RochesterExpat

The season isn’t even over. That’s the kind of change that should be done in the offseason.

I’m just glad GMKA hired him in April instead of May/June so this forum can fully utilize the extra time to debate the logic of it in a friendly and enjoyable manner.

I’m strangely indifferent about this hire. He wasn’t in my top 3, but he wasn’t at the bottom of my list either. Jeff Skinner is really about to hate hockey though.

Weren’t the Sabres at like a 75 point pace when he signed and the Wings were in a playoff spot? It’s weird to try and argue he made a poor choice when you have the benefit of hindsight. At the time he signed, Buffalo was nowhere close to Detroit. I don’t think we’d even won consecutive games yet. I can’t fault him at all for looking at Buffalo and turning us down for a better opportunity.

The failure to promote Peca internally is one of the biggest “little” failures of this organization recently. For what it’s worth, Gallant was my choice for coach when DG was hired as the full-time HC. He is still my choice today. I’m not against Lindy and I don’t see Rod “the Bod” Brind-mi-amor as available. Gallant and Peca behind the bench would be my dream scenario. Gallant gets his run and then the reigns get passed to Peca eventually once Gallant leaves.

Quoting myself to post (what I hope) is an answer.

I really hope Mike Bales is not going anywhere. I realize he's not mentioned, but he came here in 2019-2020 so this would be his fifth season. Considering the normal contract length is 3 years to bring someone in--and it seems that Pegula likes two year extensions--his contract could be up after this season. Of all the assistant coaches, he's been the one I have the least complaints with. That's in spite of the fact I've got a lot of complaints about how goaltending has been handled since he's been here.

Are they both on expiring contracts? It's not public, but if you look at dates joined, it's entirely plausible.

Alternatively, Adams finally got Pegula's approval. I really want to know the actual dynamic between the two.

Did they fire the wrong Matt? Also, happy to have been wrong about this one.

I didn’t go this year and I’m quite happy with the decision considering ticket prices. The crazy bit for me is my parents didn’t even go after moving here this year—making this the first season they haven’t attended a single game since before Ryan Miller was drafted (excluding the COVID season). I know my mom dropped her season ticket package after 2020-21 and she has been pretty vocal about not liking the team, but it still blew my mind when my mom said they weren’t going because it wasn’t worth it.

Consistency is the key to success.

Everyone here complaining about Pegula and he’s not even the worst owner of a sports franchise I’m a fan of. Sabres fans, behold your future: https://triblive.com/sports/mark-madden-pirates-could-try-to-be-a-real-baseball-team-but-they-dont-have-to/ “Well, the Pirates have been hard to watch for a long time. They haven’t won a playoff series since 1979 and have had four winning seasons since 1992. They dismantled a 98-win team following the 2015 season in the name of financial gain. (That’s the definition of a despicable betrayal.) But the Pirates never disappoint because they always disappoint. Some fans actually defend owner Bob Nutting’s thrift. Nutting’s greatest trick is making customers care about his money like it’s their money even as he takes their money and makes it his money. It’s an amazing phenomenon.”

To your point: Robinson replaced Jost as the 13th forward and I’m fine with that.

Because so few fans care about the franchise anymore. A decade of incompetence will do that.

This is an NHL network game that’s not on TNT or anything, right?

I just put this game on. Guess I’ll go back to chores.

There’s this Sam Reinhart fella I’ve been hearing a lot about who will be a UFA this off-season…

Survivable? Yes. Easily? Not at 2am when the response time is affected, it’s dark out, and your actual location is unknown.

I don’t understand how any reasonable person acting in good faith can suggest we shouldn’t expect more after 4 years. They have both failed at their jobs. That being said, GMKA should get one more season and I fully expect he will since I don’t see Pegula firing the GM that’s been a good ol’ yes man since hiring. And, for that matter, I don’t see Pegula forcing GMKA’s hand to fire DG either. I should add I don’t hate GMKA or anything. I just won’t ignore that he’s responsible for building a winning roster at the end of the season and the reality is that GMKA is too much of an optimist and needs some kind of Yin to his Yang (believing too much in analytics and young unproven players, etc). He has certainly improved since he came in (Byram is not “unproven” despite his age and he finally waived Comrie to force the starter spot), but the Sabres have also been hurt by his inexperienced optimism. Case in point: leaning on Levi this season to be a 1A. I got flamed in September for suggesting the only way Buffalo made the playoffs this season was if Levi won the Calder. Of course, I’m sure the same fountain of optimism fans will now flame me for questioning his goaltending genius since he turned UPL into a starter. They’ll just ignore an entire half of a season to justify it in the process—much like they’ll ignore a decade of incompetence to suggest people who are upset with the franchise are somehow not real fans. GMKA could use a president of hockey ops or similar to counterbalance his optimistic nature and someone with experience he can lean on. It’s also the only move I could see Pegula making even if I personally don’t like the concept of yet another voice in the room. I think GMKA has potential to be a good GM, but he needs some kind of mentoring and I don’t want to wait for him to develop at the expense of the franchise. As for DG, he should be let go, but I don’t expect it to happen. At the very minimum, the assistants need to be shown the door. I really think the team would be a playoff team this season if we simply promoted Mike Weber and Michael Peca to Buffalo and didn’t have Marty Wilford, Matt Ellis and Jason Christie sitting on the benches. The only assistant to keep is Mike Bales. I guess that’s the fantasy land I’d like to see. If DG stays, Mike Weber, Michael Peca, and Mike Bales are the assistants and they just go and find a fourth Mike with real experience winning at the NHL level. Then we see how the team looks at the start of next season and if the team has a slow start, fire DG and give Peca the interim coaching gig to see how he handles it.

I want to add some background to this because I was curious why it was so high since--on the face--it suggest that >90% of NFL players have CTE. That seems incredibly unlikely. There's selection bias in the sample which creates the illusion it's over 90% when it's realistically unlikely to be close to that number. The 376 players were autopsied specifically to look for signs of CTE. While 376 is by no means a small number of players, it's only five more players than in the NFL Hall of Fame. So the sample size is relatively small. Among athletes under 30 who passed away and their brains were donated to science, the prevalence was 41%. While that's high, we're once again facing massive confirmation bias. It was only athletes who passed away under the age of 30. It was only athletes whose families donated their brain tissue. I realize this may sound callous, but there is a potential economic incentive to donate brain tissue if you suspect CTE as there will be lawsuits over this in the future. Ultimately, this taints the sample. The most comprehensive population study in the US which examined all brain tissue and then later went to confirm athletic participation found 9% of former athletes having "CTE pathology" vs 3.3% for non-athletes exhibiting the same. The highest incidence (15%) was found in football players, particularly those who played after high school. Not to diminish the inherent dangers of CTE, but it's probably worth the above context. It's not the best quote as it's misleading because the data is not representative of the body as a whole. If we accept the incidence rate is 9% for athletes (and almost certainly higher for professionals due to longer careers), that's still millions of people affected above the population baseline of 3.3%. That's a huge societal problem and reducing risk factors needs a focus. Ideally, we find a means of diagnosing CTE that doesn't require a brain autopsy. I think that would be a massively beneficial step forward.

I didn’t realize people were seriously thinking Byram is better than Dahlin.

I found it funny. We’re all experts here. Personally, I’m such an expert I’m still patiently waiting for Asplund to win a Selke as I predicted two(?) years ago.

I hate the fact a part of me still getting my hopes up for the playoffs.

I really want Robinson back next season as the 13th guy. As a slot-in guy to play 10 minutes a night, I’m quite happy with him.