SabresVet

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.

There's no way I'm letting him wear 51. Does he now know who Brian Campbell is?

No one's arguing DG is the only one or thing at fault right now. That's just a hyperbolic assertion.

Of course, everyone knows TB is more talented and this time had Kucherov. It doesn't justify their 1-10-1 home record these past 2 months with their lone win against fellow bottom-feeder Montreal. A lack of talent should never inhibit the effort a team demonstrates.

A Lightning team they demolished 5-1 earlier this season. The quibbling really needs to find an end this season. Because at some point fans should expect to see a team competing for 60 minutes each night with some more wins coming from that effort.

Doubtful. They have 15 points in their last 28 games and, all quibbling aside, that's really bad. We're talking one-third of a season and, applied to a full season is a 44 point year. No one thought they'd be in the playoffs or be at 80 points but this 2 month stretch is not a isolated event. Frankly, hearing about how they have a "plan" or "direction" is nothing different than what 31 other NHL teams have. Even taking the lack of W's out of the conversation, the Sabres are not improving as a team on the ice. They have compete issues even with the new HC and that's cause for concern. Young teams might lose because they're inexperienced, but shouldn't be flat-lining for a period like this team has.

What would be odd is the current core, albeit younger and less proven, not becoming disenchanted with repeated losing into 2022-23. If next season sees Buffalo finish outside the playoffs, guys like Dahlin will be gone when their contracts expire or they have enough leverage over the team just like the guys who left this year did. At least Adams acknowledges how they need to win back the fanbase, which is evident with each home game's attendance. And I'd expect that the GM in the sky is looking for results before year 3 of an Adams rebuild or 2023-24.

Complex problems typically have several causes, some root and others contributing. Prominent contributing are 3, 4, 5, 6 and maybe 7. I doubt 1 is a major impact to game attendance though, but could be a contributing cause. The main reason is #2...a very loyal fan base has, after 10+ years of misery under this ownership, finally stopped supporting the team in-person. Die-hards still exist, but it's the middle of the road fans, who may well being facing financial challenges, but even if not the team is not worth going to see for ticket price points. And I'd point to the 45% of the arena filled through 18 home games as evidence. In fact, this is almost half of what it was in 2019-20. https://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=5054 We can quibble about minor details, but even if there were no virus restrictions most people wouldn't go watch this team. At least with Eichel and Reinhart there were some very good or better players to see even if they lost. Now, there's no marquee players and they're still likely going to lose (they've won 2 home games in the last 2 months).

Do your own research. Reality is, you don't remove 15 out of 33 games because the goalies are/were known as underperforming. That hits to a bigger issue where the position was mismanaged and poor resulted followed. Which means, if UPL and Subban are better, there's an issue identifying talent. And, it doesn't explain why they score twice the goals in the 2nd period than the first.

What makes this game unique is how, through 33 games now, Buffalo has held the lead after the first and second periods 5 times. Three of those games occurred during the 5-1-1 start. Someone before mentioned they don't have the talent, and that's true. But the other thing is, they're getting out-scored 34-21 in the first during the season and now 28-15 since the hot start. Otherwise, in GF, they're 42-41 in the 2nd period and 27-31 in the 3rd. I'm not taking a deep dive into the analytics, but being so poor during the 1st period is cause for concern.

No one deserves luck.

I'm sure the owners would be thrilled with losing 7 home games a year. No professional sports league wants to voluntarily decrease their revenue.

Listening to the interview on GR this morning, one would think Sabres aren't all that bad. It was player health updates and talking up players like Okposo and UPL. Can't expect fire and brimstone every time, but they've lost 7 straight. I guess that doesn't warrant talking about a schedule against Winnipeg, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Colorado, and Columbus these next 2 weeks.

If wins aren't the qualitative measure of success, just create the ambiguous metric of "effort" to demonstrate improvement. Hard to say things are going well when they were 9-16-3 to finish 2020-21 and 8-15-4 to begin 2021-22. Only difference is that different players are on the team and...some holdovers are playing better (Thompson).

Adams is not apathetic about their place in the standings. His position is the epicenter for the organization, existing between ownership, coaching, while maintaining a strategic plan for how they will compete. 3-13-2 over an 18 game stretch isn't a drop in the bucket for an 82 game schedule. They clearly don't have the talent to win regularly, but I'm concerned about effort and being out of place. Those are the things that need immediate improvement and continued losing makes those issues worse. That's another reason elevating the kids from Rochester is not a solution. I wouldn't want them in this environment and unless GM-In-The-Sky Terry intercedes and forces Adams' hand, I don't see it happening to alleviate what's wrong now. It'd be a desperation move.

Amazing how opponents know where a player's "upper-body" injury is and take liberties to inflict pain there.

Not disagreeing with you. It's Adams' and Granato's team now and they're accountable for that performance. One would think having another off-season to re-shape the roster in their image would improve results. Alas, it has not...at least not yet. Teams have adapted to Buffalo's style of play, identified their weaknesses, and capitalized. It's why when homers talked up Granato as this tremendous coach, I needed to see more. How he would adapt, how the players would be put into a better position, and of course the talent they had would respond. So far, the results have been underwhelming.

It's not all on Granato, but they were 9-16-3 under him to close out last season. And 8-14-3 to begin this year.

Buffalo is dead last in home attendance and even Arizona and Ottawa easily surpass Buffalo by more than 3k per game. https://www.espn.com/nhl/attendance There's no in-season acquisition going to move the needle, so I predict one, two or all of Krebs, Peterka, and Quinn will be up at some point this season. And it may not be the GM pushing for that move.

What kind of GM signs a 40 year old goalie and doesn't hedge that bet given the age of the player? Again, as has been illustrated by other posters here, Adams' planning left a lot to be desired. 40 year olds playing pro sports typically aren't dependable options outside of golf.

Thanks for the clarification...should have said the most recent one. 😉

Terry and Kim Antoinette Pegula have only themselves to blame. Going to be a long rebuild.

Others have noted that deconstructing a roster is the easy part of a rebuild. Replacing departed veterans with youth and maintaining/inserting a veteran presence that won't interfere with those prospects playing is the challenging part. This is really year 0 of the rebuild. Some of the players thought of as the future are with the major league team and others remain in the system. They've made moderate commitments to Mittelstadt and a larger one to Dahlin, contract terms speaking. It would be nice, as is evidenced by this thread, if more effort was put into goaltending...but maybe is intentional. Either way, they're on about a 65 point pace which is near where most reasonable fans figured they'd be considering this roster.

The plan for rebuilding is not permanently fixed in place. It's safe to say that in 2 off-seasons he's not handled the goaltending situation well. KA is banking on UPL being their guy, but there's no current backup plan save for journeymen types. I also don't expect to announce the plan at all positions, but need to see some results from a guy who hasn't served in a front office before I start blindly accepting that there is a good plan. Besides, every team has a plan...and to get into the playoffs yours has to be better than your opponents. This is the common Buffalo battered fan syndrome refrain. No one wants to play here, ergo, we shouldn't expect much. Of course, with competent leadership like the Bills have you can expect to improve. Doesn't guarantee a championship, but I'm tired of this being the response when the team isn't playing well.