GASabresIUFAN

Are you seeing the beginnings of a winning culture where developing players are rewarded? I’m not. Quinn and Samuelsson remain in Rochester. Eakin, Butcher and Hayden among others remain in the lineup. This roster was designed to fail and it has. We traded away or lost every valuable asset and replaced them with garbage. It’s called a tank. Which young player is new to this lineup this season that didn’t play a substantial role last year? None. Fitz, Quinn, JJP, and Murray have played some, but all have been sent down. Krebs will also be sent down soon. Samuelsson hasn’t even been given an opportunity. Hard to build a winning culture when you spend to the cap floor, fill the roster with JAGs, don’t promote the kids full time who have earned the opportunity and don’t surround the kids with the tools to succeed with like adequate goaltending. KA was also very clear about getting more assets for the organization, and like Jbot and TM before him, the tank is part of that strategy. The Sabres are 28th in win %. 28th in goals against, 28th in goal differential, and 26th in goals for. This is a terrible hockey team, and just like Eichel and Reinhart, this new batch of kids is learning to lose. Hopefully, the first change coming that Peters mentioned is that KA is booted out of the GM chair.

And what was the results of those decisions? They contained costs but created a terrible product, alienated their costumers who are no longer coming to the stadium or spending on the team. The Sabres are an NHL low in attendance at 8600 per game or 45% of capacity. This is a year over year drop of 50%. They averaged over 17000 fans last year. This is a huge drop in revenue in a league still reliant on gate receipts.

Dear Belacheat, Do you remember when your team could make an opponent punt?

Mel Brook’s Producers and no they over sold their show and then tried to make sure it flopped to avoid being profitable. No, you try to enhance margins. You can do that by limiting costs, but you have to maintain revenue. You never destroy your revenue before you sell.

You usually don’t destroy your revenue stream before selling business.

We have been saying that for a decade. Ask yourself, if the Sabres become a good team, which current D would you honestly believe will still be on the team? For me that answer is simple, the only two guys under contract for next year, Dahlin and Jokiharju.

Call it what you want, but having a roster at the cap floor, hiring goaltenders like Anderson and Dell, coupled with JAGS Subban, Hayden, Hagg, Butcher, Eakin, Bjork, and Caggiula is a tank. This is literally what Jbot did on day 1, except KA did it year 2. We were rewarded with Dahlin and still stink.

The Hamilton Sabres.

If we end up with Wright, Tank 3.0 succeeded and the organization continues to fail.

That was then this is now. Also in his second season with LV before he was traded to us his ice time diminished significantly and he was often in the pressbox because of his defensive lapses.

Yeah. We won yesterday. How did we do the 7 games before. Blind squirrel.

The better question about our D is who in the current lineup would actually get ice time on a good team and where would they play. Dahlin - would be a second pair player and PP QB Jokiharju - 3rd pairing RHD Bryson - 6 -7 Pysyk - 7th D Hagg, Butcher, and Miller - none would see ice time on a good team. Ultimately we have 2 guys who'd play for a good team. 2! I'm optimistic on Power, Samuelsson and Johnson, but think Johnson needs a minimum of one year in the A.

The truth about of D group is that they are simply bad. As a group they are terrible at handling the four check and clearing the zone. They get physically manhandled, make stupid passes and the stats reflect the issues. They give up the 4th most shots per game and are near the bottom in high danger chances allowed. If someone can find our opponents time is our zone, I’m also sure it near the bottom of the league.

The biggest issue with this list is the Tissue offers the most resistance. I was actually at the fog/bat game. The Sabres D actually was pretty good back then.

He needs to acquire current real NHL goaltending.

Name the defensive stalwart on our team? Butcher, Miller, Dahlin? What about Hagg, Jokiharju, Bryson or Pysyk? Pysyk is the best defensive D man on this roster and he is a journeyman at best and a maybe bottom pairing guy on a good team. Jokiharju is next and at best he is inconsistent. The rest range from mediocre to down right awful. It’s probable that the best defenseman in this organization is sitting in Rochester for logical reasons unknown and his name is Samuelsson. One of the reasons our goaltending stinks is that guys playing defense in front of them stink at playing defense. The solution is to move on from everyone not named Samuelsson, Dahlin and Jokiharju, add Power and find two veteran D who can actually play defense. Want Psysk back on the 3rd pair ok maybe, but a minimum of one veteran real good in zone D is a necessity. Ok, Curt?

I’ll let you know when we get a few who can actually play defense.

Hayden , Eakin, Caggiula, Bjork, Butcher, Dell, Subban, Anderson, Tokarski, and Hagg have all played for us this season. It’s talent or the lack there of. It’s called tanking and it was easily avoidable. It all starts with a GM who didn’t think quality goaltending was important. I believe this is the second season in a row we have utilized 5 or more goaltenders. Like Ullmark before him, UPL has now suffered significant injuries in three of the last 4 seasons. If KA is serious about creating a winning organization he needs to acquire good goaltending.

Your opinion seems contrary to what many have written about him over the last 2 seasons.

Based on my research prior to the draft, both were drafted one tier ahead of where they should have gone. Not huge reaches, but reaches. On the consensus board I do every year Rosen was 21st and Poltapov 40th. As I said then, I'll repeat now. I had centers ranked ahead of both guys that were still available like Svechkov (17th on my board) and Lucius (11th) (who would have been my pick) over Rosen and Pinelli (23rd) and Raty (17th) over Poltapov. That said, D+1 for most of the mid-level 1sts down to the second is a huge transition year, and isn't ultimately indicative of what they'll become.

So a McCabe or Chris Butler?

Ultimately, the question of keeping VO comes down to how does KA and the management team view the forward core group. I believe they want our top 3 centers to emerge from Mitts, Krebs, Cozens and now Thompson. Of the 4, I think Krebs ends up on the wing. Quinn, Krebs, Asplund, JJP, Tuch and Skinner are KA’s top six wingers long-term. (Skinner because we have no choice). Where does that leave VO? Now add to that the need for real goaltending and veteran D, I can see KA moving on from VO to help fill other holes.

While having 4 goalies on the injured list isn’t foreseeable, having goaltending issues was certainly was, especially when you hire two FA goalies who played a total of 10 NHL games between them last season. I said neither Anderson or Dell were NHL goaltenders any longer and that has sadly proven correct. This failure is on KA and has now derailed the development of both the Sabres and Amerks for this season and has reinforced the losing culture. This was completely avoidable. All this reinforces my opinion KA is in way over his head.

I have a copy of this as well. TM didn’t exactly follow the plan. Not sure why this conversation belongs in the Eichel trade thread.