Randall Flagg

Eichs for Barzal and Dobson

I absolutely hate looking at advanced stats on tiny sample sizes, but the Islanders took mostly mediocre shots, and the Sabres' expected goal value was 3x as high as NY's, meaning our xGF% was around 75%. If the Sabres were up in shots but getting caved in expected goals, would you have been consistent and said that the Islanders weren't rolling over us?

Olofsson was possessed on that shift. Sweet.

That was ugly Jeffrey

Very nice shot. Congrats!

Give specifics, and prove we could have tried harder but didn't. Yes, Stalock was available, a guy who is still injured for a while and hasn't played in months and months. Should we have just changed Braden Holtby's mind to come here instead of a team taht just made the playoffs? How are the Canucks doing with that? Same for Markstrom. Hutton sucks balls and Kevyn gets an F because we have to watch that, but my point is that Kevyn's vote of confidence means less than zero with respect to how he actually handled things and feels internally. People on this board I trust have assured us that nobody WANTED it to be the case that we are stuck with Hutton, that it just ended up that way either because we didn't want to pony up (in which case, I would bet everything I own that if we had, everyone that complains now would be complaining even harder at giving up so much for not-great return) or because the other party lost interest.

I'm pretty sure every "insider" we have has said that the Sabres spent all offseason looking to upgrade Hutton, have called Anaheim on John freaking Gibson several times, and are currently looking at goalies again. We really don't know what the market looks like. What if Arizona wanted Olofsson if they were giving up Raanta? Who knows what they were asking. I will still give Kevyn the F grade for ultimately failing to upgrade goaltending, but him giving them a public vote of confidence does not mean he has zero interest in upgrading Hutton lol

Woah, Laaksonen is over? And he looks good?

bob_sauve28 has an extremely appealing posting style. Steady as she goes, in good times and bad, whether responding to arguments or affirmations. A fairly blunt matter-of-factness in every post, but always optimistic.

The media has been asking him to talk for a while now. He held it to answer their questions. It was as good a press conference as you can realistically get from a GM. getting mad at random stuff he did or didn't say after the fact is a waste of time

Pain is fresh. This season hurts roughly as much as 17-18, though I probably hated that one more. 13-15 were on another plane of existence. We probably couldn't field a team like that again if we tried...again.

WHL reference - Gare?

Don't think I posted much of anything yesterday, but I definitely agree. For twice as long, too. I remember the Leafs winning Matthews just as much as I remember our draft lotteries. It was a big deal. That guy is unreal

Copy pasted from Zip15 on hfboards: 2007-08: Takes over for Glen Hanlon after the Caps start 6-14-1 (looks pretty darn close to our record). They go 37-17-7 for 81 pts in 61 games the rest of the way. 2008-09: 108 pts 2009-10: 121 pts 2010-11: 107 pts 2011-12: 25 pts in 22 games with Caps before his firing. 2011-12 (cont'd.): Hired almost immediately by the Ducks, where he goes 27-23-8 for 62 pts in 58 games. The Ducks were 7-13-4 (18 pts in 24 games) under Randy Carlyle that season - again, record looks familiar. 2012-13: 66 pts in 48 games during lockout-shortened season, which was the 3rd best mark that year. 2013-14: 116 pts 2014-15: 109 pts 2015-16: 103 pts - He's then fired by the Ducks (after never averaging less than 100 pts/season) 2016-17: 106 pts - First season with the Wild. Minnesota had 87 pts the season before. 2017-18: 101 pts 2018-19: 83 pts 2019-20: 61 pts in 57 games Edit: this last part is my reaction to seeing this laid out I would hire Bruce today and give him the rest of this season with our guys. He can learn about which ones fight, which ones just needed proper guidance, which ones are probably too far gone. He can show Jack a reason to have hope.

I remember knowing in the pit of my stomach that Toronto was going to get away with it, watching their tank team actually dominate possession and just not have enough skill to score haha, while we got outshot 50-13 every night for 2 years

At the same time, I'm not actually interested in a coaching change except in the context of a much larger overhaul. Firing Krueger, adding another mediocre veteran 2C and some more 4th line PKers, and trading for another bottom 4 D and a middling goalie UFA signing to hit the ground running again doesn't really do it for me. I want a front office like Toronto got from the start (not saying the same guys, but a similar structure), one of these coaching names, and some serious effort to be put into not only addressing holes, but having sensible fallback options if those picks don't work out (what was the 2C plan if Mitts wasn't ready in 2018? It was Berglund Sobotka. What was the 2C plan if Johansson sucked? It was Sobotka and Mitts. What is the 2C plan if Staal didn't work out? So far, just continuing to shoehorn Staal. What was the G plan if Hutton didn't work out in 2018? Why is Hutton-Ullmark ok to start 3 consecutive seasons in a row with?) Bare minimum goalie move: Signing a guy like Raanta. Bare minimum move at C, presuming we keep Eichel: Danault-tier 2C acquisition, and another addition of a player of the caliber of Copp or another obviously-good 3C, in addition to hoping that Cozens might take a step, hanging onto Lazar and I guess you have to keep Eakin around. So if Copp-guy goes down, Eakin or Cozens can play. If Danault goes down, you still have Eichel - Copp - Cozens (sheltered) - Lazar. If Eichel goes down, Danault - Copp - Cozens/Eakin - Lazar. Bare minimum defense: A balanced defense corps that takes into account the fact that our supposed veterans Miller and Montour look like they're worse at hockey than at least one guy we had sitting on the taxi squad for the first month. (Borgen) Bare minimum overall acquisitions: Real leadership presence for Jack and the kids to learn something from It needs to be the slate of moves that would make a guy like Weave or Swamp or PA say "holy *****. yeah, okay. we got it done."

Part of me worries that the "good" available coaches will think about our situation and the revolving door of coaches. I've heard people say that it's definitely a turnoff. Part of me also wonders if guys like Boudreau, Gallant, Julien etc. agree with the Sabres fanbase every time a coach gets fired, and don't get bothered by this. "Well, obviously this guy needed to be fired, look at the results, look at this, look at that, he was incompetent!" Like, I would like a coach that thinks he can fix things, that thinks he can do better than Phil freakin Housley or Ralph freakin Krueger Pegulas have shown (in the NFL) that they'll stick with a coach if it's obvious that he's good and the team is going in the right direction. Every time someone gets fired, it's because they can feel the same backsliding we all feel.

There was no excuse to not have a team capable of overcoming those issues for sure. Regardless of situation, they failed. I think circumstance allowed it to be particularly ugly.

Yep, I think the teams we happened to get stuck with make up a lot of the difference. If our schedule had typical opponents we'd do a little better. I made a post about it elsewhere, but over the last 2 seasons, we play the teams in our division at a 67 point pace, but everyone else at an 82 point pace. Something about the way we're constructed just happens to be ideal to the teams in the Eastern division more so than any other division.

Yep. In a normal league year, I don't think the situation is quite so dire. Granted,I still think we'd be plodding along at our typical 80 point pace, and we'd all be futious,but it wouldn't be quite like this.

Tobias Rieder was on fire that spring for the Coyotes. He may by himself be a single reason we drafted Jack instead of Dylan Strome. Never even made the connection until right now. He seems to have been alright for us this year no?

I can see Ralph's thought process, I think he wanted some trial by fire to expedite Olofsson's development process, and believed in him being able to survive and then thrive. Nothing shows me it's worked yet though, and I think it hurt the team. Last year, Olofsson got bumped down for a little bit at the veeeeery end of the season and was played with Johansson and Kahun. That line looked real good in a small sample size, Victor included. Maybe he AND Skinner should get the same treatment that Ralph is giving Skinner now, on the same line. Skinner - Mitts - Olofsson, treat the line very generously. See what happens.

The decision to rebuild was the right one. The selloff of obscene amounts of assets, to put a disgrace to the game of hockey on the ice for 2 years, leaving holes so big that many haven't been filled yet even though in a vacuum all of the tank defenders loved many of them along the way, was the original sin. Tank is a nice shorthand for this process. the 2015-16 offseason added more talent to the Buffalo Sabres than almost any offseason by any NHL team ever, I'd bet. I bet it's in the top percentile. Kane, ROR, Lehner, Eichel, Bogosian, full time 20 goal Sam Reinhart. There are obviously flawed players in here. But netting that amount of talent is extaordinarily rare for one summer, and we still sucked, because we depleted our asset pool that bad. Even if you generously bump up the impact we got from draft picks along the way, we still wouldn't have fixed key problems for years. The tank flushed half of a decade out the window even if you had a top tier GM running things. Any GM skill ranging from decent to horrible was bound to turn the total sum of summer 2015 Sabres assets into 7+ years of rough hockey, without ridiculous strings of luck. This is because the NHL offseason, with regard to established players, is a zero sum game. You cannot be involved in all, most, half, or even a third of all relevant NHL moves in the offseason. Other teams will beat you, and you have to lose stuff to get stuff. You HAVE to add to the total pool of available talent with draft picks, if you don't want to lose anything, and NHL draft picks are complete dice rolls. So you're adding to the worst skeleton in NHL history with dice rolls. Cumulative probability tells me that the tank was destined to fail

Depending on the response mechanism, you sometimes have to follow a conversation by first going upwards, and then back down again. This isn't always true. It's tricky!

So these rumors must imply the type of front office change we beg for, if true?