Curt

I’m with LGBL on this one. It really shouldn’t be Pegula’s task to make decisions on hockey coaches. He should be kept in the loop and give his opinion, but he/they need to trust Botterill to do the job they hired him for. If that’s what is happening, then that is a great look as far as I’m concerned.

Kruger is an interesting guy, but he hasn’t had any involvement in hockey in like 6 years. He is on the board of directors of an EPL football team. Would he even be interested?

We have some veterans but we are going to be incorporating youth into key positions over the next couple years. Dahlin, Mittelstadt, Thompson, Ullmark, Rodrigues, Pilut, Nylander, Olofsson, Borgen, Smith. All those guys have played in the NHL but have no more than one full season of experience and will be asked to fill even bigger roles going forward. Then there will also be Asplund, the 2019 1st and others after that. The team is actually going to get younger moving forward.

Not an endorsement, but John Stevens also fits your criteria perfectly. EDIT: Jack Capuano, Guy Boucher, Dave Tippett, Mike Yeo also

Nelson coached Edmonton for half a season, so a little NHL experience.

Quennville previously made the playoffs and won playoff rounds with Colorado and St. Louis. What’s your definition of success?

Bruce Boudreau, Alain Vigneault, Todd McLellan, Todd Nelson. I’m sure there are more. I dont want him because he has never ever coached a high level team in any league. He only coaches in short tournaments.

List of his teams’ league rankings in goals for. He was the coach of Washington way back when the knock was that they played no defense(Ovi, Semin, Green) Wild: 28th, 11th, 2nd Ducks: 18th, 10th, 2nd, 7th Caps: 19th, 1st, 3rd, 8th

I think so. Before this season he made the playoffs 19 years in row, when he was the head coach of a team for the full season. 1 in ECHL(championship), 8 in AHL (1 championship, another finals appearance), and 10 in the NHL. Not all those teams were great either. I feel supremely confident that Boudreau is at least very competent, if not excellent.

I don’t think a coach generally gets much input on such things, especially not a new one. The GM is going to pick a player who fits his vision for the team he is building. The GM is going to pick a coach who also fits his vision for the team he is building.

I wasn’t sure this was going to happen, but I felt that it probably should. The speed with which it happened tells me that the decision was made a while ago.

It’s possible, but that’s the type of stuff that a coach and GM talk about. I find it very unlikely that they were not on the same page in regard to what expectations were.

Two years ago they won 50 games and were among the best in the league. I don’t think the league has really changed since then.

If it does, then that’s silly. He was on a long goalless drought so changing it up couldn’t hurt. If he wants to sign long term, it’s not super logical to think that he would play ever single game on Eichel’s wing for the next 6+ years.

Not at all advocating losing on purpose, and wasn’t hoping for a loss tonight, but don’t agree with the bolded. Every team needs another #1 center or top line winger. More talent is better than less. I’m still going to be hoping for a lottery win.

I think maybe the take away should be that Housley probably should have broken up 53-9-23 more often to facilitate some secondary scoring.

Kane is not really having a career year, he is just about exactly where he was his other 3-4 best seasons. O’Reilly is having a career year but is playing with a lot better players than he ever did in Buffalo.

Yeah, I’m not much for fighting or a lot of the rough stuff in general, but this team does need a little more heart. ❤️

That is beautiful.

If I was Buffalo, I think I would do it, assuming Vancouver is in the top 10. Horvat is an excellent player and exactly what Buffalo needs. Hughes could be a star equal to Eichel, but is not a sure thing. This draft has depth in the lottery. I don’t think Vancouver would do it unless they are completely out of their minds’ for Hughes.

He had 5 goals and 12 points in those 19 games. The game before those 19, he had 2 points, the game after, a hat trick. That section of the season really doesn’t look like much of a slump for him, from a purely statistical standpoint.

I think he has really shown improvement in a lot of areas this season. Skating, shooting, physical play. I think the new physicality you are seeing could have a lot to do with improved skating. When players are stronger and more balanced on their skates, it’s a lot easier to deliver checks and push guys around a bit. Better skaters always just look stronger out there.

With his awesome shot and what appears to be a decent level of well rounded game, I can’t see how Olofsson doesn’t have a floor of “offensive-minded middle-6 winger who scores 15+ per season”. I feel very confident that Buffalo has a long term part of their top-9 in Olofsson, and that is a very good thing. Three cheers for GOAlofsson.

I hope we haven’t. He is such a smart player that I think he can keep finding ways to get better. Yeah, he seems like a pretty calm guy. Doesn’t get too high or too low. Dahlin seems to be like this also. You might be right about it being a good balance to Jack.

I would say that Reinhart is Buffalo’s most improved player this season.