SabresVet

Winning makes everything right. Culture is what people talk and get excited about when the team isn't winning. These tweets are a lot of symbolism and not a lot of substance.

I think of this SNL skit whenever off the wall questions are posed on a message board: ”What if it (the moon) were made of barbecue spare ribs, would you eat it then?”

Let's all be real and agree that Jack Eichel is worse than Vladimir Putin. Even though he's not starting real wars, the emotional damage he did in wanting out of Buffalo has done lasting emotional damage to many Sabres fans. They are aggrieved, angry, and lash out at the mere mention of his name. Isn't that enough to place him in front of an authoritarian on the "I hate him" list? I believe so.

When the team is paying you, there's gonna be reaches like that. I doubt most people would go full negative mode in they were in Rob's shoes.

Do you know who you're responding to?

Understood. 👍 I think this thread is ultimately dead, but will make one last point: the NHL would be a significantly lower quality league if Russians did not participate. And, if they believe the US/CAN environment is unsuitable, they'll be a lot of guys going back to the KHL. The war will end, but the ill-will toward Russian players won't anytime soon. We can do better than that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJvyvh_Ics

This is conflation. It was the US Government which initiated and led an Olympic boycott during the Summer 1980 games. The Soviets and certain Eastern Bloc nations responded for the '84 Summer Games. A government preventing its athletes from competing in a quadrennial event over a nation's going to war is nothing like individual people demanding that pro and amateur athletes be suspended or banned merely by virtue of their citizenship and heritage. And I am sensitive to Hasek being born in a former Eastern Bloc nation which notoriously cracked down on Czechoslovak's, particularly in 1968.

Good thing the Russians weren't in the NHL during the Afghanistan invasion in December '79. And good thing the mob didn't demand the Super Series stop in 1980, 1983, and 1986. Good thing no one demanded Russian NHL players were punished after invasion of Georgina in 2008 or Crimea in 2014. We're getting toward a modern version of the Committee of Public Safety.

File this one next to stopping the import of Russian vodka. A bunch of symbolism over substance. Punishing people who, only by virtue of their nationality, are apparently guilty in the mob court? It's like there's a race to see who can out outrageous the next person.

Need a lot of things to go right next season for them to sniff the playoffs. Thompson like improvement for Krebs, Quinn, Cozens, and Mittelstadt. Thompson himself taking another step. A full season of Tuch. Power playing well from the start, another 2 defensemen, and the goaltending gets resolved. That's a lot if "hopefully's." The HC still concerns me...he may be a development guy, but it's not looking good that he can match up with the league's better coaches. Perhaps that's a lack of talent, but we're gonna find out if he's the guy for the future real soon when the expectation becomes making the playoffs as opposed to developing out of a bottom of the league team.

That statement was about the difference between how some die hard fans see the team and how front office and management likely does. I suspect most fans are realistic and playing a wait and see game.

Certainly. Players say this, know it to be true, and yet coaches are fired long before a roster is overhauled. This is Adams' team now and the roster features at least 10 players he's acquired or re-signed from previous regimes. The GM would be indicting his whole rebuild shedding players before the HC. Much less problematic to take one on the chin, remove the HC (not advocating for that now) and move forward with another hire.

I doubt anyone outside the organization knows for sure. Then again, when you're drawing less than 8,700 per home game I wouldn't be optimistic. The gap between fan reality and team leadership reality has grown. What is acceptable to a core group of hardcore fans isn't translating to the fans at large nor, I have to believe, team management. The low home attendance is indicative of this, and those rebuilds you reference have worn thin whatever patience existed. I still maintain that there is nothing to quantify Buffalo has improved this season beside the general claims fans make that the younger players are better. Even if you take the W-L record out of that discussion, the defense isn't better. The goaltending has been mismanaged as it has been for years. Coaching, while an improvement from some, isn't at the level I think people expected.

Buffalo hasn't beaten a likely playoff team since January 13th at Nashville. Their wins after that are OTT, PHI, AZ, MON, and NYI. You keep expectations reasonable for a rebuild in year 1, but the consistent effort, defensive improvement, etc. isn't happening under this HC. The rebuild is regressing.

Some people need a grievance to live and things just aren't good unless there's something to be angry about. Besides, with the franchise at the lowest point in a decade plus, deflecting back to Eichel provides a convenient distraction from a bottom quartile (again) team. If a fan forms their identity around a pro sports team, they personalize the rejection of a player like Eichel for wanting to leave. It's why some can't get past that he wanted out and now plays for another team. They didn't get their pound of flesh. Sad really.

When you gonna go back to TBD to rag on fans not being fan enough?

That seems to be the standard of acceptance for Buffalo owners. Ralph Wilson wasn't the worst either...it's just that he wasn't good enough. Achieving excellence (i.e. championship caliber teams) calls for better than that standard. And that's hard to impress on people driven by the fear of losing a franchise.

45% of the arena is sold on average each home game. Attribute the decline to the virus, border, whatever, that's still a bad look and part of the reason why there should be changes after this season. They are 2-10-3 in their last 15 home games. Question to ask is, are the Sabres improving? And, if not, how much of is on goaltending and how much is coaching, scheme, talent, injuries, etc? Certainly a nuanced answer.

This is why having a deeper prospect pool is important. One player being somewhat better shouldn't make or break your franchise and, if there's any consolation to this season, it's seeing multiple young players begin contributing. I'll also insist that faster development is not necessarily better. A 20 year old on one team getting out to a fast start in their career is nice to evaluate now, but these players needs 3-5 full seasons to judge. That said, I'm liking the center depth Buffalo has built...perhaps there aren't elite players, but all seem to have scoring touch Cozens included.

No, you cherry picked the timeline to fit your narrative. I corrected it to reflect player's NHL service time beginning in Aho's case. The Sabres from 2015-16 through 2020-21 are nothing like a comparable duration with TB and Carolina. You're analogy is not...analogous. And...with Eichel...you do care enough to bash him and make it seem he had no right to hurt your feelings by demanding to leave. And you've largely excused the Sabres for being bad for so long. Eichel, et al. have left. Let's just admit the Sabres were poorly run and the inevitable departures happened as a result...unlike other franchises that eventually got good.

Comparing Buffalo to Carolina and Tampa Bay in those players' first few seasons is laughably bad. Aho was in the playoffs with a 99 point regular season (2018-19) in his 3rd NHL season. Carolina subsequently made the playoffs in 2019-20 and 2020-21. As for Stamokos, just before his 3rd season TB hired Yzerman in 2010 and the Lightning played in the Conference Finals that year. Which, by the way, was Hedman's 2nd NHL season. Contrast that with Buffalo, which recorded in Eichel's first 5 seasons, point totals of 81, 78, 62, 76, and, in the shortened 2019-20 season...68. They weren't even close to the playoffs, aside from that 2019-20 season they finished...25th overall. Point is, there was a path forward with observed success for Carolina and Tampa Bay. Yet, before that 2019-20 season, there was nothing like that in Buffalo. I'd argue that Buffalo's blood-letting of front office people in early 2020 indicated they were paring down expenses and, if I'm a player, I do not see that as a franchise going for it. It was perfectly reasonable for Eichel to seek out a trade after spending 5 years in a veritable wasteland of new HC's and GM's. And, ownership did themselves no favors hiring said HC's and GMs. Buffalo was mired in the mud going nowhere. The post-Eichel Sabres have only so long before the rebuild needs to start showing success. There are some signs, but poor on-ice performance is what those vets who wanted out could see coming. If I spent years of my career playing for a moribund team and then realized another rebuild meant 2-3 more seasons of losing...well, anyone would want out. There's only so much losing an athlete can take, particularly when the franchise lacks direction and a sense of urgency.

The Pegula's don't have 2 years worth of patience seeing ticket sales equivalent to 45% of arena capacity. Especially if they're again among the bottom quartile of the league by mid-season next year. They need to be in the conversation for a playoff spot next season.

Early returns look good on the trade, but it's waaaaay too early to evaluate final grades. Reminds me of team's draft or UFA signings getting graded as though that's the time anyone can draw a conclusion. Likelihood is this trade will be more level than the ROR deal.

They two franchises may be under the same PSE roof, but no business is going to look to one side of the house to cover another. I'm 100% confident they're viewing both teams on their own and as such, that each stands on their own financially. At the same time, the prospect of building a new Bills stadium is impacting their financial decision making with the Sabres. They can't keep losing millions as they did in 2019-20: https://subscribe.buffalonews.com/e/limit-reached-bn?returnURL=https://buffalonews.com/sports/sabres/sabres-lost-10-9-million-value-dropped-in-2020-according-to-forbes/article_9e2c7828-3a3b-11eb-b9e4-17ec3fa4b12d.html I could definitely see them selling part of the Sabres to provide some liquidity to put toward a new stadium that, despite an initial proposal, will cost them I'm guessing a couple hundred million. Especially now that 55% of the Key Bank Arena isn't selling out on average each home game.