Sabres “salary cap space is a mirage” per Yerdon in Athletic

[Thorny]

9 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Is it your actual contention that Botterill’s only goal is to hold on to his job as long as possible and that he hasn’t tried to build a winner in his first three years because he hasn’t had to?

I ain't not never said nothin' like this. 

The whole basis of my argument is that winning is *a* goal for Botterill, but hasn't been *the* goal. I'd argue that to be fact. Of course, that's my opinion.

Where I'll wholly admit opinion is when I say that: I don't believe this team can win while they have this strategy, not with this franchise's *resting tank face*. This organization, to a man, all too easily, too readily, slides back into the "next year" mentality, it being so thoroughly pummeled into their very DNA. 

They need that hard line shift to winning being THE focus. That's my view, that's my guess. I think they need it. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Thorny

[Thorny]

2 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Then I’m not sure where your hard disagree is coming from.

Pro sports isn't about winning for Botterill right now.

It's about job security, and winning. 

[dudacek]

6 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Pro sports isn't about winning for Botterill right now.

It's about job security, and winning. 

Semantics.

The majority of GMs in the majority of organizations get at least three years and usually five unless the owner changes, or they really, really set off sirens with alarming behaviour. Organizational change takes time.

Botterill hasn’t won, his three years are up, and his job security won’t last another year without a convincing step up.

If he had demonstrated the same kind of player judgement at a more accelerated pace we would probably still be here talking about why he needed to be fired.

[Thorny]

9 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Semantics.

The majority of GMs in the majority of organizations get at least three years and usually five unless the owner changes, or they really, really set off sirens with alarming behaviour. Organizational change takes time.

Botterill hasn’t won, his three years are up, and his job security won’t last another year without a convincing step up.

If he had demonstrated the same kind of player judgement at a more accelerated pace we would probably still be here talking about why he needed to be fired.

How is that semantics? You don't believe in prioritization? 

To the bold - he can be sub-optimal at more than one thing. 

I'm confused by your argument. You don't believe GMs can put varying degrees of focus on winning? Varying time frames? Do you think all GMs possess exactly the same priority on winning in the immediate? My view is Botterill has been much too focused on long-term results (which he has also managed poorly) rather than winning in the immediate. 

It's certainly an opinion, but if you think the idea that ones prioritization of winning NOW is precisely the same across all GMS, and a matter of semantics, we'd definitely differ there. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Thorny

[dudacek]

Semantics because Botterill would have got a minimum of three years and likely more from Terry regardless of his approach. Terry wants to be seen as the benevolent owner of a stable house full of “good people.”

Semantics because I think Botterill still buys and sells the wrong players at the wrong prices whether his aim is winning now or winning later. I think his problem is less his approach and more his player judgement.

You and I have been debating this for two years now. I have always been a believer in the type of organization-  building Jason talks and the Bills are currently practicing over a more run-and-gun management style. You haven’t liked Jason from the beginning because of his approach, I only turned because of his execution.

70s Steelers over 70s Raiders for me.

Edited April 30, 2020 by dudacek

[Curt]

30 minutes ago, Thorny said:

It's largely a mirage. The large majority of the open spaces will be filled with returning components. It's not, and never was realistic that the turnover would be in an way comparable to the amount potential turnoever. The league just isn't built that way. 

Oh yeah, probably.  But the point is that there is flexibility to make moves.

[Thorny]

22 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Semantics because Botterill would have got a minimum of three years and likely more from Terry regardless of his approach. Terry wants to be seen as the benevolent owner of a stable house full of “good people.”

Semantics because I think Botterill still buys and sells the wrong players at the wrong prices whether his aim is winning now or winning later. I think his problem is less his approach and more his player judgement.

You and I have been debating this for two years now.

I just don't see it as semantics, because regardless of the fact of whether Botterill would have gotten 3 years or not, we can still judge the results of the past 3 seasons. I don't see how we can rule out in totality the idea, that if he had placed a higher prominence on winning, we might be finding ourselves winning more. 

It's only semantics if you think it's impossible that Botterill had the capacity to turn this team into a winner in the last 3 years, with a change in focus. I don't think one can rule that out considering ROR. A team hell-bent on wining now would have, could have kept him, and would have, could have been winning right now. You may disagree with any of those conclusions, but that's not semantics. It's a difference of opinion. 

I won't say that Botterill *would* have necessarily built a winner, he's also a terrible evaluator of talent. But the mere fact it's entirely plausible a SINGLE non-move accomplishes that fact makes it worthy of discussion. 

I'm happy to continue debating it for another 2 years but only if my viewpoint on the matter isn't bastardized. You may not think it would make a difference if Botterill had placed a *greater* importance on winning, or even whether or not he already has placed appropriate focus, but I don't think it's fair to construe my argument of the prioritization of winning as semantics, as if "purposely assembling a bad team" is a close enough representation to what I'm saying, and that's how this iteration of our debate started. 

Because that's not what I've been saying. You may validly believe that no change in focus makes an iota of difference, but you should at least be able to accept that I'm not being disingenuous when I outline that as part of my viewpoint, and a viewpoint I believe to be different in essence to the idea that Botterill built bad teams on purpose. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Thorny

[dudacek]

18 minutes ago, Thorny said:

I just don't see it as semantics, because regardless of the fact of whether Botterill would have gotten 3 years or not, we can still judge the results of the past 3 seasons. I don't see how we can rule out in totality the idea, that if he had placed a higher prominence on winning, we might be finding ourselves winning more. 

It's only semantics if you think it's impossible that Botterill had the capacity to turn this team into a winner in the last 3 years, with a change in focus. I don't think one can rule that out considering ROR. A team hell-bent on wining now would have, could have kept him, and would have, could have been winning right now. You may disagree with any of those conclusions, but that's not semantics. It's a difference of opinion. 

I won't say that Botterill *would* have necessarily built a winner, he's also a terrible evaluator of talent. But the mere fact it's entirely plausible a SINGLE non-move accomplishes that fact makes it worthy of discussion. 

Impossible, no. Unlikely, certainly. (To the bold). If Botterill had been more aggressive we might have few more wins this year, but I don’t believe we’d be any closer to the cup.

Maybe semantics is the wrong word. Perhaps a better way of saying it is I think the discussion is moot; I don’t think Jason has the goods to execute, no matter what the plan is. And I also think the plan is a reflection of Jason, it’s who we hired. Asking him to be a gunslinger is like asking Mark Pysyk to be Rasmus Ristolainen, or vice versa.
 

Edited April 30, 2020 by dudacek

[Thorny]

6 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Impossible, no. Unlikely, certainly. (To the bold). If Botterill had been more aggressive we might have few more wins this year, but I don’t believe we’d be any closer to the cup.

Maybe semantics is the wrong word. Perhaps a better way of saying it is I think the discussion is moot; I don’t think Jason has the goods to execute, no matter what the plan is. And I also think the plan is a reflection of Jason, it’s who we hired.
 

Again, I agree with most of this. But I believe making the playoffs makes us closer to the cup and I think we are a playoff team with ROR. 

Regardless, my concern was more so the contemplation that my wordy posts are a waste of time, if I don't possess the skill to articulate my stipulated difference -  between not placing full weight of priority on winning, and assembling a bad team on purpose. One of which I, at least, was considering to be my argument, and the other which I'd reject totally. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Thorny

[dudacek]

23 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Again, I agree with most of this. But I believe making the playoffs makes us closer to the cup and I think we are a playoff team with ROR. 

Regardless, my concern was more so the contemplation that my wordy posts are a waste of time, if I don't possess the skill to articulate my stipulated difference -  between not placing full weight of priority on winning, and assembling a bad team on purpose. One of which I, at least, was considering to be my argument, and the other which I'd reject totally. 

You know, when I look back at Jason’s moves, in three years, he hasn’t made a single one I’ve been excited about at the time. Sure there have been some “oh, that’s probably good value” or “that makes sense” on some level. But I struggle to think of one where I went “I’ve always liked that player and I’m glad we went out and paid the price.I want him on my team. Maybe Montour?

Right or wrong, I was excited about acquiring O’Reilly, Ehrhoff, Numminen, Drury, Warrener... I liked those guys and was happy to add them to my team.

And maybe what you’re saying is he might have made more of those trades with a win-now philosophy. And you might be right. But I’ve resigned myself to the idea that Jason simply values different things than I do and if he’s willing to pay the price he’s going to pay it for his guys and they won’t be my guys.

He will take the Strome every time.

Edited May 1, 2020 by dudacek

[dudacek]

58 minutes ago, Thorny said:

 

I'm happy to continue debating it for another 2 years but only if my viewpoint on the matter isn't bastardized. You may not think it would make a difference if Botterill had placed a *greater* importance on winning, or even whether or not he already has placed appropriate focus, but I don't think it's fair to construe my argument of the prioritization of winning as semantics, as if "purposely assembling a bad team" is a close enough representation to what I'm saying, and that's how this iteration of our debate started. 

Because that's not what I've been saying. You may validly believe that no change in focus makes an iota of difference, but you should at least be able to accept that I'm not being disingenuous when I outline that as part of my viewpoint, and a viewpoint I believe to be different in essence to the idea that Botterill built bad teams on purpose. 

Sorry, hadn’t seen this part earlier. 
I do appreciate the nuance in your argument, at least I think I do, and I don’t think you are being disingenuous. I just disagree.

“Deliberate badness” was poor shorthand on my part for the idea that our record is not as important yet as it should be to Botterill.

[Thorny]

47 minutes ago, dudacek said:

You know, when I look back at Jason’s moves, in three years, he hasn’t made a single one I’ve been excited about at the time. Sure there have been some “oh, that’s probably good value” or “that makes sense” on some level. But I struggle to think of one where I went “I’ve always liked that player and I’m glad we went out and paid the price.I want him on my team. Maybe Montour?

Right or wrong, I was excited about acquiring O’Reilly, Ehrhoff, Numminen, Drury, Warrener... I liked those guys and was happy to add them to my team.

And maybe what you’re saying is he might have made more of those trades with a win-now philosophy. And you might be right. But I’ve resigned myself to the idea that Jason simply values different things than I do and if he’s willing to pay the price he’s going to pay it for his guys and they won’t be my guys.

He will take the Strome every time.

Jason Botterill "likes our forward group", I agree. 

And by that I mean, I agree, THAT is our (see: his) biggest problem. Or a main symptom of it 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Thorny

[Thorny]

54 minutes ago, dudacek said:

You know, when I look back at Jason’s moves, in three years, he hasn’t made a single one I’ve been excited about at the time. Sure there have been some “oh, that’s probably good value” or “that makes sense” on some level. But I struggle to think of one where I went “I’ve always liked that player and I’m glad we went out and paid the price.I want him on my team. Maybe Montour?

Right or wrong, I was excited about acquiring O’Reilly, Ehrhoff, Numminen, Drury, Warrener... I liked those guys and was happy to add them to my team.

And maybe what you’re saying is he might have made more of those trades with a win-now philosophy. And you might be right. But I’ve resigned myself to the idea that Jason simply values different things than I do and if he’s willing to pay the price he’s going to pay it for his guys and they won’t be my guys.

He will take the Strome every time.

The Skinner moved jumped off the page. Problem was, he didn't feel like a true Sabre till he signed his deal, and his deal was quickly revealed to be an exceptionally questionable one, delivered and negotiated by that same GM. 

[dudacek]

22 minutes ago, Thorny said:

The Skinner moved jumped off the page. Problem was, he didn't feel like a true Sabre till he signed his deal, and his deal was quickly revealed to be an exceptionally questionable one, delivered and negotiated by that same GM. 

It got overshadowed around here by @TrueBlueGED’s disdain for him, but I’ve always disliked Skinner: whiny, selfish, diving...

All of those things got overshadowed by the clutch goal scoring last year enough that I started to admit I might be wrong.
And then this year happened.

[Eleven]

39 minutes ago, Thorny said:

The Skinner moved jumped off the page. Problem was, he didn't feel like a true Sabre till he signed his deal, and his deal was quickly revealed to be an exceptionally questionable one, delivered and negotiated by that same GM. 

 

9 minutes ago, dudacek said:

It got overshadowed around here by @TrueBlueGED’s disdain for him, but I’ve always disliked Skinner: whiny, selfish, diving...

All of those things got overshadowed by the clutch goal scoring last year enough that I started to admit I might be wrong.
And then this year happened.

I think we all know that we would have excoriated Botterill if he didn't sign Skinner, and there was a price tag that came with it.  I'm not happy with Skinner's production this (current? past?) season, but it would be intellectually dishonest of me to think that I didn't want him to be signed last summer.

To me, the bigger problem with Skinner is that Krueger doesn't use him correctly.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Eleven

[dudacek]

5 minutes ago, Eleven said:

 

I think we all know that we would have excoriated Botterill if he didn't sign Skinner, and there was a price tag that came with it.  I'm not happy with Skinner's production this (current? past?) season, but it would be intellectually dishonest of me to think that I didn't want him to be signed last summer.

To me, the bigger problem with Skinner is that Krueger doesn't use him correctly.

I agree with the first paragraph.

Krueger did not maximize Skinner, but Jeff, not Ralph was the bigger problem.

[Taro T]

3 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I agree with the first paragraph.

Krueger did not maximize Skinner, but Jeff, not Ralph was the bigger problem.

 

True.  He had 7 goals through the 1st 13 games & had a stretch of 5 games where he added another 3 in February and had 4 the entire rest of the year.  He was playing well with Johansson to start the year, then when Johansson got tweaked, that chemistry was gone.

But even though he wasn't finishing, he still was getting almost as many shots as he had last year.  3.1 spg vs 3.24spg (94% of last season's chances).

Wondering if the knee was still bugging him - he was going good to start the year, but wonder if he hurt it around games 10-15.  That was when he fell off a cliff (prior to the anchor getting injured in Sweden).  Yes, Krueger moving him up to Eichel's line earlier might have helped, but agree that the issue was more him than coaching.

[Thorny]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

 

I think we all know that we would have excoriated Botterill if he didn't sign Skinner, and there was a price tag that came with it.  I'm not happy with Skinner's production this (current? past?) season, but it would be intellectually dishonest of me to think that I didn't want him to be signed last summer.

To me, the bigger problem with Skinner is that Krueger doesn't use him correctly.

The ends don't justify the means in this case. Yes, signing Skinner and having him under contract is what we all wanted, but why play him with Eichel in a contract year, all year, bump up his value to an extreme high (how could we let this guy walk? - to your point), only to play him with a non-2C, tanking the production we were maximizing the year before?

It's not even the big mistakes this organization makes that are the most frustrating, it's all the smaller head-shakingly dumb decisions they make constantly. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Thorny

[Curt]

13 hours ago, Thorny said:

The ends don't justify the means in this case. Yes, signing Skinner and having him under contract is what we all wanted, but why play him with Eichel in a contract year, all year, bump up his value to an extreme high (how could we let this guy walk? - to your point), only to play him with a non-2C, tanking the production we were maximizing the year before?

It's not even the big mistakes this organization makes that are the most frustrating, it's all the smaller head-shakingly dumb decisions they make constantly. 

Agree.  I’m fully prepared for them to give Reinhart a nice contract, then start playing him with 3rd liners next season.

[Eleven]

28 minutes ago, Curt said:

Agree.  I’m fully prepared for them to give Reinhart a nice contract, then start playing him with 3rd liners next season.

Third D-pairing.

[LGR4GM]

24 minutes ago, Eleven said:

Third D-pairing.

3rd line lw

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

4 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

3rd line lw

Back up goalie.

[dudacek]

19 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

Back up goalie.

Rip’s assistant.

(We’re listing Other jobs Botterill should consider, right?)

[shrader]

15 hours ago, Thorny said:

The ends don't justify the means in this case. Yes, signing Skinner and having him under contract is what we all wanted, but why play him with Eichel in a contract year, all year, bump up his value to an extreme high (how could we let this guy walk? - to your point), only to play him with a non-2C, tanking the production we were maximizing the year before?

It's not even the big mistakes this organization makes that are the most frustrating, it's all the smaller head-shakingly dumb decisions they make constantly. 

Keep in mind that the guy who put Skinner on Eichel’s wing is not the same guy who put him with Johansson and co. 

[Thorny]

48 minutes ago, shrader said:

Keep in mind that the guy who put Skinner on Eichel’s wing is not the same guy who put him with Johansson and co. 

That's fine, but when 9 million dollars for 8 years is the deal in question, and there are potentially franchise altering stakes at hand, you'd think the man steering the ship would have a better handle on generally managing the situation.