Pimlach

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.

Ok, Both Eichel and Reinhart were probably less mature than McDavid. That may be true They both needed better people around them. But even then, they blew off the vets that we had. The Sabres did not get rid of ROR because of Eichels personality. Where did you hear that? They got rid of ROR because of Terry’s personality.

All Murray did was waste assets with big and desperate swings. He lacked an understanding of people and of team chemistry. He tanked and got two premium picks the result was a miserable losing team. His team was always fractured, on the ice annd in the FO, he created a big mess. He left Rochester in bad shape too. The bad culture that plagues this team even today is a remnant of Murray that has yet to be exercised. Tanking and drafting Reinhart and Eichel deserves ZERO credit. Anyone could do that. OReily was a good player, and even he was troubled when he got here. Bringing in Kane and Bogo was a terrible idea. Winnipeg literally dumped two selfish troublemakers onto Murray. The Jets could not wait to get rid of these two clowns fast enough. The Jets improved without them, and Buffalo went nowhere. If anyone should have known about Lehner, it would be Murray. He knew him in Ottawa and the guy was a flake even then. Murray overpaid for most of these acquisitions too. Murray was not a leader. He was not a people person. He was toxic and the entire organization became a reflection of his leadership. He did not draft Dahlin btw, he was gone before that. Because of his massive failure with the tank, and because of the long term negative effects it has had, I rate Murray as the worst GM that the Sabres ever had. He set the team back despite being given full reign on the tank. He was never hired to any position in the NHL after his failed tenure in Buffalo. He was a product of nepotism and could only be considered a massive fail. I actually prefer Adams over Murray. I prefer anybody over Murray.

Same thing as what happed with Eichel. Murray was lousy. The worst the three Pegula GMs.

Tuch has a Buffalo vibe. Fans vote, and they decide.

Adam’s was Adams. He did look shaken by then early question about changes to the FO. No wonder the defense stinks: 1. What Adams said about finding a player to pair with Power says it all. Listen to it again. Power does not need a “puck carrier all star” partner. He needs a strong, steady, smart, physical and complimentary player who can teach him defense 2. His comment on not knowing how Byram would fit proves he shot from the hip on that trade, and no plan or vision to round out a roster. Well, he got the better player in the trade, but my goodness he just said something profoundly stupid. 3. His assessment of Muel was terrible. Muel is clearly a favorite, and no way is Muel a top pair with Dahlin. Analytics show that Dahlin made all the others better, even Muel. 4. Bryson is popular, that was just a bizarre comment. Adams spends more time fiddling on the bottom 3 than establishing a good top 4. No plan. Meanwhile Lindy is saying no goalie is looking good behind the team defense, at least he knew the forwards are a part of the team defense being so poor. I’ve been critical of the center spline all season. Kulich was being developed as a wing. Lindy moved him to center, in part because he called out bothThompson and Cozens as centers during the season. Adam’s and Appert had Kulich projected at wing. No? So next year Adams could roll with Kulich and Norris at #1 and #2 centers. Good luck. Fingers crossed that Adams is moved. The Peter Principle in action.

Linky ?

And Granato. They never played an NHL system under Donnie and they never stressed two way hockey. Once they tried too do that they could not generate offense anymore. Lindy, or any coach, was going to need time and buy in to erase these habits. How many of the young stud prospects want to just have a clean shift while controlling the play in the opponents defensive zone, forcing an O-zone face off, and killing 50 seconds while protecting a lead? Uh - maybe Krebs and Kozak and who else? The mentality that that stuff is for the 4th liners is a problem. That is were a Bergeron or a Barkov on the team would help a lot. Thompson and Dahlin and Tuch need to speak up and call out the ones that cheat the game.

You start things and then cluelessly wonder why. Look back at your posts. You sarcastically said the difference between us is that I pretend to know things. I am not pretending to know what happened, everyone I said about the team happened. I don't hate Pegula either. I don’t like communicating with you. I ignore you as much as possible. I should have continued to ignore you. Let’s agree to continue that practice.

The power play is terrible. Appert is your man.

I hope they win a cup.