come here when we throw money at them. I hope the competition for them isn't strong. I wish the Pegulas believed that there would be value in paying that coach to get to know his team and players and teach/establish what he wants to do in a unique setting such that the standings no longer matter and tinkering is of most importance. With the idea that we never find ourselves in this situation again.

He isn't an okay backup though. You need an okay backup to play okay for the entire season. Backups nowadays can approach 30 games, and this sample you gave is 5. Similarly, last year he was alright for a month...and then lost 11 straight decisions, 8 of which he allowed 4 goals or more, 5 of which he allowed 5 or 6 goals. This has happened 3 seasons in a row. He's dreadful

If we're casting votes on the Skinner comments, when I heard them live, they sounded completely genuine and fine and the opposite of shade.

That explains it! Hahaha. The flyers took 40 more shot attempts than us, which is lunacy. We were bad outside of finishing on a few key plays

It's really going to happen, isn't it? The Sabres will have, over the span of several years, missed out on all of Trotz, Laviolette, Quenneville, DeBoer, Boudreau, Julien, Gallant, because they needed to hang onto Housley and Krueger for whatever reasons And we will be coached by either Krueger or Adam Mair in the fall It's happening

Last night, we were absolutely blitzed for most of the game, and couldn't really handle it

This franchise really is averse to using the otherwise-pointless time they generate by being so bad, for experimentation

I like JW. Not sure I buy this though

I need to preface this by pointing out my bias, as Staal was one of my least favorite players in the NHL for about 13 years. But I am really angry at how much better, faster, and more determined he looks now that the word is out that he is being shopped.