Thorny

Nope, not saying that.

Re - the last sentence: if we are judging it purely based on team performance (which is dicey), the Sabres don’t come out ahead merely by Vegas “not winning a couple in the next couple years.” We’d have to compare the fortunes of the Sabres against it and how we measure up to what they accomplished.

Right, because what he says goes against your preconceived narrative, he’s a “diplomat”. The interviewer clearly, specifically followed up with a prompt for a sound bite about the room being better and Cozens shot it down by specifically saying Jack was great to HIM. He could have said anything.

I agree their decision was significantly affected by Jack telling them he didn’t want to stay for another rebuild - said as much. I don’t need to wait and see what happens, in my mind they already, from their perspective, approached their handling of the injury the correct way in terms of what they wanted to accomplish - they got the deal they wanted. I believe the OP was searching for comments on whether they were “right or wrong” regarding their actual views of the merits of the injury treatment and like I said - their views on that are I feel to be very muddied and so directly influenced by their aims in protecting what was undoubtedly a trade asset at that time. In my view they didn’t actually think the procedure itself was a problem, necessarily, only so because of the accompanying context. I think Jack is allowed the surgery he wanted if there was no trade on the horizon. Therefore I don’t see a scenario where it’s “aha! Sabres KNEW that surgery was a bad idea!” if Jack gets hurt nor do I see a “hah! Jack stayed healthy, Sabres were WRONG!” scenario. The Sabres’ stance on the injury treatment itself was so heavily influenced by the context that I don’t think it’s possible to dial in on their heart-of-hearts view of the procedure. That’s my 2 cents.

Notable interview from today and comments from Cozens re: Jack’s captaincy/leadership -

From a Sabres perspective, given what they were trying to accomplish re: the formerly-theirs, Jack Eichel asset, I’d argue they’ve already been “proven correct” when it comes to their decisions made handling the injury. Again, in context. I don’t believe personally they can ever be proven “right” or “wrong” by how Jack responds to the surgery in the long term because frankly I think they’d have let Jack get the surgery in the scenario where they assume he returns to the ice a Sabre, ie, in the hypothetical situation the injury takes place where neither side is at odds. The injury disconnect was a symptom of the broader struggle and not the other way around

Gotta say that Harrington’s article on the front page re: an upcoming return is a solid piece.

The other significant component when it comes to evaluating Granato would be individual player development. Another area I’d adjudge him to have done reasonably well. Am I looking at the development of a player like Cozens and searching for reasons for how Granato coached improvement out of him to a level we couldn’t have expected with other coaches? No. He’s a 7th overall pick and it’s his 3rd post draft season. He’s been decent and he’s improved - I would expect that given Cozens’ pedigree, from the average. His development doesn’t represent an outlier of any kind. Skinner was this good pre Krueger. Hell, DAHLIN was great year 1 before Krueger got his hands on him. Dahlin was a #1 overall. This improvement is the appropriate regression to the development mean of what one might expect without him being *actively hampered* by a poor influence. Again, Granato has done reasonably on the development front, but no more than I would expect from an average, competent coach - which I believe Granato could be, record viewed in context. This is why I want to see him with a better roster - I feel he has earned that chance. The only development anomaly I see is Thompson. A true bright spot. But with the overall output being terrible, the rest of the development being on track but not exceptional, I’m not proclaiming Adams a great GM, Granato a great coach, and Thompson a great player all because Tage Thompson has had a really good year.

This should be on the insert they send out to fans or whatever

Ya, I always think of that shot of Dahlin in tears on the bench and Jack sitting beside him and consoling him and trying to talk him up - just no accountability or regard for his teammates

It’s about achievement relative to expectations. We are pacing for 62 points. If he’s outpacing expectations, expectations are absurdly low. I buy and share the idea he’s done about as can be expected and gets an incomplete - I like lots of what he’s had a hand in and want to see him with a stronger roster. Just saying I’m not bowing at the alter of saint Granato cause he’s pacing for a 62 point season. What did we expect? 50 points? Even with this roster that’s absurdly low. Check the predictions thread. Few were predicting as low as 62, nm significantly lower. And that was indeed before anyone but ghost of yuri, apparently, saw Tage’s breakout. We don’t now go: “that darn Granato did it! He really did it!” He’s been reasonable.

Not really, cause making the playoffs is hard but winning 18 games is easy

Counterpoint: 18 wins, and we aren’t getting number 19 today

I like Granato and am on record as such, but there’s a lot of correlation going on too re: some of the younger players taking steps at the ages young players generally take steps at. What we saw with Krueger was active negative influence. A card board cutout behind the bench would literally have helped players to improve year-over-year. We are 4th from the bottom of the league, and that’s after a disproportionate start. That doesn’t represent close to an output-above-talent that would have me proclaim him a saint. What’s our talent level, 3rd from the bottom? Jury out.

For all the flak he got Disco Dan is EASILY the best coach we’ve had from the list above in terms of the standard metrics of wanting to win hockey games. Eichel wasn’t even a good overall hockey player yet when Dan was here.