Thorny

Because it takes forever to make up ground building purely through prospects because A) we have such a talent gap to make up b) it takes prospects a long time c) teams get a FREE 7 PICKS EVERY YEAR. Even the *good ones*. In the painstakingly long time we take to make a small bit of progress, there’s more than enough time for teams to address their much smaller holes through the draft picks they’ve been granted. Their draft capital is “weaker” but it’s relative: they don’t have the holes to fill on the main roster we do. You can’t make up ground purely through youth before disenfranchisement sets in. You HAVE to be fluid in a team building approach. It’s shocking this gets any pushback at all but the name of the game is variety. A GM need to be agile and adaptable and combine many different avenues for team building into a competent whole its always about balance

No, he didn’t. And for the 50 billionth time: *BOTTERILL* traded more picks and prospects away Nothing a GM does sets a team back “5 years”. The turnover to competitiveness in a league half the teams make the playoffs is *demonstrably* shorter for all but the significant outliers

Adams has done enough positive things to make me think there’s a *chance* he might LEARN to be capable, after failing thus far, thus I’d prefer to give him one more year Also, the thread title got my hopes up damn you

I disagree. They should hire a coach tailored to the roster, not tailor a roster to a coach I don’t need the new coach to be Belichick, I don’t need the GM to be compelled to weigh the coach’s evaluation equally against his own. I want the GM to set the roster he wants and employ the coach that fits the roster HE assembled

Sounds reasonable

In our wanderings through the desert one of the most disheartening things is the shift over time, probably out of being utterly flabbergasted, to blaming the intangible. It’s not a logical pursuit. The more we alleviate blame from the tangible, talent based output of 23 players and their sum total in favour of ONE solitary variable and individual, who we are asking to contribute something we’d even struggle to define (make these 23 men care), the more we’ll find ourselves in circles The issue isn’t the 1, it’s the 23. It’s not even arguably close The 23 have far more of an effect on the result If you are counting on 1 to buoy the 23, you’ve ALREADY LOST

They’ll “work” on it by aging. It’s a symptom of a young team. If the aim isn’t achieving success in the now we’ll just have to wait. Buffalo didn’t just randomly draft a bunch of players with motivation issues coincidentally

Overall collection of talent Or even outright aptitude “Sabres are of course adequately talented” isn’t the free space people think it is roster construction is significantly lacking, it’s the operative reason for the record being what it is and you are what your record is. (The culture manifests itself in the construction of said roster but it doesn’t NEED to) Power just isn’t part of the issue

Very salient

Any feeling like that from me (and I can’t say it’s been infrequent of late) is personnel based. From players to management to owners. The crest endures. As a fan that’s our life preserver

That’s a good way to phrase it

I dunno how valuable the stat is but judging from the company he’s in…that’s at the very least correlation I’m signing up for

Playoffs died for me when we were a few points back and Tuch gave an interview touting that exact fact. Knew it was dead then

Granato gets it from Adams Yup

They weren’t in a playoff spot the entire second half of last year and it was never close to mathematically likely. We had a crazy stretch to keep it merely within range during the last 10 games but that’s the CLOSEST we’ve come and it required an unsustainable stretch. “this team has been reasonably close” misses the mark for me. I do agree things can change fast. We could make the playoffs next year. That’s always the most frustrating thing, in fact: making the playoffs isn’t hard. We could absolutely do it if they chose to prioritize the now

Exceptional stuff. One of the best posts I’ve ever read on this board. - - - Exactly. A key, key factor of why we are never good is we have, being unable to measure ourselves versus the rest of the league at large, resorted to relative comparisons to our own franchise: which gets you into trouble when your franchise is the worst in pro sports. “If we run it back and just get a little lucky and everything goes to plan, that “good” Buffalo output can be had!” But like you said: that total we are aspiring for, in this case “second half play” is hardly good enough and because we’ve set the goal so incredibly low, falling short even a little results in what we seem to always see: finishes in the 20s

Great stat. And definitively why “patience” need not apply. The idea merely making the playoffs requires some gargantuan process is the largest bill of goods this franchise and regime has sold

We’ve been through this a million times dude. NMCs aren’t an excuse. Yes, you are darn right from a mathematics standpoint what I said is true. The LARGE majority don’t. The pool of players we have “access” to after accounting for these clauses still provides hypothetical options for improvement 100 times over relative to the amount of ground we are trying to make up, here. The ground to mediocre. Teams have an average of about 5/6 NMCs per team last i checked. I *understand* the players we are looking for you don’t need to keep telling me. I understand a lot have NMCs. I also understand we only need a few additions. The potential pool is vast. Over 75% of players, plus nhl ready prospects/guys on ELCs aren’t affected by the NMC issue - - - As for the Eichel thing, I feel like you just disagree with me on everything I say re Eichel on principle. The statement was about Jack. Leino and Berglund were LONG gone no one was thinking about them and even ROR was dealt by a previous GM. The quote was about Jack

That’s good. You can only get more couraged from here

I still give us ~ a 20% shot

“We want players who want to be here” was a thinly veiled shot at Jack Eichel. That’s it - that was its origin. It was merely a headline. A narrative. Every team wants guys who don’t actively want to be somewhere else. This doesn’t present the Sabres with a legitimate obstacle to making the playoffs in a league where half the teams make it: we only need to achieve mediocrity. Most players don’t have a NMC. We missed by 1 point last year with THAT owner AND the “no one wants buffalo” stigma. We can absolutely make it with competence. To think otherwise would be absurd: it was one point. A competent GM can bridge that gap. If we can field a winner, if we can get competent GM work, once we finally make the playoffs we’ll actually see some real culture change. Build it and they will come. Or, least, more will come. They have to sell-out to winning in the now, because THAT’S actually the building block for more wins in the future.

Yes