Biggest Sabres blunders since 2013

[inkman]

Have at it. 

Edited February 4, 2021 by inkman

[SwampD]

There’s only one answer, and it ain’t on that list.

[Eleven]

It's always going to be the O'Reilly trade.

[Ruff Around The Edges]

3 minutes ago, SwampD said:

There’s only one answer, and it ain’t on that list.

Do tell!

[Ruff Around The Edges]

To me the choice is easy.

The crazy part the O'Reilly trade is a distant 2nd but that does not mean that trade wasn't a disaster on its own.

You trade for Skinner, that trade in itself was excellent. You pair him with Eichel. Skinner scores 48, THEN you pay him as if he is Patrick Kane. THEN you move him OFF the Eichel line and move in Olofsson and the you have to pay Olofsson more as well.

Skinner as a 9M dollar cap hit for 7 more seasons playing as a 4th liner with currently 1 point to me qualifies as easily the worst contract in the NHL currently, and might go down as the all time worst when its all said and done.

The level of fail with this is breathtaking.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Ruff Around The Edges

[Eleven]

1 minute ago, Ruff Around The Edges said:

To me the choice is easy.

The crazy part the O'Reilly trade is a distant 2nd but that does not mean that trade wasn't a disaster on its own.

You trade for Skinner, that trade in itself was excellent. You pair him with Eichel. Skinner scores 48, THEN you pay him as if he is Patrick Kane. THEN you move him OFF the Eichel line and move in Olofsson and the you have to pay Olofsson more as well.

Skinner as a 9M dollar cap hit for 7 more seasons playing as a 4th liner with currently 1 point to me qualifies as easily the worst contract in the NHL currently, and might go down as the all time worst when its all said and done.

The level of fail with this is breathtaking.

The poor decision is his usage, not the contract, though.

[inkman]

16 minutes ago, SwampD said:

There’s only one answer, and it ain’t on that list.

I’ll add it. What is it?  “The tank”.   That was about 30 series of moves.  

[PASabreFan]

16 minutes ago, SwampD said:

There’s only one answer, and it ain’t on that list.

Well, yeah, but there's an even bigger blunder above that.

[dudacek]

16 minutes ago, Eleven said:

The poor decision is his usage, not the contract, though.

Couldn't disagree more.

Jeff Skinner scored 36 goals in his first 57 games as a Sabre. That's not who he is, no matter who he plays with, yet people believe it's coming back as soon as he plays with Jack.

He scored 17 in the 72 games before that and 18 in the 94 games since.

Skinner was a one-dimensional 30-goal scorer who got paid like an elite winger.

We gave Alex Mogilny money to Donald Audette and we will be wearing that for 6 more years.

Edited February 4, 2021 by dudacek

[SwampD]

6 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

It is simple. I have to pay homage to SwampD. I don't know how many times we did the post on/post off drill. He finally became a master baiter extraordinaire. My boy!

But, yeah, this thread is an affront to humanity.

 

Wrong thread.

[dudacek]

2 minutes ago, SwampD said:

Wrong thread.

Are you sure? This thread hurts more.

[Eleven]

11 minutes ago, dudacek said:

That's not who he is, no matter who he plays with, yet people believe it's coming back as soon as he plays with Jack.

Count me among these people, I suppose.  

If you believe he is Donald Audette, then yes, the contract itself was the mistake.

[Eleven]

40 minutes ago, SwampD said:

There’s only one answer, and it ain’t on that list.

 

37 minutes ago, Ruff Around The Edges said:

Do tell!

 

23 minutes ago, inkman said:

I’ll add it. What is it?  “The tank”.   That was about 30 series of moves.  

If one considers the tank as a single decision, then yeah, that's the winner by a mile.

I'm not sure I do.  I'm not sure I don't, either.

[dudacek]

24 minutes ago, Eleven said:

Count me among these people, I suppose.  

If you believe he is Donald Audette, then yes, the contract itself was the mistake.

I think people are so mad at Kruger they ignore how poor Skinner has been: a one-way goal scorer who can't score and is apparently useless without one of the best players in the world propping him up. And we've given that guy 11 per cent of our cap.

A $9 million hockey player should be able to score 30 goals no matter who he's with. A $6 million player should be able to score 20.

Edited February 4, 2021 by dudacek

[Brawndo]

Trying to accelerate the rebuild of the team by trading prospects and multiple draft picks. 
 

A First, Armia, Myers and Leumieux for Kane and Bogo. 
 

A First for Lehner. 
 

Two Seconds and Brayden McNabb for Hudson Fasching. 

A Second for Josh Gorges 

Having to add JT Compher to ROR Deal because they didn’t have a First to close the deal. 
 

Passing on the 3rd Leading Scorer in the WHL, behind Draistal and Reinhart Five Times , because someone in your scouting department felt His Combine Results translated to him not being an NHL Player 

[#freejame]

It’s always fun having opportunities to rehash just how awful the ROR trade was. 

[dudacek]

6 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Passing on the 3rd Leading Scorer in the WHL, behind Draistal and Reinhart Five Times , because someone in your scouting department felt His Combine Results translated to him not being an NHL Player 

I've always wanted to be a fly on the wall for these kind of conversations and wonder about the accountability.

Was there a scout advocating for Point? Was there another cutting him down? Where are those scouts now?

[IKnowPhysics]

First, this thread is a terrible idea: let's relive every bad decision that's been made over the worst period of the franchise and then spend a few weeks gut punching each other about what move was worse.  Bonus: let's do it when there are zero games to distract us because apparently half the team got Rona from New Jersey resulting from a questuonable move by the NHL.  It's going to be a cesspool that only scatophages would enjoy.

Second, are voters to review these blunders from the point of view at the time they were made?  Or do voters use all of the hindsight in the known universe to judge situational decisions?  This drastically affects how bad some of these moves were/are.

Third, if you lump in hiring decisions, like hiring a GM, does that automatically include all of their decisions?  It's difficult to separate.  I think you want to evaluate individual transactions.

Fourth, there are some honorable mention transactions missing.  Okposo contract, drafting Nylander, and probably others.

[Weave]

That list makes me want to cut myself.

[#freejame]

33 minutes ago, IKnowPhysics said:

First, this thread is a terrible idea: let's relive every bad decision that's been made over the worst period of the franchise and then spend a few weeks gut punching each other about what move was worse.  Bonus: let's do it when there are zero games to distract us because apparently half the team got Rona from New Jersey resulting from a questuonable move by the NHL.  It's going to be a cesspool that only scatophages would enjoy.

Second, are voters to review these blunders from the point of view at the time they were made?  Or do voters use all of the hindsight in the known universe to judge situational decisions?  This drastically affects how bad some of these moves were/are.

Third, if you lump in hiring decisions, like hiring a GM, does that automatically include all of their decisions?  It's difficult to separate.  I think you want to evaluate individual transactions.

Fourth, there are some honorable mention transactions missing.  Okposo contract, drafting Nylander, and probably others.

To the bolded, the ROR trade was as equally bad then as it is now and it is currently leading with 85% of the votes. 

[PASabreFan]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

If one considers the tank as a single decision, then yeah, that's the winner by a mile.

I'm not sure I do.  I'm not sure I don't, either.

The decision on the extent of the tank was a single decision. (That decision, according to Darcy anyway, was made by Terry.)

[Ruff Around The Edges]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

The poor decision is his usage, not the contract, though.

 

A little perhaps but even with Skinner at his best now I would say to have his contract match his production 6M per is about where it should be. An incredible egregious overpay by JBot which will impact other moves made by Adams for years

Edited February 4, 2021 by Ruff Around The Edges

[Eleven]

I'll say this much:  Some of you are really changing the way I view Jeff Skinner.

[Ruff Around The Edges]

11 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

The decision on the extent of the tank was a single decision. (That decision, according to Darcy anyway, was made by Terry.)

I still say the tank was not a bad idea. In many ways, we just have not had the lottery luck to justify the tank and in some cases, made the incorrect picks.

[#freejame]

2 minutes ago, Ruff Around The Edges said:

I still say the tank was not a bad idea. In many ways, we just have not had the lottery luck to justify the tank and in some cases, made the incorrect picks.

My biggest issue with the tank was we should have just bombed the lockout season and immediately starting building back up following that. There was no reason to throw two seasons when there was a perfectly good half season that we were a bubble team on a downward trend. The lottery rules were much more favorable and Jones, MacKinnon, and Barkov were all known qualities.