Thorny
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Posts posted by Thorny
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1 hour ago, dudacek said:
For me it's less about coping with the Sabres and more about coping with @PerreaultForever, but we all gotta find our ways to get by 😜
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Two things have become really clear lately to me about your position on this rebuild:
- You think the Sabres of 2021 were in much better shape than I do
- And/or you think it's much easier to turn a really bad team into a playoff team than I do.
To the 2nd point, I took a look at other teams, going back 10 years to the lockout. Including teams that have done it more than once, there have been 14 sub-.400 non-expansion teams beyond the Sabres.
- the 2015 Oilers were in their 8th consecutive year out of the playoffs. They drafted McDavid, finally made it 3 years later and missed the next 2
- the 2015 Coyotes were in their 3rd consecutive year out of the playoffs. They missed 4 more years before finally making it, and have missed 4 years since.
- the 2017 Avalanche were on their 3rd consecutive year out of the playoffs and had missed 6 of their last 7. They made the playoffs the next season and have yet to miss since.
- the 2019 Senators were on their 2nd year out of playoffs and missed each of the 5 years since.
- the 2020 Wings were on their 4th year of missing the playoffs and have missed each of the 4 years since
- the 2021 Ducks were on their 3rd year out of the playoffs and have missed all 3 years since
- The 2022 Devils were on their 4th year out of the playoffs and had missed 9 of 10. they made the playoffs the next season, then missed last year.
- the 2022 Flyers were on their 2nd year out of the playoffs and have missed the 2 years since.
- the 2022 Canadiens went to finals in bubble the year prior and have missed the 2 years since
- the 2023 Sharks were on their 4th year out of the playoffs and missed again this year
- the 2023 Jackets were on their 3rd year out of the playoffs and missed again this year
- the 2023 Hawks were on their 3rd year out of the playoffs and missed again this year
I'm just not seeing many examples of GMs turning sad sack teams like the Sabres into playoff contenders in 2 or 3 years. The 2020/21 Sabres were a .330 hockey team.
Which comes back to my first point up top: your argument makes a lot more sense to me if you think the 2021 Sabres were like the 2016 Hurricanes or the 2022 Canucks.
I just don't think that's the case.
A post that ignores not only real world context, but the point I reiterated multiple times: Jack Eichel played 21 games, total, while hurt during that “season”. We played in a ridiculous division that “season”. The Covid relatives anomalies of that season are BLINDING. No, our record over 40 games does not define what they “were” and your comparative stats are rendered unfortunately rather meaningless
We were nearly a .500 hockey club in 19-20. We didn’t morph into a .300 club overnight. I beg anyone to please just look at the *real world* context.
Adams WAS THE GM WHO TOOK OVER the .500 team
Can we be serious for one moment lol. Your telling me Adams can be placed at the helm of a .500 club, manually cause or allow the team to be changed into a .300 club on his watch, thereby granting HIMSELF, according to you, what, 5 years?
This take isn’t based in reality. Like it sounds like what Kevyn Adams would say, I’m sorry
You gotta pick one, here. If poor Adams is blameless for 2021 then our record is unreflective because it’s covered in Krueger related taint. Combined with the other factors I mentioned I’m inclined to consider the reason unreflective, yes, and not count it towards “Adams plan”. We know the bones of what we had was represented by the near .500 the year previous
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On 5/16/2024 at 2:51 PM, Pimlach said:
Yes indeed. I sure hope Adams turns out correct in the long term view.
Taking 5 years to make the playoffs is already wrong. He can’t “turn out correct.”
the red wings aren’t relevant to that
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The only reason people mention the red wings is to feel better about the sabres: our competition is with the league not one team. There is nothing gleaned by comparing the sabres “patient approach” and the wings “more aggressive” approach: both have sucked. Neither represents a verdict on the type of chosen strategy: the league has hundreds of teams providing hundreds of examples over a hundred years of GMs moulding their teams into playoff contenders over a year or two or 3, or teams successful implementing a more patient approach. We don’t need to look at these two failed approaches.
Either strategy can work. Either strategy can fail based on the aptitude of the person implementing it. Both GMs have been bad. Trying to achieve a victory over Detroit is purely cope
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21 minutes ago, Weave said:
I think that fully falls under my final point that organizationally, nearly the entire chain is not properly equipped to fulfill the tasks that are required for winning.
I give you full credit
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How many tires can he flip?
1 minute ago, Doohickie said:That aspect sounds like Benson. Style of play not as much, but that aspect is Brierish.
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11 minutes ago, Weave said:
Given the makeup of the team, Okposo was as good a choice as any. Actually, he was a better choice than arguably anyone else on the roster, including Dahlin. KA is squarely to blame not just for the failures on ice. He is also squarely to blame for saddling Okposo with a responsibility he wasn’t well enough equipped to execute upon. There wasn’t a single player on the team that was properly equipped to do it.
Common denominator of failure in this organization. Not putting people in places where they are equipped to succeed. Gm, coach, assistants, captain, role players. All under qualified to do what was needed.
We’ve created roster environments not capable of being led
The leaders haven’t been the issue, it’s the job being asked
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13 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:
Not sure of your age. I think you're transitioning from young adulthood to very early middle age. You're a certain kind of fan at 20 and a different kind of fan at 40.
13 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:Not sure of your age. I think you're transitioning from young adulthood to very early middle age. You're a certain kind of fan at 20 and a different kind of fan at 40.
37. I mean I’d say 40 is middle middle age so I’d be early middle age currently transitioning to that. But I know what you mean because people don’t consider middle age till at least 40 so early 40s would be “early stages of being middle aged”
I dunno if that’s specifically relevant though. Maybe? That’s part of why I need the sabres to be good. You do raise a thoughtful point, I was 19 when the Sabres beat Ottawa 7-6 in OT. I’ll be at least double that when they do it again. More of my life will have been lived since
it’s..I don’t even know what it will be like. I told you, I’m worried about how all this shakes out
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1 hour ago, Brawndo said:
Ryan Johnson is most likely to be the first defensive prospect traded imo
Because he’d fetch the most? Because he’d hurt to lose the least? Somewhere in the middle, or other?
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3 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:
Granato talked about it. The players didn't do it. Either they can't do it or won't do it. If they can't do it, Adams needs to act. If they won't do it, either Adams needs to act or Lindy needs to coach it into them.
I am bating with weighted breath to see how Lindy responds to players who won't do what he says.
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2 minutes ago, seer775 said:
Does the past indicate future performance?
It does if you have the same guy at the helm.
No new owner, no new results, period. Unless somebody gets reaaaal smart.
I have an infinitude of doubt.
You don’t need to be smart you just need to be a little bit quicker of wit than the guy running from the same bruin
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Just now, seer775 said:
It's all bad man.
I understand what you mean, but personally the greatest angst comes from the fact it’s *not/hasn’t* been all bad. Not all. Even after the Eichel disaster we only missed the playoffs by a single point. The Sabres always seem to find themselves on the extremes, a league outlier. Tank better, miss the playoffs more, can’t just stop at a great prospect pool: we need to continue adding to it so it’s the best prospect pool ever… I don’t even like Adams strategy and we’d still have been in the playoffs with better GT two season ago. One small budge on Adams “Levi timeline” and we’d be in, REGARDLESS of the other bad you correctly mentioned.
But he wouldn’t do it. It was the Levi timeline, after all. We adhere to the plan or we adhere to nothing at all
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1 minute ago, seer775 said:
and then we went on to put up the longest losing streak of all time.
Can't blame the guy for wanting to leave at any point in his tenure with the Sabres.
Sabres are nothing but bad.
It doesn’t escape me that the biggest justification for why we couldn’t win with Eichel was a short Covid season where we…didn’t have Eichel
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7 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:
I think Eichel was done even prior to that; he was apparently unhappy with Botterill's handling of the roster that year and had wanted us to trade our 1st+ for Taylor Hall
I guess both agree with Eichel's anger with Botts screwing up that season royally while also thinking he's nuts wanting Taylor Hall, of all players, to throw the kitchen sink at.
So I disagree about Eichel wanting to leave because of Adams wanting to do another rebuild; I think that was final straw but not the original reason. The player we could've kept on the other hand was Sam Reinhart but I'm guessing COVID itself and/or Adams and the brain trust being unsure of Reinhart's value sans Eichel sent us down the 1 year bridge deal into a precipice.
One hypothetical I'd like to propose is that Eichel & Reinhart would still be Sabres had Botterill traded Risto and a 4th for Nik Ehlers near the start of the season which had been widely reported he balked at due to the 4th. With Ehlers our top 6 would of looked much better as well as it would of fixed our logjam on RHD thus allowing Montour and Scandella to stick around.
Agree with a lot in here but not really the semantics on Eichel - if Adams desire to rebuild was the “final straw” that means it was salvageable before that: I believe the evidence bears this out as well:
we shouldn’t forget that Jack initially rescinded the trade request when Adams briefly committed to winning: and did so WHILE PLAYING HURT
Dude was willing to put his body and career on the line during the shortened Covid year for the Buffalo Sabres. Shouldn’t be forgotten. He suited up, injured, for 21 games in 2021 because Adams said they’d commit to winning.
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13 minutes ago, Weave said:
Sounds like the makings for another 5 yr plan.
Absolutely not.
I meant what I said, and I mean it in the the macro: what the heck are we even doing here talking hockey if everything we talk about ultimately ends up bullshite: why do we talk about picks and prospects as currency if the team literally most in position to utilize said strategy in history of the league won’t do it?
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33 minutes ago, SwampD said:
Uh,oh. Have you lost you’re love for the game?
On 12/4/2023 at 11:10 AM, Thorny said:It’s starting to feel Frodo-esque. Have been carrying the burden of this “suffering” (thanks, Darcy, that choice of words really helps complete my analogy) for so long, once it’s eventually gone I’m not personally sure at this point if there truly will be any going back. The hurts are starting to go too deep.
I’m honestly worried about it. I’m worried about how this franchise makes me feel
Ah, well, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Can’t give up.
On 4/25/2024 at 2:36 PM, Thorny said:I worry about that lost magic too
Appreciation for your ROR bit aside, I’ve always been an open book on this around here and indeed look to the board for help. I definitely find my love of the sport waning and have been wondering for a long time now how much I love hockey and the damn NHL, as opposed to the memories triggered amongst the companionship found when the team was decent.
I need the Sabres to be good. I need to know what I have left
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On 5/13/2023 at 6:24 PM, Thorny said:
LMAO jets
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4 minutes ago, Brawndo said:
Ah gaddamn I almost made it to the hypothetical returns before the subscribe noti popped up. I do like the first line results in second line minutes bit (maybe someone can help me out with what I couldn’t get to)
people will look at him “only” having one year left on his deal as a bad thing (yes, I know, one year doesn’t have value as a human being. We get endless. It’s not like my entire fandom hangs on because of a solitary season in the last 20 years (2006)) but to me it’s a good thing that should facilitate a trade to a team willing to prioritize next year and worry about the rest later
it won’t be us
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12 hours ago, LGR4GM said:
No one is sleeping on him.
I can assure you I am absolutely sleeping on him
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Trade is the best route. If the Sabres aren’t the team in the spot to use future assets as currency, no team ever has been and the league isn’t worth following
1 minute ago, inkman said:Free agency is almost always the worse route. Over hyped, over paid players who usually get 100% more than they should.
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1 hour ago, Weave said:
WWSTD?
What would a serious team do?
If the list starts with:
- be healthier
..the list has already failed. You are basically typing, “if the Sabres get better luck than the average team usually does…”
Injuries are a reality. It’s like saying, “if we get a few unsustainable performances from select players, we’ll make it “. Sure. It’s not a strategy
To score more we’ll simply need a better, more well rounded roster. Some of the improvement will come internally, hopefully, but some needs to come from the outside (deal picks and prospects), and not only do the additions add on their own, they help facilitate that improvement from within
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Have the playoffs been really uninteresting or is it just me?
Actually asking
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1 hour ago, Mango said:
This is strange. He was bottom rung with the US Dev Camp. He was TERRIBLE at RPI. Rochester has been meh.
So it seems odd to phrase this as "why he chose...." He is underqualified for his last two roles now has the chance to stand behind an NHL bench. Of course he takes it. It isn't like he had to choose between being the assistant here or in Boston.Right, the tweet could have literally read
1) the cash
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20 minutes ago, dudacek said:
"Utter revisionism" on Ulmark is strong. I thought about pulling him out and rewriting that portion and decided "long already, people know the history."
Ultimately he didn't re-sign and has told the media since that after his Dad died during COVID he could have never stayed in Buffalo. You can remove him from the equation if you want, but the point about most of the better veterans being done with Buffalo still stands.
"Considerably worse hockey" simply meant this:
- 2023/24: .512
- 2020/21: .330
- 2019/20:: .493
- 2018/19: .463
- 2017/18: .378
As for the rest, arguing against the degree of the rebuild is entirely fair. Personally, I don't think a quick fix built around Eichel was going to work for reasons I've already outlined.
To the bold, the Krueger COVID year was far and away the worst year of my fandom. The 2 years previous to this one were (sadly) 2 of the 3 best since Pegula bought the team.
Ya that’s interesting, the Covid year was never that bad for me. It was short, it was weird, a bunch of teams were doing weird things, and my mind was more usually that normal occupied with things beyond sports. I also knew it didn’t represent much of a verdict on anything: like I said Jack barely played, and he was hurt for the games he did.
Of course I’m arguing against the “extent of the rebuild” because that’s the topic at hand: we can’t just call any collection of fixes to the team a “rebuild”. Obviously we needed fixes. We can debate the connotation of rebuild but the topic at hand is whether a rebuild where winning wouldn’t be expected until year 4 needed to be put in place, Adams’ specific rebuild, and my answer to that is an easy, definitive “no.”I don’t think *any* team should institute a 4/5 year plan - making the playoffs is not hard, I’ve mentioned many times I find it to entirely be a lie sold to fans. So yes I of course also think it shouldn’t be applied in our situation where the fanbase was even more starving for a playoff berth than everyone other
don’t call it a “quick fix”. Call it: fixing your team without setting aside 5 years to do it, wasting all of our time. The turnover from bad to playoffs is demonstrably significantly quicker on average than even just Adams’ term so far
Quick fix has a poor connotation that I’m not putting my post behind
Occam’s razor, please: Adams wanted the longer runway and the accompanying job security. Botterill did too “tear down to the studs”. It’s not a hot take, plenty of these guys prefer that situation
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Going in circles a bit with the vet point: I entirely disagree. Eichel and Reinhart were done because Adams wanted to rebuild, we didn’t need to rebuild cause they were done. So I do not agree the veterans point stands
.493 to .512 is 3 points. That’s not considerable. The irony is that the only considerably worse year, 17-18, was by way of this stupid “tear down to the studs and build up” mentality
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1 hour ago, Pimlach said:
I know. An his assistance coach job was based on being a player with a Cup.
He managed Harbor Center but was also Terry and Kim's boy around the business side of things.
He was assigned by the owners to help figure out what is going on within the team. There were stories about him going on a road trip with the team, even though he was not part of Hockey Operations. He basically provided Terry and Kim with his assessment of things under Krueger/Boterill.
I thought Murray and Boterill had minima qualifications, especially to take on a tank/rebuild.
In some areas Adams has been good. Analytics and drafting seem to be a strength.
Acquiring NHL level professional personnel has not been one of them. ?h/e is
This is part of why I scoff at the “Pegula is handcuffing him with spending” type stuff. Adams more less is Pegula: what qualifications did he have otherwise? He was appointed to “find out what was wrong” when (rather laughably) unqualified to do so and then charged with fixing it. His only qualification could have been utter trust from ownership and with no qualifications to inspire said trust the only thing it could have been is an agreement between the two of what they were after, Adams being lockstep with what Terry wanted: Adams put this plan in place because he believe in it. That’s up to and including the refusal to spend very much
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14 hours ago, dudacek said:
it's pretty thoroughly acknowledged that Adams went to Florida during the 18-game skid with his "plan to fix this" and Terry signed off
Even putting aside the Jack argument, at that time Ullmark, Reinhart, Montour, Ristolainen, McCabe and Hall — nearly every established vet on the team — were free agents who were not planning on re-signing.
And this was a team in the midst of an historically bad season, on the heels of 3 consecutive years of considerably worse hockey than what we just watched, with what virtually everyone seemed to agree was a toxic culture and locker room.
You can debate what form the rebuild needed to take, but I can't imagine circumstances where one was was more warranted than the Sabres in the spring of 2021 (edited)
As for the bold, I think my initial post covers my thoughts.
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Of course Adams was, at the very least, complicit in that first year and takes some of the blame. My point remains, and, if anything, your post kinda adds to it: if Adams had a rebuild plan in the summer of 2020 and was talked out of/not allowed to execute it by Pegula, Krueger, Eichel or others, and instead simply carried out someone else's plan, how much of a real GM was he?
To your ending question: I suppose we’ll never know, as apparently all Adams is next year, too, is a combination of Pegula’s budget constraints and Lindy Ruff’s reshaping of the roster
I cannot agree with much of any of the framing of your post relative to the extent of the “rebuild” we needed to undertake. What we’ve gotten is so far off the map in terms of futility that I’ve only become more certain over time an attempt to turn over into a playoff contender with immediacy was the correct course of action to take. I absolutely do not agree we needed a “rebuild” in 2021 the way you use the term. Jack and Sam didn’t need to be traded (and you utter revisionism on Ullmark need not apply. We could have signed him)
Jack was a Sabre. Adams said he wanted to rebuild. Jack said ok trade me. Team said ok we’ll give winning a shot. Team barely gave it the old college try over an anomalific 40 game COVID season and then threw their hands up on the air and said “we are inept and can’t do it, we are going back to the rebuild plan” and Eichel was gonzo behind the guise of the injury
Adams Kruger and Pegula being terrible in 2021 didn’t prove to me I wanted Adams undertaking an even longer, riskier, rebuild encompassing more of my years on this earth. Absolutely the opposite lol. 2021 didn’t prove *anything*, I cannot stress this enough. We already knew the team needed to be fixed: it did not represent any sort of evidence that a quicker fix would not have been more apropos (like how the majority of the rest of the league does it), it just illustrated that those in charge failed, and that the season was ripe with Covid related anomalies
the “long form” rebuild has failed significantly more throughly and for a much longer period of time and we are still going at it
you said it yourself: Adams views this year as a “blip”. An 82 game failure. The covid season was much less convincing. Why couldn’t that be a blip?
We know the answer, and it’s the initial instigating issue: we ALWAYS knew it - Adams bias is the long form build. It’s what he wanted when he first took over and he was always going to find a way to get it there
So no, I know we agree on the timeline to success now, that last year was a failure on expectations and the deadline for playoffs is this coming season: but I can’t agree and will never agree the plan made sense upon conception. I’ve always stuck with my opinion that it’s been a failure of execution, yes, but also conception. I hated it from “go””, I thought it was an awful idea relative to where the franchise and fanbase was (this has borne out accurate) and, again speaking for myself, the last 4 years have have been orders of magnitude beyond the previous 3 before that in terms of a horrid product to follow
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Kevyn Adams “go for it” try with Jack Eichel encompassed all of *21 games*. I think people forget this. That’s not a reasonable sample size. It’s not even a sample size. I do not believe there’s a more salient point to be made in this discussion
Also, I don’t know what you are getting at with your “3 years of considerably worse hockey.” 19-20 our total was a prorated 81 points. So, we needed to undertake a 5 year plan to get to, checks notes…84 points. What are we even doing here
KO knew very early we didn’t have it - something was missing
in The Aud Club
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Disagree.
of course it supports my point - it’s not fair to look at a 50 game output and claim it’s fairly reflective - a look at the 3 previous seasons in combination would present a far more accurate sample size PARTICULARLY because of Covid related anomalies.
Jack Eichel was apart of our talent base - trading him or not he was still an asset that wasn’t reflected due to injury in the 21 season to the extend we knew he had value to the team and we could have a) kept him and B) the trade accounts for Tuch who we didn’t have in 2021 and is a much better output than hurt for 21 games Jack