JohnRobertEichel

This off-season, I think we all need to have a serious discussion on SabreSpace regarding the idea of removing the "C" from Eichel and/or trading Eichel. This team flat out quit this season and hasn't exactly impressed the previous two. That's a very bad look for the team captain. Eichel is not even close to a can't-trade talent. He's a very solid 1st line center and an All-Star, but not a generational talent as he was sold to us and not a natural leader of men. His trade return would be enormous and would be an excellent starting point for a proper rebuild by JBots or whoever the new GM becomes.

What about the optics of keeping Housley?!

Fundamentally, we are playing like the worst team in the league - despite a talent level closer to the middle of thte pack - because of a total lack of leadership. This lack of leadership is apparent in 3 forms: 1. Coaches aren't holding players accountable. Specifically: Housley. 2. Older veterans aren't creating a positive, resilient locker room atmosphere. Specifically: Okposo, Bogosian, Hutton, Sobotka. 3. Young core doesn't know how to properly work hard and maintain focus at the pro level. Specifically: Eichel, Reinhart, Ristolainen. Fixing 1 is relatively easy and obvious. Fixing 2 will require some ingenuity on JBot's part, but still doable. Fixing 3 is very, very troubling indeed.

Scoring a goal seems like such a herculean task right now, let alone winning a game...let alone winning a game in regulation...let alone winning two games in a row. While I'm still going to cheer for a win, it's probably for the best that they just lose the last 4 so that there is absolutely no possible way Housley stays. I can't believe we'll be drafting in the top-8 for the 7th straight season! This has got to be the lowest point in franchise history, even lower than the 2002-03 Rigas scandal era when we at least had the hope that Bettman and the NHL would do everything they could to find us an owner and keep the franchise afloat. Right now, I genuinely have no hope for the Sabres during this Jack Eichel captaincy era.

Who's the one clown that hopes Sobotka is on the roster next season?! At the very least (not getting into the coaching staff and the prospects and the young core at the moment), every player on the roster over the age of 27 needs to go: Sobotka, Pominville, Moulson, Tennyson, Hunwick, Scandella, Bogosian, Okposo, Hutton. Every single one of these losers ranges from below average to atrocious on the ice. But perhaps even worse, none of them provides the veteran leadership this roster sorely needs to lift the younger players out from this locker room miasma. Most of you want Bogosian and Hutton back?! WTF?!

Both incorrect and misleading. Incorrect in that 9 Sabres draft picks have played in the NHL since the 2014 draft (Reinhart, Lemieux, Olofsson, Eichel, Guhle, Borgen, Nylander, Mittelstadt, Dahlin) and only 6 from the 2013 draft (Ristolainen, Zadorov, Compher, Bailey, Baptiste, Malone). Misleading for several reasons: the 2013 draft had an unusually high number of draft picks at 11, drafts from the previous 2-3 years can't realistically be expected to have the same NHL presence as one from 2013, the number of players who played in the NHL isn't a good measure of actual impact at the pro level, and highlighting the 2013 draft while omitting all of Regier's many other ATROCIOUS drafts only mitigates his role in the franchise's current quagmire.

How about YOU give ME $50 plus pay for my Uber, my dinner, my beer, my escort after the game, plus an additional $0.50 for the time wasted reading your post and typing this response...because that's the price of my time I'd be willing to waste on these ***** losers.

5 of the remaining 8 games on the schedule are against 3 of the worst 4 teams in the NHL. If this 58 points-per-season losing pace since late November continues through the next couple weeks, how do you NOT fire Housley?!

Ah, I see. Cap purgatory. Yes, this will be next season's excuse for JBot's incompetence. By cap purgatory, I assume you're referring to Bogo, Scandella, Sobotka, and Okposo. It should first be noted that Scandella and Sobotka are JBot's guys. Since Bogo and Scandella are serviceable vets on 1-year deals, they can still be traded for some sort of minimal return. That's over $9 million saved right there....Skinner's new contract. That still leaves the Sabres with over $28 million to pay any of Rodrigues, Girgensons, Larsson, and McCabe plus make improvements to this season's roster. So I'm not really seeing the cap purgatory here... the Sabres need to make the playoff in 2020 or JBot's job security should be in question.

In many ways, Risto epitomizes this latest and absolutely worst era in Buffalo Sabres history. He's been around for 6 seasons now. He has the mind-boggling worst plus/minus stat in the NHL since 2013 and is well on pace to blow by Bob Stewart's career-worst -260. He's too stupid to tie his own shoelaces (let alone master Housley's defense), so he never learns from his mistakes and never progresses. I've reached the point where I'm tired of defending this ignoramus. People here want to mention all of his good attributes. Great! Please let the other 30 NHL teams know about them so that the Sabres can maximize the return in the trade.

Thats exactly how I remember the preseason too. I was leaning toward the Nylander side, but all the resident experts here had me convinced that Tage was the more ready prospect and that Nylander was a likely bust. Fast forward to now, and the outlook looks a bit different. I think people were just biased against Nylander because he was a Murray choice and biased in favor of Thompson because he was a Botterill guy. The reality is that Botterill is doing a terrible job here in his own way, with most of everything he's done for the big club turning to sh!t. The Skinner trade was excellent (although he better re-sign this summer) and I like the Luukkonen pick, but everything else ranges from "meh" and "too early to call" to the downright terrible (Housley, O'Reilly trade). This coming offseason is a very critical point for Botterill and for this franchise as a whole. He needs to have this roster ready for 2020 playoff contention. If not, we may all be entering a world of pain...as if we've haven't endured enough this century as Sabres fans.

We absolutely were! Though to be more accurate, I would say "until about 17 years ago." Many people are probably not aware that the Sabres - for about the first three decades of existence - were the third most successful franchise in the NHL in terms of game points percentage (points obtained divided by points possible), behind only Montreal and Philly and not even too far behind those two. Obviously the playoffs were another matter, but that's mostly because our fledgling franchise consistently stood in the shadows of more established ones like Montreal and Boston (partly due to the playoff format back then). Nevertheless, the Sabres were pretty much always competitive and occasionally very much so. So what went wrong during the 21st century? Simple: ownership. First came the Rigas scandal, and then came Golisano. Both were overly parsimonious to the point that the on-ice product suffered greatly. Rigas wouldn't pay our stars what they were worth. Golisano took this idea even further and trimmed the scouting personnel way too much (evidence: see our drafting history from 2005-2011, the effects from which we still are experiencing today). Then came Terry Pegula, who at least arrived with dedication and enthusiasm for winning. His problem? Utter NAIVETY in all things related to sports management. We initially saw it with the reckless spending on such "talents" as Ville Leino and Christian Ehrhoff and soon after with Cody Hodgson and Matt Moulson. His fan crushes on everyone tied to Sabre history is also a major problem. It has manifested itself multiple times, whether it be taking too long to part with Regier and Ruff, turning to an unstable personality like LaFontaine to initially run the rebuild, or hiring a highly unproven head coach like Phil Housley. Perhaps Terry Pegula's biggest problem, however, may be his complete lack of certitude. You get the sense that he can be easily influenced by the wrong people with stronger personalities. The Tim Murray era never should have happened. Same thing on the football side with the Rex Ryan era. Same thing with Russ Brandon's lengthy run of influence on both sport sides. And now Botterill has Terry convinced that rebuilds need to take much longer than they somehow do for all other NHL franchises. This is very convenient for Jason Botterill because it quite simply buys him more time on the job than would otherwise be reasonable. My final Terry Pegula personality complaint would be the extent to which his political and religious/moral beliefs bleed into the sports operations. Are any of us confident that Terry will look objectively on Phil Housley's tenure? Or that of Sean McDermott? When it becomes obvious that these two are a problem and need to go, I have a deep concern that Terry Pegula will be the last person in Western New York to see it. Apologies for this ownership rant, but I needed to get that off my chest. Moving back to the original topic: I would say that every single Sabres fan has every right to complain right now. We are quickly approaching the "historically unprecedented" realm in terms of NHL franchise incompetence, and there appears to be very little evidence that it will get much better any time soon. Why are the Sabres still basically playing like the worst team in the league (that is, for the past 3.5 months)? Injuries aren't a problem, JB/PH have been given two off-seasons and nearly two full seasons to mold the team in their image, and the roster is not exactly devoid of raw hockey talent (8 regulars are top-8 overall draft picks). So I don't like it when others attempt to trivialize valid fan frustrations by pointing to various non sequitors as the Boston Red Sox finally turning things around or the Quebec Nordiques losing their franchise. Something is very disturbingly wrong with the Buffalo Sabres franchise. Once the Hurricanes make the playoffs, we will have the longest active playoff drought (8 seasons) and will be only 2 seasons away from tying the NHL record. My final thought on this subject: for the love of God, please THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Sports team fanbases are built primarily on the captured hearts of adolescent males. But throughout WNY and the great Buffalo diaspora spread across this fine country, we have perhaps lost an entire generation now of Sabres and Bills fans due to the sustained inability to field remotely entertaining products. For a highly marginal professional sports market as Buffalo, this is not at all a very good thing.

Wow, reading through all of the comments now...there are a lot of Pollyannas on SabreSpace, but this game might be the one that has finally broken you all. Hmmm, I guess getting outshot 43-18 in a 3-0 loss in a technically "must-win" game in the 8th straight season of an unprecedented run of futility will do that to a fanbase. While we're all playing the blame game, I hope more and more start hovering the magnifying lens over the Pegulas, who are arguably the most incompetent owners in any of the 4 major North American sports leagues right now.

No, the issue is quite clearly the talent on the 2nd scoring line. We have more than enough pieces to put together a capable 3rd and 4th lines. The problem is that we currently have ZERO capable top-6 forwards outside Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart. I don't trust Sheary's past two games to continue much longer. And anyone who trusts Mitts, Thompson, Oloffson, or Nylander to fill a top-6 forward spot in October is out of their ***** minds. Mitts has faceplanted all season long, and while he's only 20, so far I see little evidence that he will progress much in 7 months. If you want an identity for the 3rd line, how about the "young scoring line still finding themselves in the NHL" identity similar to what we once had with Vanek-Roy-Pominville in the mid-2000's? Leave the 2nd line to players not currently on the roster who can reliably score so that this team can actually stand a chance in making the playoffs next season. Acquire these players by trade or free agency, and do it with some ***** urgency as if GM and HC jobs are on the line...because they should be.

I hate posts like this... Yes, let's blame the fans for being negative about a team that has been pacing about 65-points-per-season for two straight seasons (minus that 10-game winning streak) and a franchise that will miss the playoffs for 8 straight years (will be longest active streak following Carolina playoff berth and 2 short of NHL record of 10). You say these Sabres are "a young team that will make mistakes as they grow." Meanwhile, other equally young franchises with arguably less pure hockey talent routinely pass us by in the standings. Something is very deeply wrong with this franchise. Maybe the fans pointing this out are not overly negative. Maybe there are too many Pollyannas on SabreSpace that need to wake the ***** up.

What's going on in Florida that is making this an option?

I don't think any major change is necessary at all. On paper, this seems like a very legitimate top 6: Dahlin-Montour McCabe-Risto Scandella-Bogo With any of Nelson, Hunwick, Pilut, JD, and Borgen filling in for injuries (which we've been lucky with this season but maybe not next). If I don't see significant improvement in playing defense these next 19 games, I'm going to be leaning heavily back toward the idea that Housley is the problem and not JB. A better coaching staff out there could probably get a lot more out of this group.

Sabres are at just under a 65-point season pace since November 27.

LTIR is the ideal solution for everyone, right? Okposo still gets paid, but the Sabres get cap relief. Probably the only thing standing in the way of this at the moment is Okposo's pride. But from my perspective, he already got to live his dream for 12 years in the NHL and made a lot of money doing it. He'll be 31 in April and is trapped for the next 4 years as a 4th liner on a historically incompetent franchise going nowhere. Think of your wife and kids, Kyle. It's time to retire.

How much more information do you really need at this point?! We've seen more than enough. These guys are immature, lazy, stupid, and soft.

But we're making progress! Or something. We are currently the Presidents' Trophy frontrunners for moral victories.

I think we would keep Dahlin, Risto, and Montour and then leave McCabe and Pilut unprotected. Our d-men for the start of the 2021-22 season would then look like this: Risto - Dahlin Montour - McCabe/Pilut Laaksonen - Samuelsson Borgen This is a very promising d-men corps.

First round NHL draft picks in the 20's are very overrated among fans. If you were to tell me that we were going to draft a 24-year old Montour with 3 years of pro experience already with that SJ pick, I would have jumped on that. And Guhle is a career 3rd-liner d-man at best. This was a very solid trade on its own (not factoring in a potential Risto trade to come, which I am going to be against under most circumstances).

More likely, I think. Also remember that each team can only protect 3 d-men for the expansion draft. So assuming Dahlin and Montour are protected, two of Risto, McCabe, and Pilut will have to be exposed in a couple years.

How do you know that? Skinner has been in the NHL for 9 years and has still never been in the playoffs. Maybe he would enjoy such an experience for a few months, and then this summer he would still get to sign with the Sabres for market value. Could potentially be a win-win deal for everyone involved, though i don't know the details of Skinner's family and whether travel logistics would make playing for a rental team reasonable.