SabresVet

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.

With 8,500 fans in the building each night, that's 10,000+ tickets unsold per game. Over 41 home games (and I don't know if they share ticket revenue with opponents) that's more than 400,000 seats unfilled this season. At an average of $75 per, you're talking a 30M loss. If that continues into season 3 (2022-23) I can definitely see Adams being canned. It's hard for me to understand how people minimize the financial piece of this business. We know they reduced payroll in anticipation of lower revenue, but that's a lot of money for a smaller market NHL team. For the record, Buffalo is more than 3k less than the 31st ranked team for attendance: https://www.espn.com/nhl/attendance

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).

So did the owner.

You did not answer the question. Do you believe the dominant voice in re-signing Skinner to that contract was Botterill?

Adams has a lot smaller budget to use as compared to Botterill. Doesn't make one GM better than other, but context is key. Do you believe Botterill was the decisive factor in signing Skinner to that contract?

It's ironic you mentioned being saddled with Jason Botterill's roster because Adams has re-signed several of his predecessor's players including Jokiharju, Mittelstadt, and Thompson, while re-signing others like Asplund, Grigensons, and Olofsson. Adams is a clear step up from making Russ Brandon GM of the Bills from 2008-09, but he's the outcome when ownership doesn't know people and wouldn't trust them anyway. Their adventures in hiring executives prove they are clueless, and when someone doesn't work, they blame an NHL advisory council or player for their woes. Early returns do not provide a case for or against keeping Adams, but as @Thorny noted, he's an incomplete after 2 off-seasons on the job. We'll form a better picture mid-way through next season.

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.

In no world do I believe at the end of the 2019-20 season Krueger wanted to rebuild and he held most of the decision making power in this organization. He probably talked to Adams about acquiring Hall in UFA and maintaining much of the status quo. That would be good for Krueger (who wasn't here to rebuild) and satisfy Eichel. Adams obtained the lone decision maker role (Aside from GM in the Sky Terry) when Krueger was allowed to be fired. At that point, I'm confident ownership could see that the only way left was a rebuild. And here we are. It'd be one thing if this team were in proven GM hands and had made the playoffs within the past 2-3 seasons. The onus now falls on Adams, because this has been his team from the day since Ralph was fired.

I can't see Levi playing as a dependable NHL starter for 3 years. Portillo around the same time frame (beginning with the 2021-22 season). That means you're talking 2-3 seasons (2021-22, 2022-23, and perhaps 2023-24) of temporary options? I can't believe that was the plan, or that they'd put all their eggs in the UPL basket during that time. I guess they assumed Ullmark would be back on a 3 year deal and when that didn't happen...they had nothing but stopgap options.