Doohickie

On the contrary, the NHL said that Meruelo will have the right to buy an expansion franchise for the Phoenix area for the next 5 years. I don't think he will get his act together and get an arena built in the next 5 years so no more NHL in Arizona for probably upwards of a decade.

Berube still has one more year on his $3.5 million per year contract with St. Lou I would expect any offer to Berube would be at least $4 million and possibly higher.

Krueger had a contract for $3.75 million annually.

My view is more practical than that: There's too much baggage here between Lindy (who still lives in Clarence I believe), the city, the franchise and Kevyn himself. Lindy was the guy who hired Kevyn into the Sabres org as an assistant coach. I think there is literally too much of a conflict of interest here. Two scenarios: Lindy gets them to the playoffs this coming season and it's a storybook ending. Or the team struggles out of the gate and Lindy needs to be let go. Everyone projects the first scenario, but if the second occurs it will crumble any thoughts that Kevyn can exercise sound judgment. If Lindy stumbles it would likely mean both Lindy and Kevyn would be done. It's one thing to pick the wrong coach. It's something else to pick the wrong coach because he's an old buddy of yours.

They keep saying the deal in CAR is "almost done" but won't be complete until after their season ends. I've seen a lot of verbal agreements fall through. Unlikely? Yes. Zero? No.

17

tbh, whenever a Goo Goo Dolls song comes on the radio I switch it immediately. Depressing emo crap.

I won't impugn Dahlin's character or work ethic, but I feel Alex is a better communicator. It's not Dahlin's fault that English is his second language, but answering the questions you can almost see him still thinking in Swedish and then trying to find English words.

If he can do with the Sabres what he did with VGK in their first year, I'm all in.

I may leave this forum and Sabres fandom if they bring Lindy back. He won't make it to Christmas and Kevyn will be out on his ass too.

His press conferences would be gold but otherwise I'm not a fan.

Yeah, I enjoyed his presser. He was on a team with a long history of success. I think he was just as sure as the rest of the Sabres that Buffalo would make the playoffs. It sounds like it was a slap in the face to him that they didn't. Watching the exit interviews and wondering which of these players will be gone in the fall. Skinner? Joki? Comrie? (okay, Comrie for sure), Olofsson? Krebs? Jost? Possibly all dead men walking. It wasn't an exit interview, but I watched Comrie's postgame from game 82. He knows he's done in Buffalo. It's kind of sad.

College hockey related, don't think a new thread is warranted. Apparently Ryan Seereiter from Orchard Park is joining the TCU hockey team here in Fort Worth... anyone in Buffalo know anything about him?

Would that have made the team play better? Honest question.

After hearing Tuch's take on Gallant, he's the one I hope we land. "I hate every team that's in the playoffs." Love that, Alex.

I think it's comparable to run versus pass in football. If you always try to carry it in, the other team defends that. To break that you dump it in and get their Dmen chasing the puck so they don't prevent zone entry. When the drop off because they're expecting the dump in, you carry it in. The two types of zone entries complement each other. If you only do one, the opposing defense will stop you. I think that's part of the reason the offense declined this year: They scored a lot on the rush last year. Opposing teams jammed up the middle to make that more difficult and the team never countered it until... late in the season where dump ins and forechecking worked. Go figure.

Nope https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolschram/2021/03/17/nhls-last-place-buffalo-sabres-fire-coach-ralph-krueger/?sh=7d6e07ce54a1

I think Kevyn picked the wrong center to jettison. Unfortunately he apparently decided when he signed Cozens that he was going to keep only two of the stud centers, and Casey, for whatever reason, was the odd man out. I don't understand the reasoning behind it other than Tage and Cozens were already locked up but Casey was on an expiring bridge contract. I've felt for at least the last season or so that you need a player like Mitts on the team- can play virtually anywhere in the Top 9 with very little drop off. When Tage got hurt late last season he took over the top line and they didn't miss a beat and even allowed Donny the luxury of bringing Tage back as a second line winger so he didn't have to step right back in at the top spot. I hope that, as some people have said, this trade wasn't in a vacuum and that Kevyn has a plan to replace Casey. But I'm not sure the team will be better off with Byram + Replacement Center than they would have been with Casey + the Dmen they had.

fify 😉

I don't really think I've "having" either of these things. I'm just trying to capture the sentiment of the forum. Overall I think everyone here feels that Donny was at his max, perhaps a little over his head, at the NHL level. There are some people here who feel the same about Kevyn, there are others who still think he's doing a good job.

This is the rub. Will he? Or is what you see all that Krebs will ever be?

So... Marty.

What is he suppose to do, put all the blame on the players and coaches and take no responsibility himself. Good leaders share in the blame and take responsibility. 🙄 The blame isn't as important as the solution. I think everyone on this forum would agree that Donny was a great guy, good at developing players, meh at game coaching at the NHL level. He had to go. The board is split as to whether Kevyn is capable of building a contending team. This has to be weighed against the pros and cons of giving Kevyn another year or two versus turning it over to someone new, which brings its own risks and may further delay the current build or event trigger a new rebuild. In simple terms, TPegs looks at progress (or lack thereof) to date, and has to figure out if Kevyn is part of the problem or part of the solution. He's given every other GM two coaching hires. Kevyn had the "penalty" of having to run the previous coach back at the beginning of his administration. Giving him one more coaching hire follows the TPegs pattern.