JohnC

The open question for me is what happens if he does have an "eye popping" camp (your words)? What I can say about Benson is that whenever I watched him, I never felt that he was a liability. Quite the contrary, although his offensive stats were not impressive, his overall play was sound. In a season of a number of disappointments, he was a decisive positive for us. I'm not arguing one way or the other about Savoie making the big club. Whether he does or not the GM still needs to add more veterans from the outside.

Is Savoie a Rochester player next year? Or does he have a chance to make the big club like Benson did with a stellar camp? Also, can he play both the wing and center positions in the NHL level?

Your vision is simply more jaundiced than mine our.

The issue isn't so much trying hard as it is being wise and smart. The accumulation of good decisions are more likely going to give you good results; and the accumulation of offsetting bad decisions are correspondingly not going to give you good results. No organization in any sport is always going to make the right decisions. However, on balance front offices that are more astute than their competitors win out. What is frustrating about the Sabres and how they have been run is that the system is designed for the less talented teams to have advantages over the more talented teams. This is primarily done through the draft and by having first preference in the waiver system. We still have been mired in the much of mediocrity. That's not acceptable. I'm not a hardened pessimist. I really believe that if our front office makes a number of good personnel decisions this offseason, this team will do well next year. I honestly don't believe that this team is far away from being a good team. The Sabres have been intermittently good. That's not good enough.

I recently watched the Bandits play on TV in a playoff game. The house was full and the fans were engaged. The Bandits won the game in overtime in a dramatic fashion. It's a shame that the hockey fanbase has been subjected to such a lengthy period of mediocre hockey. The organization has to make a concerted effort this offseason to improve the team and give the fans a realistic chance for success. I'm confident the fanbase will positively respond if the organization demonstrates that it is serious about putting out a worthy product.

I disagree that Granato's interview from a stylistic standpoint is similar to Ruff's approach in an interview. There certainly was a distinction between a Krueger interview from a Granato interview. And it shouldn't be surprising that there is a difference in style between Granato and Ruff. When I have listened to Granato there seems to be an emphasis on the learning process for players. It made a lot of sense because he was playing a lot of young players. The Sabres were in a rebuilding process and there was a commitment to it. Ruff is in a different situation in that the rebuild is more advanced with his takeover. So now there is a greater emphasis on outcome and individual accountability than before. It seems to me that the franchise is at a different point in the rebuilding process where now the focus is now more directed to the present than the future. Don't misunderstand my point. I'm not criticizing Granato in this comparison to the succeeding coach. Each coach was and is in a different situation. And how they each responded to their respective situations shouldn't be a surprise that it is different.

https://www.audacy.com/wgr550/authors/jeremy-and-joe-show Within this WGR link is a 20 min interview with Lindy Ruff on the morning show. There was nothing surprising about what he said. He talked about Tage and Cozens, and noted that he had some extensive conversations with Dahlin. He had some interesting comments about in a long season when your team doesn't have its A-game, as all teams have, it's important to grind out some points that add up over a season. There is a distinct contrast between a Granato interview with a Ruff interview. Granato often talked about the learning process for players that they have to go through. Considering the young players he had to worked with, that approach made sense. But now, for the most part, that stage of developing players has changed to being held accountable for your current play and less attention to your future play. A Ruff interview is straightforward and easy to comprehend. Plain talk and clarity.

The one thing that I am not arguing for is adding a rookie center to the roster. My preference is to add a good 3C player who adds an element of physicality. The GM also needs to upgrade the fourth line with players from the outside who are more physical and tenacious. Adding those types of players (2-3) is attainable. You make good point regarding Byram and his future contract. I would rather be in a position to have a talented defensive player and juggle contracts and players to fit that echelon of player. If Byram becomes a first or second pairing player, he will get paid like one. If one stands back and reviews our defensive group (including Ryan Johnson), a reasonable assessment is that it is a quality group. That's a dramatic upgrade from a few years ago. That's not something to complain about----it is something to celebrate. All teams with talented rosters have to make tough decisions on who to keep and who to pay. That's a byproduct of the cap system (for all pro sports). I would rather be in that position because we have an abundance of talent than have a low salary structure due to a dearth of talent.

I'm a Casey fan. But as you point out after locking in Cozens and Tage there was going to be a near future issue with cap distribution $$$ within the roster. It's difficult to get a fair assessment of Byram based on the limited games he played for the Sabres. His first few games were impressive, and then he tailed off. That shouldn't have been a surprise because he was playing a new system and with new teammates. What I can say is if the GM doesn't fill the hole of the Mitts departure, then the deal doesn't look as good. This is a let's wait and see before we can come up with a fair assessment of the trade.

The Sabres are now at a stage where players no longer should be handed roles with the hope that they develop into their role. My preference would be to keep Krebs and let him compete for whatever role he can attain. Unless he is packaged in a deal for a contributing return player, I wouldn't want to give him away for a useless middling pick. (Agreeing with you on this issue.) I have been a staunch advocate for Mitts. Hiowever, in general, I thought this was a good hockey trade for each team. What will give even more value to this deal for us is if we can acquire a good 3C to fill the void left by the Mitt departure. In the first few games that Byram played for us, I was impressed. It then seemed that he was a confused player who had trouble blending in. I'm hoping that Lindy can put Byram in a role that is conducive to his talents. This is a critical offseason for the GM. He needs to add pieces that better balances out this roster. The focus should be on a legitimate 3C and bulking up the lower lines. The GM isn't required to make a blockbuster deal for a star player that would result in stripping this team. He needs to make a number of deals that fill in the 4-5-6 spots that makes this team a tougher team to play. It's doable!

You make an excellent point about him not being an inflexible coach with a rigid system that can't be deviated from. As you point out, he adjusts the system to the players' talents and not vice versa. In an interview he noted that the players of today are not the players of yesterday. And as a coach he had to have the flexibility to the adjust to individual players.

In a disappointing season, the two biggest surprises for me were the play of UPL and Benson. Usually, young players start to falter at the end of a long and grinding season. His play never declined. There was a consistent energy and grit to his game that were impressive. I can envision him on the second line next year with Cousins and Quinn. Although he has a youthful countenance, he plays like a man.

If Lindy can get more players to follow Benson's example of having a net presence in their offensive zone, I would be very pleased.

Hopefully, under Lindy, this team will be better at winning more draws.

It's obvious (at least to me) that Ruff was the replacement coach before the declared process even started. The qualifications that were laid out prior to the so-called search favored him as a candidate. The announced criteria fit Lindy who was going to be selected right from the start. There was no need to expand the pool of candidates and extend the search because the GM and the owner knew in advance who they were going to select. In my view, the search was a charade. The person that was going to be hired before the process even began was the person who was hired. If there would have been an authentic search process, it's not inconceivable that Ruff would have ultimately been the hire. My issue isn't that Ruff was hired. My issue is that this wasn't a genuine search for the best candidate. A case can be made that after a more extensive search that he would have been the best selection at the end of the search. The reality is that there was no need to rush the process out of fear that the organization would have lost Lindy to another organization. There were no reports that any other team had an interest in him. I would have had more respect for KA if up front came out and said the owner and I discussed the issue and felt that Lindy would be the best selection for this team at this time instead of going through this charade. I wish Lindy the best. Now the onus is on the GM to make the right moves to put this new coach in a position to succeed.

As you point out, regardless who the coach is, the critical issue relates to the composition of the roster. That includes bringing in talent and better balancing the roster so it is not simply a collection of players but the proper construction of a team. It's about getting players slotted into the right roles. In my view, getting the right players to play in the lower lines is more important than addressing the top two lines. It is these lower lines that will determine whether the Sabres become a more rugged and difficult team to play. The Okposo and Olofsson spots will need to be filled. And most likely players such as Rousek, Jost, Robinson and maybe Girgs and Krebs spots will be open. That means that somewhere in the range of 4-6 positions will need to be addressed. These types of players are available at a reasonable price. It's a question of smartly using your assets to get the right type of support players on to your roster. I'm not looking for blockbuster Jack-like deals; I'm looking for judicious deals that makes this a more competitive team.

My criticism isn't the specific hiring of Lindy. He may turn out to be an excellent hire. You ask why lengthen the process? There is a simple and good answer for that: You may end up with a better candidate by waiting a little longer when other candidates could have been available. Yes, Lindy fit the criteria that the GM laid out when the hiring process was established. That doesn't mean that by waiting other candidates wouldn't also fit the desired criteria. Quite the contrary, by waiting a little longer there would have been a longer list of candidates to choose from. What's wrong with that? Why the urgency to get Ruff in the fold right now? What other franchise was knocking on his door? I'm rooting for Ruff to do well. In my mind, this hiring process was too limited and rushed. As @LGR4GM aptly stated: the organization hired the candidate that they wanted before the process was meaningfully gone through. That's not the best way to conduct business when doing a candidate search.

It wouldn't be a surprise that a decision was made on Granato before the season was over. I'm not focusing my attention on the hiring of Lindy in this process. My complaint is that there was not a meaningful process that allowed for consideration coaches who were already with other teams or teams that would shortly be available after their teams lost in the playoffs this year. The candidate list was shrunk before it needed to be. That's my main complaint. Ruff may turn out to be the right coach at the right time. It's an open issue for me. But why the rush to hire him? I doubt if any other organization was pursuing him. And if there was interest in him, I doubt that there was an imperative by any organization to get him signed so soon. The Sabre coaching search was a surprisingly truncated process. In my opinion, this was a third-rate process that seems very perplexing to me. I certainly wish Lindy well.

I'm hoping that Ruff will turn out to be the right coach at the right time. But what I can say is that this so-called "coaching search" process was amateurish and third-rate. It's very likely that the clueless owner who has already bungled this franchise was the driving force for this hire. It makes no sense to me. Not because of the end result but because it ended with a decision before a legitimate process could be activated. The extended length of Lindy's contract also makes absolutely no sense. If we were bidding for Brind'Amour, the length of contract would be understandable. But that wasn't the case here. Ruff was not a prized catch that a lot of other organizations were pursuing. The reality was no other organization was interested in this recently fired coach. Our owner has this inexplicable reflex that when stumped resort to nostalgia for a solution in this modern world of analytics. The way this hiring process has been handled goes beyond being inept. It has gotten to the point of being weird. How this hire was done makes no sense to me.

To Granato's credit, he was able to take the over the roster from Krueger and install a looser system that allowed our young players to play more freely. It's inarguable that players such as Dahlin and Tage benefited under that less restrictive system. There are different stages in developing a player and building a roster. In the learning process you have to master A, B, C before getting to X, Y, Z. There came a point that the roster under Granato couldn't make the next leap. This team was stuck in a rut and spinning its wheels. It's now time for a change. Granato believed in his learning process. We're beyond that now. We are now in the production stage.

We had the better point differential. And in my opinion, we had the better roster. What it came down to is that in a long and grinding season, this inferior team (my opinion) was the more mature and consistent team that was able to grind it out and be consistent enough to earn a playoff spot. Even after shedding players at the end of the season they more resolutely fought on through the end of season pressure period to stay in contention. The Sabres on the other hand faltered at the end of the season when they still were in a position to qualify for the playoffs. That's both a players and coaching issue. In the sports world and in the workplace in general, it's not only about talent so much as effort and production. We simply weren't consistent and mentally tough enough.

There are maybe half a dozen teams in the same strata as the Sabres are in, such as Islanders, Ottawa, Detroit, Jersey, Philly, Washington etc. The difference between making the playoffs or not for these lower playoff qualifying teams is very small. Take Washington as an example. I believe we had the better roster. And it often showed when we played them. What was the difference that got them eking into the playoffs and kept us out? Their coach was the difference in getting the most out of his players and have a system that maximized their talent. And this was accomplished even after a late season shedding of players to playoff teams. I'm not here to bash Granato. It's pointless to do so now. He was successful to a point in elevating the team he took over. And after some initial success then it floundered and couldn't make the next leap. Few people would argue against the obvious fact that additions need to be made to this roster. And few people will not deny the fact that this roster needs to be better balanced, especially in the lower lines. My point is that getting the right coach and making a few judicious roster moves can make a big difference for us next season.

I have not heard (rumor or specifically mentioned) of any player who was considered a cancer in the locker-room. With respect to the issue of players that underperformed that is another issue. The better approach is not getting rid of players who didn't pull their weight because there are a number of players who fall in that deficient category. The more important issue is getting these underperforming players to upgrade their game. Players such as Tuch, Tage and Cozens slipped in performance compared to the prior year. I wouldn't deal any of them. The issue is to get the right coach to collectively get the players to play better. There is no question that this team needs additions. The organization has the wherewithal to accomplish that without dealing off the key talent it already has on its roster. The critical need is getting the right coach who can implement the right system and hold the players more accountable than it has previously done.

I worked for the federal government in a police/security agency. So I never had to contend with the anxiety that my job would be in jeopardy. I'm just curious so you don't have to answer my question: did you sign a contract that with your employer that stipulated a length of time and company renewal option when you joined this particular company? It used to be that working in the medical profession was mostly a calling with medical decisions mostly influenced by medical considerations. Now many medical decisions are overly influenced by business factors that make it a big challenge to work in your noble and challenging field of endeavor. I wish you the best.

You make a good point that selling a fraction of the team to a minority owner would help to finance the new stadium. If you include the PSL $$$ to a small selloff of his team, much of the financing he was responsible for would be taken care of.