SabresVet
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Posts posted by SabresVet
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14 hours ago, Doohickie said:
Ol' Mattie got in too many fights. Can't think straight 😛
Maybe he's looking for a job.
13 hours ago, Mango said:I will say it for the 100th time, but any hire for HC has to meet the center of a venn diagram between 1. Best candidate 2. Willing to take the job 3. Terry is willing to offer the job. And under that criteria I think Lindy is likely in the top tier of candidates available.
What I am upset about is that there seemed to be no legitimate coaching search. Granato was fired 6 days ago. It feels like Adams didn't even effing try and put together a stack of candidates. Either that or nobody wants to work here. Probably a little bit of both.I am resigned to the fact Terry goes with the limited number of people he knows in management positions and that lucking into something working out is all we've got now. The Venn Diagram thing is spot-on.
Terry doesn't know people around the league, doesn't trust anyone outside his people post-Botterill and it will always be this way.
Only hope is, Terry trusts/permits Adams and Ruff do what they need and isn't cutting them off at the knees. And that the plan in personnel is better than just going with what they've got like last season banking on improvement.
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29 minutes ago, Weave said:
To me it feels like a PR hire, not a hockey hire.
It's times like this I really don't think Adams has much power. The big decisions seem to be made by the owner behind the curtain.
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29 minutes ago, Pimlach said:
The Sabres need an experienced coach for many reasons.
They also need the results McD got. All your caveats on McDermotts accomplishments are immaterial.
Stick to the Sabres.
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2 hours ago, Pimlach said:
It was so “thin” he made the playoffs the first year, while starting a rebuild, and with Tyrod Taylor at QB.
You could easily put a positive spin on his work. He ended a 17 year drought and helped turn Buffalo into a perennial contender and a place where players want to play.
They made the playoffs despite being a -57 in point differential in 2017, one of the worst marks ever. The following season, his plan at QB fell apart 2 weeks into the season and their offense half-way through being among the worst since the '78 rules changes to favor passing. He was definitely not an out of the box type HC.
He's learned and I'm not going to belabor it any further. The Sabres, OTOH, need an experienced coach, I think most can agree, who doesn't need to learn on the job.
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15 hours ago, Pimlach said:
I sure hope not. Bring in a McDermott kind of Coach/Leader.
I know McD is not a perfect coach, and I don't need a litany of responses on his game day errors, but he did fix a bad culture and a bad perception throughout the league. That is not an easy task as we are PAINFULLY aware.
McDermott's "Trust the Process" mantra from day 1 was designed to win over a veteran locker room without having the credibility as a NFL coach. It was thin and those first two seasons were an example of what not to do. He learned on the job a lot those years, notably doing a mea culpa with some QB decisions in 2017.
The Sabres being clearly younger require more than that for a HC. Someone who is an effective motivator that puts them into a position to succeed. And the GM who is in overall control (unlike with the Bills) has to adapt to the situation.
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50 minutes ago, Mango said:
For those who keep saying "There are only 32 NHL HC jobs in the world you always take it if offered".
David Carle is saying exactly what I have in this thread, that for some coaches the right opportunity is more important than the next opportunity.
Yeah, career management is a prime consideration for professionally minded people. Fans can think what they want, but without better assurances from management to have a shot at success in this position, head coaching options will pass.
It's why I think Sean McDermott demanded much more control than TPegs was originally willing to give. But a team in a rough spot like the Bills were at the end of 2016 or the Sabres are now might mean a new HC gets some authority. Otherwise, solid options will pass by.
Maybe Terry is coming to that realization with the Sabres.
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Contracts are the key variable in these kinds of moves. DG has 2 more years, but are the assistants even into next season?
If not, I could see DG sticking and they replace the departed coaches. Wouldn't address the main issues seen this season, but that scenario playing out is not hard to envision.
Still not even confident Adams has the authority to fire the HC because it'd cost ~4M for him not to be there.
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8 minutes ago, #freejame said:
I think the issue is you and I fundamentally disagree on whether or not he is losing money on the Sabres. His asset is appreciating at a substantial clip. He can freely borrow against that asset at greater amounts than any single season loss. I would also reckon his asset increases in value by a more substantial amount than his yearly net loss.
The Sabres are a private company and are under no obligation to release finances, but there’s also a significant chance that spending an additional $5m per year would lead to more than $5m in additional revenue. Players do not collect from postseason revenue. My very much ***** back of the napkin math tells me that if the Sabres sold 18,000 playoff seats for two games at $100 per ticket (which is low), they would bring in $3.6m in revenue. You can take all of the other gains and throw them towards the expenses, I think it’s still safe to say that spending more would lead to a greater return.
You still don't understand budgeting 101 and that's OK. Not going to belabor it any further.
We all see ownership is bad and at some point post-COVID, they adopted a new fiscal plan with this franchise. One that is damaging the on-ice product and driving fans away.
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38 minutes ago, #freejame said:
No it’s like saying you bought a house in 2011. The house has increased in value over 5x over and your other assets have increased in value from $3.8B in 2014 to $6.8B in 2024. Who gives a ***** if your job cuts your salary by 20%? Nobody in that stratosphere of wealth earns money through salary anyway.
You are not a billionaire. I am not a billionaire. Money is not the same thing to us as it is Terry Pegula. This isn’t a conversation about the financials of the Buffalo Sabres anyway, its a conversation about Terry Pegula and his finances. The fact is that the franchise HAS AN UNREALIZED GAIN LARGER THAN THE GDP OF ENTIRE COUNTRIES. Buying the Buffalo Sabres has been incredibly beneficial to Terry and not at all so to the Sabres.
You want the owner to, because his net worth is in the billions, lose money on your favorite hockey team. Not going to happen no matter how many times you pound that sand.
The badly underperforming hockey team is under no obligation to lose millions of dollars a year as an olive branch to bring back fans and win more games.
We can all agree TPegs is not a good owner, is out of his element, doesn't know hockey like he thinks he does, etc. Still doesn't mean he's going to open up the check book and splurge like he did back in 2011-12.
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44 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:
You are viewing it at a micro level, that of the Sabres. Terry Pegula is not losing money here, nor will he. Also the reason the Sabres are not in the black is a direct result of the owner not selling a product ppl want to buy.
I'm sorry you don't adequately understand business, budgeting, and management so this conversation might continue.
EDIT: If you want to conclude that TPegs' decisions have negatively impacted the bottom line, that's fair and I'd agree with you.
It doesn't change that the Buffalo Sabres have a budget, they (like most teams) will not exceed that budget, and without increased revenue will continue along the path they've taken since COVID impacted the business.
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35 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:
Pegula is not losing money. Let's say for arguments sake that the Sabres are a net -10million every year in real dollars because Terrry drove the team into the ground and ppl don't want to pay him money to be bored for 2.5 hours. Terry bought the team for about 200million and can sell them tomorrow for 1billion without any fuss. That means that it would take 80 years for Terry Pegula to actually be negative on this investment. It is a straight up lie he peddles that he is losing money on the team, he isn't. The asset he acquired has almost doubled 3 times in 13 years which is easily a top 1% in terms of ROI. So sure, Terry might lose a few million because again, he ran his team into the ground and ppl won't pay to watch his trash, but overall the guy is up hundreds of millions of dollars. Never believe Pegula when he claims he "lost money", he hasn't and he won't. Sports teams are a very rare commodity.
This is like saying you bought a home in 2011 for 150k. You haven't been putting much into it, but it's doubled in value by 2024 because neighborhood sales are up.
As this occurred, you had to take a new job because the previous employer let you go in a cost-cutting move. Your new salary is 20% less than the previous job.
And you're not losing money because the value of your home is way up? Come on dude.
They're losing money because a business has a budget that outlines projected revenue and costs. And when costs exceed revenue, that's a loss. Revenue does not include potential value of the business.
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9 minutes ago, SabreFinn said:
I feel sad reading this. But it explains a lot. And it makes me think that the owner does not understand this sort off entertainment business at all. But most people here knew this I guess.
TPegs is a business guy first and foremost. When he bought the team fan sentiment was still high, the arena was in better shape, and revenue was high(er) to costs. Now, attendance has declined, the arena needs upgrades, and they're likely losing money overall. His response is to cut spending to the floor on players and keep a thinner front office while hiring/retaining a GM he knows, but is unqualified. And we continue to hear that TPegs is meddling in personnel.
For Bills fans, it's a replay of the late Ralph Wilson years. RW would spend when the team was good and profits were healthy. When that changed, spending was cut, which led to less chance the on-field result being decent. Ralph or his handlers would meddle in personnel decisions as well, allowing the bad seasons to mount. Then, when they needed coaches or GM's they couldn't hide how no one wanted to work under those conditions. And, Ralph would only hire people he knew personally which is how, in late 2009, the Bills ended up with Buddy Nix as GM.
Point to all of this is, despite what they say, owners are business people first and they're not going to lose money to chase wins.
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Another issue I have with "standing pat" is that your competition improves or regresses every season. Except, that hasn't really happened in the Eastern Conference where a 6 team core have made the playoffs 3 years running: FLA, CAR, TOR, NYR, TB, and BOS. And that's with Pittsburgh and Washington no longer Cup contenders. The top 6 teams don't look to be dropping off anytime soon either.
2023-24 was Adams' opportunity to see how this roster would respond after minor moves, but we now know it's not built well. And unless some of those teams listed above start falling off, the Sabres will be outside the post-season next year. Time to be bold and stop assuming this roster will get better AND be able to more consistently defeat those teams that repeatedly finish ahead of them in the standings.
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There has to be a sense of urgency and staying the course isn't that, particularly with so many players regressing.
I have tickets to the game tomorrow. I'm almost interested in going just to see how the fans respond at season's end.
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5 hours ago, Believer said:
Granato can be fired based on his four year record.
I would fire him on his failure as a leader.
The fact he allowed his team to go more than a game or two without acknowledging the fans after a win purely because they didn’t like the chants to replace him was a disgrace. Granato should have apologized to the fans for his team’s behavior. Period. It would have sent the right message to the fans and the players.
The lack of fire on this team is alarming for a group that's been playing together for a couple years now. Too often this season they came off as sleep-walking through games and the 0-1 starts demonstrated that.
I don't think Granato is reaching them and perhaps that's not all on the HC. He didn't craft this roster, although he had input.
Either the right guys are here and Granato's hit a wall or the Adams has built the team wrong and Granato cannot squeeze more out of them. The other possibility is Granato is not up to the task and the roster is full of unmotivated talent. Because for every strong game this year, there were 2-3 they couldn't do anything right.
Whatever the case, management is running out of time with the fans. They've delayed making major moves and I'd hate for it to take a 2024 October-December run like they did this year to put them well behind in the playoff race.
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Just now, jad1 said:
I'm going to go against the grain and say that Pegula does clean house after the season.
Both of his previous GM firings were a surprise, and before he canned Krueger, some were lining him up for an executive job. But Terry swung the ax. He's actually good at firing people. Sucks at hiring them, but excels at firing them.
As for the new COO, hopefully he's contemplating WWJD (what would Jordan do).
Botterill was fired because he refused to cut staff. Murray because he didn’t build a team aligned with his HC’s scheme. Regier because he had lots of money and still couldn’t get it done during TPegs’ early years.
Terry wouldn’t have to fire so many people if he could find better GMs. That would necessitate he admit he doesn’t know his a** from a hole in the ground about the NHL. Which would, of course, allow Buffalo to attract a qualified GM to get this team into the playoffs. I don’t think Terry has a plan if Kevyn keeps failing. Not many eager to have thay guy second-guesssing a GM or meddling in personnel.
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Funny thing is I can envision Seattle firing Hakstool if they miss the playoffs this year after being the 1st WC last year with 100 points.
You set the standard and then achieve it or else in most organizations. Not making it should never mean re-inventing the standard of performance unless a major injury or several injuries occur. As in, that they're developing, but not enough to make the playoffs after saying so to end last season.
That's what I see is creating the most heartache here. Changing the standard to meet current season performance.
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38 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:
Explanation:
No team will ever go 82-0. Yesterday they 💩 the bed like even the best teams do once in a while. Unfortunately, we're so far back thanks to our 💩 vets that we can't afford to 💩 the bed this late in the season.
Not all teams have Decembers that practically deep-six their playoff hopes. This game was closer to the pre-January norm than many want to think.
They did not respond to Detroit's pressure and that's been an ongoing issue all season:
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On 3/15/2024 at 2:04 PM, Doohickie said:
I think the whole Levi thing is that they told him if he signed he would get a shot in the NHL right off the bat. If you recall, he was finishing his junior year and if he went back for his senior year he would have been able to sign as a free agent after graduating. In order to keep him in the fold, they wanted to make sure he signed. When he came up last season he was 5-2 and looked pretty good. Coming into this season I think the brain trust felt it was worth a shot, and in the spirit of what they told Levi, to keep him on the NHL roster out of camp. When his numbers this season didn't look great and the rest of the goalie saga played out (injuries, etc.), they sent him down to get work.
It was not certain, going into this season, what his performance would be, after his strong audition last season... and they wanted to make sure they kept him in the organization.
This is a lot of circuitous logic here.
We've seen players get NHL time after their college season ended on the first year of their ELC. It's a good gesture from the team. Power stands as one of the more recent examples and Mittlestadt before him. To take Levi and play him at the end of 2022-23 is the comparison...but to the start him the following season is entirely different.
The problem with you saying in 2023 that he "was 5-2 and looked pretty good" is that teams had all season to watch tape on him and see his weaknesses. He also didn't have the workload of a starter at the end of 22-23 to show if he was physically and mentally up to be a reliable starter. Because even this "braintrust" doesn't make decisions based on a "it's worth a shot" mentality. This is the NHL and not a beer league team.
No, their development plan for Levi was to start him in Buffalo this year within the three-headed monster and hoped he became the de facto starter. The likelihood that would work is almost zero IMO, but they had no option. Their inability to find a starter meant he needed to play before he was ready.
Worse, the lack of a goalie plan has directly affected to the overall record. Buffalo needed to be in the playoffs this season and likely won't which means those young guys everyone is counting on won't get that experience to further their growth presumably in 2024-25. Much of that was because their start this season was bad.
In other words, this is very much a personnel self-inflicted wound. Good news is, UPL has made himself the starter through his play, although playing a full time starter's minutes is becoming a challenge now. But if he hadn't turned in several solid performances, they'd never have sent Levi down. He'd have kept playing and struggling and then where would they be? Playing Comrie more?
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11 hours ago, jad1 said:
The Sabres weren't trying to make three goalies work, they were trying to make one goalie, Levi, work.
Adams (and Granato) took a huge risk trying to make a 22 year old rookie their starter this season, instead of sending him to Rochester to develop.
When Levi faltered, they turned to Comrie, who was injured or sucked, depending on the day.
That forced them turn to UPL, who was shaky at best last season, but he was only 23 for most of that year. The vast majority of goalies are not ready to be NHL starters at 23. Miller, Ullmark and Hasek weren't #1 goalies until they were older than 25.
So instead of trusting UPL's development as a 24 year old, Adams and Granato went with Levi.
It was a cluster#### of a decision that will probably cost the Sabres a playoff spot this season.
A few seasons ago, Tage remained on the NHL roster when it was clear he wasn't playing well. It's not a stretch to say that happened because the O'Reilly trade looked so bad at the time.
I see Levi getting NHL PT right out of college because someone saw Reinhart excel in Florida and they looked bad in that deal. At least in the short-term.
For a franchise that preaches development, taking a goalie from the college ranks and playing him in the pros so soon has something else involved.
Point is, Pegula may not be front and center, but his micro-management is felt. Adams has probably earned a degree of trust to keep Terry's hands off personnel decisions, but he's still the owner. And he takes a lot of heat for where this franchise has been during his ownership.
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1 hour ago, Pimlach said:
You should be disappointed in yourself. It really appears that cannot take any criticism toward the Sabres organization. You don’t respect opinions that don’t align with yours.
I've believe that many sports fans have made their fan-hood so large a part of their personal identity that to criticize the team is actually received as criticizing them.
It's why, no matter what the end result, as in no playoffs for 12, 13 years that the criticism is not taken well.
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Drawing hard conclusions from an event like this is not worth much.
It's clear by now that the core they've re-signed will remain long-term, supported by a few veterans, and their conviction younger players will improve. It's a stay the course thing and that's always been the plan.
Biggest issue for me is the inconsistent effort this season. They have a void in leadership with both management and players to hammer home this is a results-based organization. I'm not seeing how they'll address that with the room of who will be there next year. They've tried using people who've grown up in the organization. They've tried importing leaders. Neither attempt has worked.
I'd hope Adams is open to replacing the HC if they go down the stretch lukewarm to finish the season. But I'm not holding my breath either.
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3 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:
What year is the 4th rounder? If, IF the Sabres were in contention next year
Stop right there.
To quote Red from Shawshank Redemption, "Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It's got no use on the other side. Better get used to that idea."
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The only hope is that coverage like this hastens the whole coaching staff being fired. Inexcusable that confusion exists on the PP like that 80% into the third full season of this rebuild.
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Lindy Ruff officially hired as Sabres HC
in The Aud Club
Posted
He's 64 this year and the average age for a NHL HC is about 55. Only 2 HC's - Torts and Bowness - are older of the teams with a permanent (as of now) HC.
I'd imagine there's a succession plan and, as others have said, a way to keep him the organization which will pave the way for someone younger.
But it doesn't have to be about that now. It's getting the team into the playoffs and an worry about who'll be HC later if it comes to that.