jad1

You don't have to move the franchise to do what you suggest. Hire one of Vegas' pro scouts to be Director of player development or even GM, and the start trading the Sabres players and prospects for other team's bottom six forwards and bottom two defensemen. Target the 7th best forward or 4th best defenseman on any team, and Thompson, Dahlin, Tuch, Cozens, Power, Quinn should easily get you him. Prospects like Savoie and Benson should do the same. Need an old, expensive goalie? Trade Levi for Bobrovsky. You would have dig deep to replace the prospects in Sweden and the juniors, but you should be able to find deals. Finally, sign a bunch of washed FAs to complete the lineup. Sabres should keep next year's draft picks in tact; they'll probably be able to pick up additional picks trading guys like Thompson for a third line player, but be ready to trade those drafted prospects for disgruntled, injured all-stars from poorly-run franchises. Follow this plan and you can skip the trauma of losing a franchise, but still get the benefit of rebuilding the lineup with middle-of-the-roster players from other teams.

I seriously doubt he would play for Adams. He's going to want replace some of the young prospects with veterens. Kev isn't going to do that.

I think you're right. NHL players want their name on the Cup. They know their careers are short and and unwilling to waste seasons because of an organization's rank incompetence. There is a reason NTCs are big in the NHL.

Tkachuk against any 3 Sabres at one time would be really ugly.

JFC Power.

Way too early to pull the goalie against the worst team in the division.

Darcy, in his prime, was awesome.

He's one lucky decision from doing the same thing with the Sabres. Fire Adams and roll the dice. Improve the odds by hiring a guy who's actually rebuilt a team in the past, but make the move, because Adams has no answers.

Adams is serious about winning. He wants to build the Sabres into a dynasty. Unfortunately, his plan to build that dynasty is batsh##t crazy. We all get that he wants to develop the team internally and keep the cap pristine. But we are in the 4th season of the Adams reign and the Sabres are the youngest team in the league. That isn't progress; that's insanity. The fault in Adam's plan is that a young player's progression isn't linear. We know this from watching the careers of Thompson, Mittlestadt, and Dahlin. Young players are often inconsistent and mistake-prone. And when you liter your NHL roster with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year players, your team is going to be inconsistent and mistake-prone. That's why most NHL GMs block their young players path to the NHL and sign bridge players to the team. Guys who maybe have lower ceilings than the younger players, but bring immediate experience and know-how to the roster. Guys who play the game the right way, and understand the effort needed to win in the NHL. Adams is terrible at adding these type of bridge players to the roster. He places young players into key roles, and when those players suffer a regression common to a young player's progression, the team suffers. But many might say that despite the Sabres youth, they only missed the playoffs by 1 point last season. And sure, that's encouraging, but the team still finished 19th overall in the league. Considering that the Sabres actually got younger this season, their drop-off from 19th to 25th isn't that surprising. In fact, it's kind of predictable. And let's be clear that bringing in bridge players doesn't mean that you clear out the prospect pipeline or ruin the salary cap for the next 10 years. It means bringing in talent a bit better than Clifton or Johnson. It means finding a winger who can contribute on the 3rd line while your 18 year old wunderkind works on building up his strength in juniors. It means throwing a couple of extra million at Ullmark to convince him to stay for 4 more years, giving your young goalies time and space to develop. Adams plan to build a future dynasty has caused havoc to the franchise's current situation, but is the longer term goal still achievable? It's hard to say. I guess if you believe that failure and playing the game the wrong way leads to winning, it still is achievable. But it's difficult to see that switch flipping for a team that will probably get even younger next season. Adams does want to win. He just has no clue how to do it.

As bad as they are playing, they will probably go on a heater in Jan or Feb. Not enough to make the playoffs, but enough for Adams to run it back next season.

Seriously, what do they lose if they fire Granato and this staff tomorrow. I know it's not happening, but if it did, what is the franchise missing out on if he's gone?

It's worse than that. He knows how to draft individual players. He has no idea on how to build an NHL roster. He's suited to be a director of player development. He's notsuited to be an NHL GM

Amateur hour for the last 13 years.

Learning basic defense comes in the 6th year of the Adams/Granato 8 year plan.

Benson is missing the WJC for this nonsense?

What the hell does this team do during practice?

I still have hope that Pegula's goal is to have the Sabres win, despite his crushing incompetence in achieving that goal. The amount of money that the team would need to eat with Granato's firing is so small when measured against the team's revenue, value, and owner's net worth, that it's hard to conceive that saving thus amount of money is part of the equation. There are so many more interesting discussions to have about the owner's ineptitude than the one asserting he's trying to save money.

The Sabres Googled yearly revenue is 124M. They'd be on the hook for Granato's extension for 2M a year. In other words, it'll cost them less than 2% of their yearly revenue to fire Granato. The Sabres Googled value is 900m. Pegula bought the team for 189M. He has a 711M profit in the team. Granato's 4M extension is .006% of that profit. The Bills new stadium is the most expensive construction project in WNY history. It's googled cost is 1.35B. Pegula can fund the construction of FIVE stadiums at that price, at the same time out of his own pocket, and STILL have $500M left in his bank account. The Bills salary cap is 240M. If the Bills don't make another dime ever again, Pegula can fund the team out his own pocket for the next 28 years. There is no way in hell Pegula is thinking that the best way to improve the Sabres is to fire the coach, but I'm not going to do that because I need to save money.

Sure you do. If you're starting a business, you can use your personal worth to back a loan. If you want to expand your business, you can do the same. The Sabres are a privately owned business. If the owner wants to fire the coach to improve the team, he'd be more than willing to spend the equivalent of 18 bucks from his own pocket if the team can't cover the cost (which, by the way, it easily can). Money is no part of Pegula's decision to fire the coach.

Pegula's Googled net worth is 6.8 billion. Granato's extension is 4 million over the next two years. Granato's salary is roughly .0006% of Pegula's net worth. Putting that into context, for a person who makes 30 grand, .0006% of that salary is rounded up to 18 bucks. Pegula can afford to fire Granato.

The traded player would win the Stanley Cup the next year and would probably be a finalist for the Conn Smythe trophy. So I would probably be happy for that guy.

It's like we're in an alternative universe of suckitude.

You didn't watch them last year? Seriously, the Sabres have not play structurely good defense since Ruff was here.

Can he fire himself? I don't think he possesses the tools to fix this.

Remember in the off season when Mike Peca left the team to join the Rangers coaching staff, and Granato was like, that's okay, we good, we got Matt Ellis?