Pimlach

The story out of St Louis was Bots wanted Thomas. Armstrong said Thomas and prospect Kyrou were untouchable. Thompson was the offer. Bots seems to just muddle along. Nice guy, but has not shown much as a GM.

He is -1, after the first period. 1 SOG, 3 hits.

Just watched Winnipeg and St Louis. Jets took 2-0 lead in the series, but #8 is giving #1 a good fight. Scott Arneil is the Jets HC. A former Sabres player, a good player, his coaching career started as an assistant coach for the Sabres in 02-03. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=110

Watching the playoffs. Thinking about how I took this for granted for most of the Sabres first 40 years. Now I’m older, the kids are raised, grandkids coming in, and the hockey team is dead.

An executive that has actually been a leader and knows many phases of the business? Great idea!

Blues and Jets is a really hard hitting series. Lots of hard work. Another level of intensity.

First step is to see what happens to Adams, and who is actually in charge of Hockey Operations and the roster. If it is still Adams, don't expect much to change unless he forces some moves out of desperation.

EP in Buffalo is going to be a mistake. The Canucks are telling us he is not a complete player. He is Skinner but he plays center, not wing.

Drury fired Laviolette and Housley on Saturday. No word on Peca. I won't be surprised is Ruff is interested and adding Peca to his staff, assuming Ruff is around next year. Mike Weber is an Assistant coach in St Louis. He seems to be doing well but we shall see if Montgomery retains him.

Please no ...

True, you don't know. But google is your friend. Peca joined the Rangers in 2023. He was part of the Pres Trophy team and part of the losing team they had this year. There are lots of reasons for the Rangers collapsed. Peca as an assistant coach for the Rangers has no correlation to how Benson is progressing as a 19 year old NHL player. Why bring this up?

The contrast has been stark and obvious for a long time. Hope Terry can see it this time. More importantly, lets hope he does something.

Pre-Sabres I was a big Orr fan. He was amazing. No one played like that ever before. Once the Sabres came I had to switch and hate Boston. The Schoeny Zamboni Gate game, The "Thank You Sabres" game, the Flyers SC Finals Fog Batman game, the Russians - I was at them all. Cant wait until we get a NHL team back in Buffalo.

His older brother Bryan played defense for the Pens. Dennis came up with the Rangers (which is why he was a Bison), and had a ~12 year NHL career with the Seals, North Stars, Wings, and Caps. Pretty decent player, had 20 goals twice and 30 goals once. Spent a lot of time in the sin bin. I put his hockey db summary in my prior post. The fixing his hair bit was hilarious, I miss the hockey characters back in the day.

The NFL Draft is Thursday. Three days of ESPN and NFL glitz and glitter, complete with over-analysis of 4 round picks, second guesses on prime picks, and excessive media coverage. Not to mention "Draft Grades" for each of the 3 days. Terry is going to play the Football Expert with Brandon Beane and Co this week. McD and Beane will humor him in the draft room, and then do what they think is best. Unless Terry makes a move in the next day or two, the big news from him will most likely be next week.

What do you really think? Overnight trip the Roch?

Pre Sabres, my favorite hockey player as a kid was Bobby Orr. He was young looking, and fast, and no one played like him. He really had no peer back then My favorite Buffalo Bison, going back to 1967, was a guy named Dennis Hextall. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=2262 He could score and fight. Dennis would drop the gloves, win the fight, and then fix his hair while skating his way to the penalty box. Hilarious but cool. When the Sabres were born Gil immediately became my new favorite and the Bruins became the enemy, although Toronto was an even bigger enemy.

Thinking of Pegula’s past practice, he could move on from Adams and keep Lindy, and ask Lindy to help him find a POHO/GM. Unconventional, and similar to his hiring McD first, and then Beane. I think they both should be replaced but just pondering what Terry might do next. He needs someone to help him.

Great times. That Bisons team was so much fun. Coached by Freddy Shero. The Sabres marketing was flawless in the Paul Weiland era.

Officials giving Toronto every break possible. They just ruined what was looking like a good game.

You prefer any action over the slow and ineffective pace that Adams works at. I can understand that, but I stop short of giving Murray credit for anything. I think he was the wrong guy for the job and I think he blew it. Murrays tenure is marked by him usurping power from his boss (LaFonatine) and then leading a tank that stripped the club down to bare studs with no signs of any Sabres past culture or pride. He massively failed and when he was done he left the cupboards bare in term of prospects and a farm system. Murray's tenure set the franchise back to a place it still has not recovered from. That is more on Terry, either way we are still stuck in hockey hell. I understand your position but I could not rate Murray higher than even the ineffective Kevyn Adams, mainly because Murray was destructive. If Adams gets fired today I can at least say he left them in better shape that what he inherited, which was a Covid induced rebuild were he was directed to move out the teams highest paid star players and then gut and rebuild the organization. You know I am not a fan of Adams, it is clear from the past two seasons that finishing this rebuild is over his head. I just cannot ever get behind Murray. The baseball analogy is cute, but it doesn't change the fact that Murray massively failed and left the club worse off than when he started. Bottom line is Terry was there for all of it, so the blame lays at his feet.