Curt

He is a 3rd pairing guy (and maybe not a good one, as you say yourself, he may not even be useful) who the Sabres are going to pay $3M. That’s not exorbitant, but it’s certainly not cheap for the level of player that he is. The Sabres have no worries about being over the cap, so it doesn’t matter to me. My one and only point was that Butcher was not acquired because he is super cheap. He isn’t particularly cheap.

Will Butcher isn’t actually cheap though. Sabres will be paying him $3M.

No. JR sounds too informal and familiar, too friendly. It’s John Robert Eichel for me.

I’ve been using John from time to time. For me, it just really projects a level of formality that I feel appropriately reflects my feelings of distance toward him. Jack just feels too personal, too friendly. No thank you, I’ll call that man by the name on his birth certificate. Also, I’m mostly here for a fun time.

It is a negotiation, but it’s not a negotiation between Eichel’s camp and Adams. It’s a negotiation between Adams and any team that is interested in trading for Eichel. If Eichel and Adams both want the same thing, a trade, then working against each other doesn’t help anyone. There is no reason that they shouldn’t both be working towards the same thing.

“He doesn’t just make things up.” Uselessly low bar for evaluating a reporter.

🔥

I’d venture so far as to say that at least 3 of them need to be periods.... @Thorny

I’d venture so far as to say that it’s by far @Thorny’s best ever contribution to this board.

Or, most likely, the guy who wrote the tweet has no clue which surgery it will be. He is thinking 3 months (December) if artificial disk replacement, longer if it’s fusion.

Trust the process, development year, blinding light Were they talking about sabres or pitchforks?

Probably Fish had been advising Eichel that things would play out a certain way (we do x, y, z and we can get you traded in time to be ready for next season), and after that meeting it was crystal clear to Eichel that things were not going at all according to Fish’s plan. It wasn’t working so he made a change to someone with more pull. I think think that this type of reason is much more likely than something “happening” at the meeting that was a fireable offense.

Where I disagree is with the idea that the original plan was to run with a bare bones operation indefinitely, then quickly changed plans a few months later. I believe that from the start they intended to fill out the hockey ops department again, but with a different structure. Proof in point, from the day he was hired, Adams spoke of a new philosophy and looking to add people who fit that vision. Your characterization seems to be that the Pegulas flip flopped often on how to structure their hockey ops. I’d argue that they kept the same basic structure/philosophies for many years, and now made a large change this one time.

That’s not how it works, not really. The league doesn’t control the team and let Pegula own it. Pegula owns the team and controls 1/32nd of the league. The team owners own the league, not the other way around.

Yeah, that’s what I said. As a general statement, the Pegulas have done bad, because the results have been bad. However, that doesn’t automatically mean that every single thing the Sabres organization has done over the past 10 years has been bad. We were discussing one very specific thing (reorganization of the hockey ops over the past year), and when I try to engage on the topic, instead of addressing what I actually say, you shift the discussion sideways. It’s fine if you don’t want to discuss an certain topic, but this is something that it seems you habitually do when anyone brings up counterpoints to what you are saying; Ignoring what they say and just shifting the conversation sideways without addressing any of their points. 🤷‍♂️

I think that the Sabres scouting department was relatively stable for quite some time. Of course the couple times that GMs changed, the department heads changed, but it’s not as if they were constantly churning through scouts. This big restructuring of the hockey ops was a one time thing, not something that they have repeatedly been doing. To say that the on ice results of scouting and player development changes were disastrous after one year doesn’t carry any water for me. These changes would not have much effect on the players on the ice and already under contract. They results of these changes will take quite some time to manifest themselves. Im not convinced that the main point of the changes was to save money short term. I think it was meant to be an actual restructuring, not just a cost cutting exercise. The Pegulas performance has been absolutely terrible, but I save my criticism for valid areas. I won’t fault them for making changes to things that haven’t been working by restructuring and trying to do things a different way.

Bolded #1 - we don’t know yet Bolded #2 - it was 12 games Overall response - Did Buffalo actually save any money by firing all those people? I’m not so sure. Some of them were under contracts that still needed to be paid out.

It would be pretty ballsy of someone to put that forth in a meeting with Fish sitting right there.

I believe there is a formal medical dispute arbitration process defined in the CBA. We have heard nothing of Eichel actually filing for this arbitration.

Money going to the Orchard Park area is infinitely more local than money going to Hamilton Ontario. For me this directly ties into the issue of pro sports teams and publicly finding their arenas. The Buffalo area public pays to build these arenas to get/keep these teams. The payoff is the tourist dollars they attract. So for me, for the Sabres to pull their largest event of the year out of their home city, it’s just not right. Its ok if you aren’t very bothered by this.

You are completely missing my point. It does not relate to Sabres fan interest or normal home game attendance. Attendance is one thing. Although I feel very confident that an outdoor game vs Toronto would surely sell out. What about all of the tourist income for the area businesses? An outdoor game attracts a lot of extra people (fans, media, workers, tv production) compared to a normal game. People who would be patrons of surrounding businesses. Those tourist $ should be pumped back into the community, not shipped out of town to Hamilton. That is my point.

What about the effect on the city of Buffalo? They support the Sabres financially, I don’t think it’s right that they miss out on the benefit of everything that comes with a big outdoor game event.

Could this game not have been held in Buffalo? Yeah, giving away a home game sucks from the Sabres-centric perspective, but there is something that I think is way more important here. Buffalo contributes tax money to build professional sports arenas. Then that team goes and hosts a major event in another city? All the businesses of Buffalo who would have benefited from the major event that is an outdoor game deserve much better.

This is extremely common for top offensive players. They hit their point total peak in their early 20’s, and then maintain a high level of play but the point totals decrease a bit as they start playing a more complete 200 ft game.

It certainly is a valuable add to a trade. Whether it’s terrible or not would depend upon the trade return I would think.