kas23

Are there going to be fans sitting in the arena, if not, why not Montreal or Winnipeg? For that matter, why not any NHL sized arena in the middle of nowhere?

The current system is unfair and unlikely to discourage tanking. If they want to discourage tanking, have the bottom 8-10 have equal odds for every draft pick in the 8-10 range, not just the #1-3. Above all, no matter what though, don’t have any “playoff” or “postseason” team (however they want to define this) win rights to a top 8-10 pick. This is disgusting and only hurts the league.

Take this Tweet with a grain-of-salt. Dudley certainly was not let go prior to the Sabres firing (despite it being “in the works”), so who is to know if the shakeup tipped the scales towards him definitely leaving. The question I have is whether the Sabres could have even legally contacted him prior to be let go? Probably not.

I’m sure you agree that it’s a bit too early to definitively say that D614G is responsible for the uptick in cases or increased infectivity in vivo. These studies were done in a cultured cell line and who knows if this translates to increase infectivity within a living system. The increased prevalence of this mutation over time certainly indicates this, but viruses mutate often and more so at particular hot spots. Could it just be the natural history of the virus? Maybe, but don’t know. Could it be that there are different viruses depending on US geography and mitigation measures have been poorly rolled out in these different locales? Maybe, but again, don’t know for sure. I agree with what your are writing on here. There is too much we don’t know and anyone with definitive answers is usually someone to ignore. But, in medicine, we never know things for certain, so decisions always come down to risk/benefit ratio. In the case of masks, we don’t know for certain if they are limiting infection. Same goes for the silly plexiglass we see everywhere. However, the risk/benefit ratio for wearing a mask is highly favorable, so I think everyone in the country should be wearing one if we are past the point of demanding everything to close down.

Given the pandemic and the possibility of a disrupted season, it’s going to be very hard for Tampa to convince one of their vets to be traded. Would you want to be transferred and move your family right now? I understand this may be palatable for a younger player who is going to receive a significant raise (via offer sheet), but to earn the same amount? These players owe Tampa nothing and likely won’t waive their NTC. And if they do, their list will be very restricted (likely to another winning team, who likely also has cap problems) making a trade very difficult.

Well, the best way to fix this is not to trade it for an overrated player. The trade is there or it is not, but we explore such a trade. It almost seems like the best way to build depth throughout the organization is to plug up the holes in the parent organization. Every time we have a decent prospect, they are sucked up by the Sabres, some prematurely. Mittelstadt and Thompson should never had been on the Sabres roster. I’m not going to defend GMTM, but this was probably the point of having ROR and Kane on our team.

I guess the question becomes, can we improve the production of this player by coaching him to be in those tough areas? There’s no question the guy knows how to put the puck in the net. But, in the NHL, he’ll need to be in front of net more. Can he develop into this type of player? I have no clue, but people like Crowe may have a better idea of the success rate of such a transition. If there is a very low success rate of this, then cross him off the list.

As for trading the pick, I can think of team dealing with the lower cap or bad financials by dumping their RFAs. Better to get something for them instead of some ugly holdout or going to Europe to play. Given that, unless there is a clear consensus of who we want to grab, I trade the pick, but only as part of a 2C package. Otherwise, I keep it.

I’m not too concerned about a static or even decreased cap as every team will be in the same boat. Everybody is hurting. What we’ll likely see is a lot of 2-3 year deals with only tiny raises.

Agreed. This is ridiculous. None of these “playoff” teams need the number one pick nor should they even get it. Seriously, I bet TOR ends up with it. I doubt the “playoffs” will even happen at all.

I’ll try not to be an apologist, but just because they have been in the organization for awhile doesn’t mean they were making the decisions or even being listened to. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now. The Sabres are certainly headed in a much different direction than the past.

I don’t think Crowe is a person we should dismiss with a “who”. The guy sounds like he has a head on his shoulders. https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/jeremiah-crowe-looking-forward-to-new-role-as-sabres-new-director-of-scouting/c-317268304

If Krueger is a coach/president/whatever who is here to have the team culture do a 180, then I doubt he would then turn around and grab some “name coach” from the outside to continue his work. That coach would likely want to come in and install his culture. The only way this works is for them is for Krueger to start grooming his replacement now, or at least hire someone from the outside who he trusts and respects (likely from past work together). Unfortunately, they have fired everyone, but these weren’t Krueger hires.

I just read the Hockey News article. https://thehockeynews.com/news/article/how-will-the-buffalo-sabres-rebuild-their-scouting-department Some interesting tidbits in here. The biggest one that jumped out at me was the timing of the draft. Why exactly would the NHL wait until October or November for the draft? No hockey will be played before then, so all there is to know, has been known for months. The utility of a physical combine is almost nil at this point.

I think the most amazing thing on here is that they have a team dentist.

Actually, in hindsight, it would’ve much better if we just got Tage Thompson. Instead, we also got some spare parts that killed our cap. It’s just unthinkable this trade actually happened.

I think you and the Pegulas have very different views of what risk is. To us, risk is installing a person who will keep our losing ways intact. To the Pegulas, risk could be losing money from hockey operations or hiring someone who doesn’t readily allow them to meddle. If this is true, then the Pegulas hired someone that is very low risk.

This is pretty much it. It certainly wasn’t a coincidence he was traded the day before the bonus. There is no hockey-related reason for this to have happened. It was the off-season. No rush. If there is still a debate, people can discuss whether it was JBott or TP who didn’t want to pay the bonus.

Until our legal system is muzzled, this would not be possible. The day the restrictions begin, there will be hundreds of lawsuits (likely from individual state AGs). I think states can enact 14 day quarantines for anyone entering them, but it’s extremely hard to enforce them. Who’s to say people are just driving through your state? At least with air travel, you know where their final destination is and can quarantine as necessary. Florida did this from flight from NY. Now, municipalities are starving for tax revenue, so won’t close their borders.

It’s easy to know who was fired, as there’s a published list. But, who is left in scouting? It’s possible they could’ve already established their draft board for the coming draft, but the question is does it still exist? Or, was it “lost” once everyone was fired? This reminds me of the 2017 Bills draft. At least they waited for the day after the draft to fire everyone. Pegs must’ve really wanted these guys out of the building.

I wonder what this means for the draft. With no one at the helm, do they still have a draft board? If not, do this mean we’ll be trading them away for assets (2C)? Also, does hiring a “business” (or non-NHL) guy mean that we won’t be shy with offer sheets?

I’m not talking about lying, yet rather not disclosing the truth. I think there’s a difference, because I’m certainly not going to call the Pegulas liars. They are not, but they are also not required to give fans the truth. Over the last hour, I watched the press conference. It was full of evading the truth. This is OK. I guess I don’t fully understand the financial story. Are the Pegulas heading to the poor house soon? They certain can’t dig another well given oil and gas prices. Are we heading towards a sequestration (ie suffering)?

I watched a great talk recently on how to spot untruthfulness that was given by an ex-CIA. Of course, there’s always the body language thing, but there’s also the “too much information” thing. This is where the person starts giving information outside of the question that was asked in order to try to convince or distract. I think the “we have a little bit more information than maybe a fan does, some inner workings that we see some positives in” statement immediately comes to mind. It was an unnecessary thing to say. This wasn’t a decision made in the last 3 weeks.

Disagree. Botterill definitely set up an amateur scouting operation.

I just don’t like how they failed to do their due diligence via a proper search. Of course, they definitely have done their fair share of GM interviews in the past, but they should’ve place the interim tag on Adams (through the draft) and took their time. There was no rush.