Marvin

Correct. I was the last game for sure and some other personnel decisions after the TDL. But before then, no one there really thought so.

Thank you for creating this thread. Question: What is the purpose of a rebuild, whether it be a tank or not? If your answer is some minor variant of, "to get better players than we have now and to have a better team in the future," then your answer is incomplete. To my mind, the tank is inextricably linked to its rebuild. IMHO, all of the following need to be considered in a rebuild, whether it be a tank or not. What do I have that is working and how do I maintain it? What players can I bring in who are unheralded but who might grow if given a chance? What veterans can I bring in to teach the young guys the ropes and are OK with that being perhaps their career's epitaph? How do I create a positive culture for the eventual fruit of the rebuild? How do I prevent the negative vibes of losing get to the team in the inevitable downturns? If there is youth on this team, how can I make sure they learn good habits and become mentors for the fruit of the rebuild? Can I identify the depth players who emerge from the rebuild and the early sages for my team? What are my back-up plans if things go awry either in the bottoming out itself or in the rebuild? How can I build an appropriate support staff for myself and the franchise (e.g.,, ANALYTICS)? In each and everyone one of these parts, which involve keeping the best of the old when possible or creating a good foundation from which to build, the Sabres did very poorly with because it was only concerned with losing as many games as possible to get his shiny new toys. (Notice how the rebuilding aspect impinges upon the tanking.) This was because the ownership was convinced somewhere to go on an all-out tank and was myopic in its goals as well while the GM was not cognizant of the other facets of a successful rebuild. The Stink of The Tank starts at the top -- and its negativity wafts down through the organisation until it contaminates everything the organisation touches. And, as I stated in another thread, XGMTM and XGMJB acted as if they were arrogant enough to believe that all their top draft picks would hit, all their trades would be wins, and all their FA signings would work out, that they did not need analytics because their evaluations were so perfect, had no back-up plan, and had no margin for error. That is a recipe for disaster -- and we have 10 years of bilge and dross to show for it. This is why I don't favour all-out tanks -- it is too easy to lose sight of the other facets of a rebuild and far too easy to stay in the mentality of a tank. If my tanking team finds chemistry and great goaltending, the answer is not to trade the goaltenders; it should be to find some pieces to help out. If my team suddenly wins 10 games in a row, but then starts to fade, the answer is not to denigrate it and do nothing; the answer includes identifying its most glaring weaknesses and trying to address them immediately. The Sabres are acting as if they were tanking before now because each GM gets a reset to mould the team properly. If you never accept losing, GMs will be less tempted to blow things up.

I have been mulling over this for much of the day when I was not working. Does it seem to you that XGMTM and XGMJB had way too much faith in his drafting ability and player evaluation skills over anything analytics would tell them? Because they sure acted as if all their draft picks would hit, all their FA signing would work, and all their trades were good.

Reminisce? You, kind sir, have a streak of toughness bordering on masochism which I do not have the machismo for.

IMHO, if you are arguing that Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart are part of the problem, then you are arguing that the team around them has had enough talent to competitive on the ice without them in the line-up and that the coaches they had were good enough to have the team competitive without Jack and Sam. I just looked at the rosters from 2015-6 to 2021. Although Bylsma, Housley, and Krueger each had flaws and blind spots which severely impacted their effectiveness as coaches, I can't think of any coach who could have made 4 functioning lines and 3 functioning pairs of defencemen from those line-ups -- even with Jack, Sam, ROR, etc.. The bottom of those rosters were just that bad. Therefore, how can I hold these problems against Eichel and Reinhart?

Do the Sabres consider two forwards instead in the top 10?

I know. I am facetiously suggesting that management is so incompetent that they would get Arizona's 1st in a trade this year.

Arizona's.

He could work on a higher line, depending on his skills. Brad May created space on Dale Hawerchuk's wing with either Randy Wood and Yuri Khmylev under Dudley -- not that he will have anyone as good as Hawerchuk to play with. Aside: I though letting Wood go before the 1994-5 season was a bad move.

From the standpoint of needing an RHD, NJ makes sense. But given where they are and Ristolainen's dislike of the rebuild, why would they do this?

I believe the quality of a draft is not measured so much how good the players are, although that matters, but how deep the perceived quality is. Even under the usual criteria, this draft is a bit odd. Because it may not be deep, it is not a big deal to have many picks. But given how little scouting has been done, there will be more good players dropping, so you are more likely to find gems later in the draft than usual.

Welcome to the board!

My worst season individually was 2002-3 because of the cloud of the bankruptcy hanging over the team. It is hard to separate this year from the last 9. (In 2011-2, the team was trying to win and was in 8th place in the last week.) Each subsequent season has the weight of all the previous ones in the background. XHCRK's this year had the worst ensemble play of any in this era except for XHCRR. IMHO, they were the worst to watch of the entire era. What amazes me is how woefully deficient the teams have been in that span. The Tank teams were largely talentless while the XGMTM's mercurial handling of excelling players laid the seeds for a toxic locker room. XHCDB had locker room cliques, no 4th line, and almost non-existent hockey sense in the defence. XHCPH inherited the cliques, had 1-2 lines of useless forwards each season, and a mediocre defence. XHCRK did less with more than any of his predecessors had except in goal -- which is a big, big deal. This is on the owners for allowing The Tank and the GMs for failing to ice adequate teams. The odd reason I have any hope for even next year if we trade The Tanker Three is that for the first time since 2012-3, the Sabres iced a roster where I thought, "all the players on the ice are NHL quality" even if we were icing 2×4th lines and lower-end defence -- and this only happened with either Linus Ullmark or Ukka Pekka-Lukkonen. But it happened. If we can get 1 "now" centre from each of the Reinhart and Eichel trade, get a couple of veteran defencemen in FA, sign two goaltenders, and pick up solid prospects who can fill in when called up now and can grow into decent NHLers, we should be OK. That is a lot of "if's", but that hardly looks unreasonable.

At least you don't confuse Sweden and Switzerland like I sometimes do.

I intended "Rasmus The First" to refer to Ristolainen because he was the first Rasmus here. Sorry for the obliqueness making things unclear.

Part of me really hopes Jack and Sam see the upside to the line-up and would like to stay when tempers cool. The other part quotes the chorus of the old Billy Joel song, "Sometime a Fantasy." Assuming the second part of me is right, how would people feel about mostly "now" pieces for Jack, Sam, and Rasmus Sr.? Jack for a good 2C, vet RHD for Dahlin, an NHL-ready middle-6 F prospect, and a high 1st. Sam for a decent 2C, vet LHD for Jokiharu, and an NHL-ready middle-6 F prospect. Rasmus the First for 4C and a solid mid-pair D prospect. That would give me 4 NHL-capable defence pairings and 5 NHL-level forward lines before we even try to add FAs or trade anyone. It pushes Bjork to 5W and Eakin to 6C on the depth chart. Add two decent goaltenders and you are built more like this year's playoff teams.

Programming Python and Linux System Administration. In IT, I don't seem to have time to read for pleasure.

My hero!

Maybe the whole "cancer" thing should be left to the experts at RPCI.

A few of the early Bond movies improved on some of the implausibility of the books. Goldfinger, in particular, is far better than the book.

No one should think this. Everyone on this board should be more aware.

Leadership is a lot easier with talent. During some crucial games, Guy Lafleur sometimes had sex during intermission.

Question: Can this team be built now with two lines of youth getting protection while veterans take the harder minutes? And can you make them so that the veterans are effective enough to allow the youth to feast on the bottoms of most rosters? This looks like a way to actually threaten the playoffs -- beat the opposition with will and depth. IMHO, it is much easier to land the other team's current #2/3C in an Eichel or Reinhart trade because he becomes an overpriced #3/4C after the trade. As the team is now, you would have Girgensons - #3C - Okposo and Skinner - #2C - Olofsson getting harder minutes while Asplund-Mittlestadt-Thompson and Ruotsalainen-Cozens-Bjork get mostly offencive starts. (I personally would try to trade excess skill for excess will, but that's my bias.) Your next 3 up would be the prospects and depth players that come in the Eichel and Reinhart packages. (This presumes none of them are as useless as Sobotka, Eakin, et al.) That seems like an eminently reasonable way of slotting the forwards next year. Then, as the youth grows up, you increase their ice time and defencive responsibilities.

Slight digression, but did anyone else catch the implication that we could be sending one of Jack and Sam to LA and the other to Anaheim? I would find that royally amusing. Pun intended.

Who on their current roster should we be looking to add? We could use a centre to insulate our youngsters and a veteran defencemen to help nurture our youth.