JohnC

Think young and move forward. 🙂

Good examples. Nostalgia isn't a solution. It is a feeble reaching back in time in the improbable hope to move forward. It not only doesn't work but the bang for the buck is never a bargain.

Your comment sounds the same when the organization brought in Staal, and before that Simmons. Whatever leadership traits you are enamored with that Foligno possess are the same traits that Okposo has. I'm not against adding a player like Foligno but I'm not going to give him a contract that he will want.

At first I thought that the Joki and Dahlin pairing was an odd mix and that it wouldn't work well. Surprisingly, it liberated Dahlin who is playing with confidence and expanding his game and it has seemed to stabilize and uplift Joki who was struggling. Why not keep this pairing together?

Regardless of the record the caliber of play has gone up after the coaching change. And it should be factored in that the upgrade in play was done with limited practice time. Nearly every player is performing better after the staffing change. And this upgrade is being done while in the midst of a youth movement. As the season advanced under Krueger I no longer had any expectation for this boring team. I also with a great deal of relief tuned out. Now my expectations have been elevated and the games are more enjoyable to watch without even considering what the outcome is.

I understand the hesitancy about Granato being named as the HC. I attribute much of the skepticism because he isn't one of the familiar names associated with the yearly musical chair shuffling of coaches. One of the questions directed to any candidate for the position is how is he going to maximize the talents of the players on the roster he will be handed? As an interim coach every player that he coached in his abbreviated stint has improved after taking over, some dramatically. Dahlin is an example of that. The roster that any new coach will be taking over will have a lot of young players. How will they respond to him? In my opinion the young players he has entrusted with playing time has rewarded that trust by steadily getting better. The near term success of this franchise is predicated on our young players developing to their potential at the fastest rate possible. He has already demonstrated an uncanny ability to work with young players. Another good trait that is evident about him is that he is willing to make changes in order to adjust to something that is not working. That's a different approach that the more rigid system coach that we had. I also like the way he has put together lines and the defensive pairings. He understands what he has and understands how to smartly put the pieces together. Maybe in a few years when this roster is more mature he might not be the most suitable coach. But for this roster, even with some alterations, he has proven to me that he is the right person at the right time for the job.

The defenseman was Jacob Trouba who requested a trade because his fiance was going to medical school. https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/27476743/her-career-important-my-career-how-jacob-trouba-kelly-tyson-balance-their-ambitions

As you starkly demonstrated with your list perceptions can quickly change. Putting players into a position that accentuates their assets instead of pigeonholing players into an archaic system that suffocates their talents has a liberating effect. Coaching matters!

This is just my opinion and it is not an argument that you are wrong. I see Reinhart rejoining Jack to form our first line. The issue then becomes who will be the other winger? I think it will be Skinner but can't say for sure. I strongly believe that putting Skinner on the first line with those two players will put him in a position to succeed and to a large extent return him to form. That would be such a major bonus. And with Jack back on the PP this unit will regain its potency that it seems to have lost without him. Mitts and Cozens will probably be the centers for the second and third lines. With Jack as the #1 C we have a strong middle group. I expect Cozens to make a leap forward next year.

Usually yes but not necessarily always depending on the situation. All you can do is look at your roster and assess it. Then address your needs as best as you can. Sometimes the fix is a temporary fix and sometimes it is a more substantive long-term fix. The challenge and balancing act is what do you have to give up to remedy a deficiency. For a team like the Sabres that is rebuilding and have a lot of young players I would rather go through the trials and tribulations of playing youngsters who have the potential to get better than bring in players with little upside. In the short term a steady veteran brought in will be more effective than an inconsistent young player. But in the long run you are better off playing the younger player. A case in point is the defensive unit that played last night. That group probably was the youngest unit in the league. In their play you can intermittently see very good play and then glaring mistakes that end up with the puck in the net. My point is there are considerations associated with where you are in your rebuilding process that determine how you address your needs. Sorry for the long winded response but other than bringing in help to buttress the goalie position I would rather mostly stay within our system for players and ride with them.

Krueger did have a plan but it was an outdated plan for today's NHL. In a sense he was an ideologue who was too stubborn to deviate from his hockey world view. Not being able to adapt and adjust to a situation is not a sign of strength----it is a display of weakness.

If the front office stands pat with the roster with the exception of addressing the critical goaltending need I will consider it a successful offseason. It would be a mistake to rush UPL. He needs extensive playing time in Rochester to continue with his development. And if Skinner can regain his scoring form to a degree I would consider it comparable to adding a quality free agent. There are a lot of "ifs" in my comments but most of the pieces are already here. Granato is doing his best to put Skinner in a position to succeed and get production out of him. In comparison, Krueger did his best to bury the player and make him vanish. Krueger created a mess while Granato is doing his best to clean it up.

Absolutely not! If Dahlin is playing well whatever the circumstances for this season then he is playing well and exhibiting what he is capable of in the future. Are you not going to credit Mitts, Thompson or Cozens for exponentially stepping up their games (especially under Granato) because it was done under a lost cause season? When you exhibit talent you are showing that you have talent. That certainly is a reason for optimism for these young players (and others---most notably the young defensemen) rather than being uncertain about their prospects.

Did one of the loyalists run you over and speed away when you fell off the wagon? Being targeted I'm sure you are well aware that hit and run drivers have no compassion. ☠️

My sense is that the direction has been established, and it revolves around developing one's own players instead of bringing in high cost players (As you noted.) Our blue line has a lot of young players who should grow and get better together. It's notable that the Mitts/Thompson/Asplund line played together in Rochester and now seem to play as a cohesive and productive line. Getting three recent AHL players to demonstrate that they can capably play in the NHL in one year is a success story. Then next test is how much better can they get? I'm not going to make a declarative proclamation about how good this group will become because that would be foolish. If as a Sabre fan you are not cautious about over-evaluating the roster then this organization's inglorious recent history has taught you nothing. As @Thornyand many others have repeatedly stated getting a quality tandem at goal will more than anything accelerate the upswing of this low swinging franchise. And the return to form for Jack should be a positive factor. Put me in the cautiously optimistic column. For those in the highly skeptical column my response is I understand where you are coming from.

If you add Jack with the continued progression of our young players this is a mid-tier team. Or another way to look at it is that it has moved from the bottom tier to the the mid-level. That is not an insignificant move forward. Most of us agree that getting solid to good goaltending on a consistent basis is the key to being a solid team. Is Ullmark a #1 goalie (assuming he is re-signed)? I consider him capable of being a mid-level #1. Is he durable enough to count on for the long-haul? I'm not sure. Respectfully, I see things differently than you do. I understand why you have come to your position but my assessment is simply different. C'est la vie.

If that's the length of term you are willing to sign him for then he will be playing somewhere else. There are no guarantees about the level of play for most players but what is encouraging about Ullmark is that he has steadily gotten better. The goalie position is tough to evaluate. One year a goalie looks like a Vezina caliber of goalie, and the next year the player can play like a beer league bum.

I have a different perspective on this team than you do. It's very unlikely that bottom feeding teams make great leaps forward to move into the ranks of the top tier. That's not how it is done. The fairer way to assess a rebuilding team is to determine if the team is moving from the early stage of a rebuild that starts you off at the bottom of the rankings to the next stage of a rebuild that moves you up the ranks closer to the middle. I don't want to be cavalier and overstate our progress but I do believe that right now with better handling we should be in the middle of the pack with the Flyers and Rangers. What is encouraging is that (it appears to me) that the Sabres have a larger core of emerging young players than most teams, including a number of the top tier teams that you mentioned. It's a process with little steps moving forward one step at a time.

I know what you are saying and I'm not trying to distort what your point is. It makes sense. But for those who give the Rex comparison the reality is that the owner hired a known failed huckster in the league because he was more interested in getting attention for his nondescript franchise instead of doing what was required to rebuild a middling franchise. He tried to take the short cut and PR route instead of the more substantive route. What Pegula has learned with the McDermott hire is that substance trumps obnoxious style. The Rex hire was not simply a bad hire it was always a weird hire. When all is said and done the loud coach outhustled the befuddled owner and ended up pocketing a lot of money for his short and indistinguishable stint. If the owner wants to blame anyone for that setback he needs to look in the mirror. To his credit he corrected his own mistake and the rest is history.

I'm not looking at individual games to support or not support my position on Granato. What is evident to me from an overview standpoint is that he took a roster that was grossly underachieving and whose confidence was lost and in short order changed that negative dynamic. There isn't a player on this roster that isn't playing better under him than under Krueger. Without much practice time he has altered the style of play and he has instilled confidence in a demoralized team he took over. In my view he has earned a new contract to be the next HC.

Coach McDermott was not inexperienced. He had extensive experience in the league in a variety of roles before being hired as a HC. He was a student of the game and was prepared to be a HC when he was hired. A number of teams were interested in him as a candidate for a HCing position. The same scenario applies to Granato. He has had a long and varied history in hockey in all segments of the business both in the pro and amateur ranks. And as an interim coach he has quickly demonstrated that he knows how to take an underachieving roster and a dispirited team and in short order dramatically turn things around. If you consider this interim stint as part of the interview process he has aced the test.

I'm not, and I'm sure Wawrow is not, arguing to keep on failed staff. I have nothing but harsh criticism for the owner tolerating such a long non-winning streak under Krueger. That's on the owners! What was worse than the ignominious streak was the way the individual players played. They played as if they were confused and were afraid. Wawrow and others arguing for more stability isn't a rigid argument to accept grotesque failure. As you observed there is a positive that came out of this disastrous season: young players getting an opportunity to play. But the benefit is not simply playing them for the sake of playing them as it is putting them in situations and playing them with players that they are best matched with. Having an asset is one thing but what is more important is smartly utilizing the asset. That's what Granato does well and that is why I am an advocate in keeping him as a coach.

John Wawrow has been consistent in his opinion that the constant tumult within the organization with staff changes is one of the primary causes for this failed franchise. Instability has been the hallmark of the Pegula regime. Zigzagging instead of going in a straight direction is not the best route to take toward your destination.

The next coach will be expected to work well with a young roster. We already have that. The next coach will be expected to be able to match the players with the upbeat style of play that is more entertaining. We already have that. The next coach will be expected to put players in the best position to succeed. We already have that. The next coach will be be expected to hold players accountable. We already have that. When you have the ingredients at home to make meal you don't have to go outside to the store.

You have weaved together an interesting conspiracy theory. The problem with it is that it is not true, especially as it applies to Botterill. The former GM would be still on the job if he accepted the owners' request to downsize the hockey operation to save money. The owners had a number of conversations with Botts to go along with their austerity program. He made it clear that he would not be on board with their reorganization. So he left. Did he leave on his own accord or was he fired? It doesn't matter how that conclusion is interpreted. It didn't take long for history to show that Botterill was right and the owners were wrong with their attempt to refashion the organization. Now what is being done is to restore what they took apart. When you take one step forward and two back you end up falling behind.