Inside Look into the Past Year of the Sabres Front Office

[dudacek]

6 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Every time I read this quote, I want to vomit. Now maybe Adams has to pander to get things done but good lord read the room. The fans aren't buying this BS anymore after a decade of the worst run team in the NHL. 

My hope is Adams wants to vomit too, he's just saying what he needs to say in order to steer Terry where he needs to be.

[kas23]

6 hours ago, JohnC said:

Anyone who doesn't believe that Jack, Reinhart and Risto will be dealt is not listening to what is explicitly being stated by the GM, the person responsible for making personnel decisions. This isn't a situation where rumors are emanating from anonymous sources from the bowels of the organization. It's coming from the top of the organizational pyramid. What is bluntly stated is: If you don't want to be here we don't want you. 

 

I problem with this is that none of them, at least in public, have directly indicated they want to be traded or want to be off the team. These are guys in their early 20s. Remember back then. It’s an emotional time and things tend to be idealized, rather based in reality. All of them have stated they are sick of losing, especially Risto and Rhino. I would be more worried if they just shrugged their shoulders and said “whatever, go team”. That said, Jack isn’t just saying he’s sick of leaving. He has serious grievances and it has become ugly. He’ll be gone for sure. But, I’m optimist Rhino will stay. 

[kas23]

5 hours ago, inkman said:

I glossed through the thread and I didn’t see (my apologies if I just missed it) what I took as the biggest WTF from the article:

Though Terry Pegula has a reputation for interfering with the club's decision-making, his only maneuver to be included in hockey operations that spring came in April when, according to sources, Pegula requested the scouting staff brief him via a 30-minute conference call on the Sabres’ top 50 prospect rankings ahead of the draft. 
 

Is Lance intimating that Terry Pegula has input on draft picks.  ***** Yikes.  Now the selection of Jack Quinn makes a lot more sense.  Is this why we have ended up with all these World Juniors all stars.  Because uncle Terry saw them dazzle against a bunch of kids.  Oh boy. 

What Lance writes is clearly inaccurate and calls his journalistic integrity into question. We have seen videos of either Terry or Kim in the draft war rooms of both the Bills and Sabres. We also saw them in those behind the scene team released videos of them being directly involved with operations. Off the top of my head, we saw them at the table to the call with Hall. Sure, he may have specially wrote “Terry” and didn’t mention Kim (who is the President of the Sabres!), but they are just extensions of each other.
 

Did he also forget the trip to Florida Adams and Karmanos took to discuss the coaching search? If this was to just keep the boss informed, it could’ve been done over Zoom. 

Edited June 21, 2021 by kas23

[JohnC]

33 minutes ago, kas23 said:

I problem with this is that none of them, at least in public, have directly indicated they want to be traded or want to be off the team. These are guys in their early 20s. Remember back then. It’s an emotional time and things tend to be idealized, rather based in reality. All of them have stated they are sick of losing, especially Risto and Rhino. I would be more worried if they just shrugged their shoulders and said “whatever, go team”. That said, Jack isn’t just saying he’s sick of leaving. He has serious grievances and it has become ugly. He’ll be gone for sure. But, I’m optimist Rhino will stay. 

Let me start off with Jack. He certainly has legitimate complaints about how this organization has functioned. So does everyone else. With respect to his health situation and the proper course of action the reality is that the organization is protecting him from his own bad judgment. The course of action that the organization is pursuing is a best practice course of action based on the recommendations of the medical experts. It may be  too conservative for Jack but it is the right approach to take. 

There is no one on this forum who is more of a Samson supporter than I am, and that includes @LGR4GM. But the issue of whether to retain him or not is to an extent simpler than the Jack situation because of his contract status. If he isn't willing to sign an extended deal he will become a UFA next season. And to add another layer to the Reinhart situation is that he is at his highest trade value. 

As I have stated numerous times I am not as much of a critic of Risto's play compared the bloodthirsty hanging posse here. I just think that he has been misused. In my mind he is more of a 2B than a 2A defenseman. He is more of a physical player than a thinking player. That's what he is and will always be.  I'm hoping that he is retained, and if the disgruntlement is not alleviated then he can be dealt at the trade deadline. 

 

[inkman]

3 hours ago, Curt said:

No.  If Lance wanted to convey that, he probably would have said it.  In fact it seems that he was implying just the opposite.  That Pegula actually was NOT involved in hockey operations.

If feels like you are trying too hard to twist a mildly good think into a negative.

My intentions aside 🙄, I can only hope what you are saying is true.  

[triumph_communes]

On 6/20/2021 at 12:36 PM, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

One person who was spectacularly good at this before he was kicked off of two boards for his truculence was @jame.  He just nailed things like who will develop, how far, timelines, etc.

No he didn’t. He threw stuff at the wall and pretended anything that didn’t stick didn’t happen

[spndnchz]

Eichel plays game one he’s getting boo’d every time he gets the puck. Guaranteed 

[Broken Ankles]

9 hours ago, Taro T said:

 

This is what is so ####ing frustrating about this off-season, expecting everything to blow up.

Bring McCabe back and keep him paired with Ristolainen (after he finally heals up).  That was their best pairing last year.  (Realize it's not a popular opinion, but they were.  For large stretched Dahkin - Jokiharju was a disaster in waiting in their own end.)Bring in a 4 quality D to fill McCabe role until he's ready to return.  

The D becomes

McCabe - Ristolainen

Dahlin- Borgen

Bryson/Samuelson/New Guy - Jokiharju. (Maybe "new guy" is Pilut?) w/ 2 of those the 7&8 after McCabe healthy.

 

Bring in Daneault and keep Eichel & Reinhart.  Ideally bring in a 4C to put Eakin on the bench.  Bring Sheahan back as the 13th guy / fill in w/ injuries in the bottom 1/2 of the lineup.

The forwards become:

Olofsson - Eichel - Cozens/Reinhart

Skinner - Daneault - Reinhart/ Cozens

Asplund - Mittelstadt - Thompson/ Ruotsalainen

Girgensons - 4C - Okposo

Some combo of Eakin / Sheahan / R2 / Okposo as the spares.

 

Bring back Ullmark & add a guy at least as good as him.

 

Get the coach right & it gets them d*mn close to a playoff spot w/ no growth at all from any of the kids.  (IMHO, that lineup should be in but it's a stacked division, so no promises.) And that lineup can handle the inevitable 6-10 games of Eichel out via injury & 10 games of Ullmark's inavailability, as a in IMHO.

 

Your team is over the cap, and by a bit if your not giving a two year bridge to Dahlin, Mitts and assuming bridges on Joki, Rasmus III, and Borgen.  
   In addition to this, getting the band back together didn’t work for Jake and Elwood and probably won’t for the 21/22 Sabres.  Break it up.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Broken Ankles

[PASabreFan]

16 hours ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

I am not as paranoid as you are about TP, but you have a point that needs reinforcing:

When a superior gets involved in what a subordinate is doing, s/he becomes akin to an observer of a quantum state: the mere fact that the superior is observing the process intrinsically changes the process; it does not matter if s/he tries to change the process or not.  (I call it the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle of management.")  When it is the owner of a hockey franchise within a flat management infrastructure, the effect is more pronounced because there is less insulation between the owner and the person affected.  And he is known to radically affect things, such as the contracts with Jack Eichel and Jeff Skinner.

That's what I was going to say! That's beautiful. People should remember that Terry said, around the time of bringing in LaLa, maybe even at the LaLa presser, that we'll have no "hockey emperors." Another time he said, "There's no monopoly on hockey IQ." It all fits into the case. Terry thinks he should be a player in the process, and thus he is. The issue of meddling is settled. As Judge Aud Horatio Smell has written so eloquently, "It's now only a matter of degree. Now give me the envelope and the dress shields."

[inkman]

16 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

That's what I was going to say! That's beautiful. People should remember that Terry said, around the time of bringing in LaLa, maybe even at the LaLa presser, that we'll have no "hockey emperors." Another time he said, "There's no monopoly on hockey IQ." It all fits into the case. Terry thinks he should be a player in the process, and thus he is. The issue of meddling is settled. As Judge Aud Horatio Smell has written so eloquently, "It's now only a matter of degree. Now give me the envelope and the dress shields."

It was settled five years ago.  Move on. 

[PASabreFan]

1 hour ago, inkman said:

It was settled five years ago.  Move on. 

Why? I will when I'm convinced he/she have stopped.

[nfreeman]

42 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Why? I will when I'm convinced he/she have stopped.

So limiting his involvement in hockey operations to a 30-minute call a couple of weeks before the draft in which the top prospects are summarized is too much meddling?

 

[inkman]

44 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Why? I will when I'm convinced he/she have stopped.

Sounds like you are in this for the long haul.  Terry's involvement is documented.  He will continue to be unless he is no longer affiliated with the team.  

[Radar]

1 minute ago, nfreeman said:

So limiting his involvement in hockey operations to a 30-minute call a couple of weeks before the draft in which the top prospects are summarized is too much meddling?

 

For PA? Owners going to a game would be meddling😂

[Brawndo]

I didn’t see this posted, but the Tweet about the Friedman and  the Sabres confidence in the draft wasn’t the actual quote, this is what Friedman actually said 

 

18 hours ago, kas23 said:

What Lance writes is clearly inaccurate and calls his journalistic integrity into question. We have seen videos of either Terry or Kim in the draft war rooms of both the Bills and Sabres. We also saw them in those behind the scene team released videos of them being directly involved with operations. Off the top of my head, we saw them at the table to the call with Hall. Sure, he may have specially wrote “Terry” and didn’t mention Kim (who is the President of the Sabres!), but they are just extensions of each other.
 

Did he also forget the trip to Florida Adams and Karmanos took to discuss the coaching search? If this was to just keep the boss informed, it could’ve been done over Zoom. 

That wasn’t the only purpose of the meeting in Florida though. It was also to discuss their visions for the team moving forward and the possible expansion Hockey Operations. This includes the expansion of analytics department which appears to be happening.

Tom Webster has mentioned there are plans to add to the Hockey Operations once contracts expire in the Summer. 
Scott Luce is one example. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by Brawndo

[Taro T]

4 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

I didn’t see this posted, but the Tweet about the Friedman and  the Sabres confidence in the draft wasn’t the actual quote, this is what Friedman actually said 

 

That wasn’t the only purpose of the meeting in Florida though. It was also to discuss their visions for the team moving forward and the possible expansion Hockey Operations, including the expansion of analytics department which appears to be happening.

Tom Webster has mentioned there are plans to add to the Hockey Operations once contracts expire in the Summer. 
Scott Luce is one example. 

IF the Sabres kept the right core of scouts they could do well this draft.  The Peterka pick is encouraging that they do have the right core but that Quinn pick is equally confounding.

It's just more angst piled on the past decade that the Sabres bottom out AGAIN this time in the year that the draft is the most unstable in at least 2 decades, if not 3, & the Sabres have a skeleton crew in the scouting department to make the questions as to whether they have enough scouts to accurately assess the talent legitimate.

Hoping that they've really focused their efforts on the top of the draft & plan on going with some sort of analytics formula to throw darts in rounds 4-7 (maybe even starting at round 3).  If they tried to have an expert eye on the full board, they probably stretched themselves too thin & will #### the whole thing up.

[dudacek]

Here’s a rare positive thought:

What if the Sabres scouting restructure made them better prepared to scout in the age of COVID?

What if the Sabres 9-person team has been hunkered down over the tape, the cell phone, and the calculator amassing data while the old-school teams had half their 15-person team just twiddling thumbs, waiting to get into arenas again?

[Marvin]

34 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Here’s a rare positive thought:

What if the Sabres scouting restructure made them better prepared to scout in the age of COVID?

What if the Sabres 9-person team has been hunkered down over the tape, the cell phone, and the calculator amassing data while the old-school teams had half their 15-person team just twiddling thumbs, waiting to get into arenas again?

I will take any positive thought over the current negativity on this board.

I actually figured this was part of it.  Maybe not much, but it probably informed their thinking.

[LabattBlue]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

Here’s a rare positive thought:

What if the Sabres scouting restructure made them better prepared to scout in the age of COVID?

What if the Sabres 9-person team has been hunkered down over the tape, the cell phone, and the calculator amassing data while the old-school teams had half their 15-person team just twiddling thumbs, waiting to get into arenas again?

So we are back to “video scouting” is the way to go. 😉   
 

It’s all a blur now, I can’t even remember which regime(years) thought “video scouting” was the way of the future?

[kas23]

1 hour ago, LabattBlue said:

So we are back to “video scouting” is the way to go. 😉   
 

It’s all a blur now, I can’t even remember which regime(years) thought “video scouting” was the way of the future?

Everyone laughed at Darcy and Larry Quinn back in 2001. They were actually trailblazers, pioneers, and men before their time. Jokes aside, I would love someone to interview Darcy today and ask him how that went in hindsight. 

[Broken Ankles]

On 6/21/2021 at 5:27 AM, nfreeman said:

Here’s an Adams quote from that article that might reflect his view of Eichel:

“…an identity of team first, really believing in each other. Getting away from anyone in this organization or on this team that's more concerned about themselves.”

Three quotes in the article reference identity.  The other two are:

“Heart, compete, fast skill, but hard skill,” said Adams. “There’s a lot of skilled players out there in the playoffs, but it's a hard skill and willingness to go to the hard areas, just that type of team identity.”  
and 

“There absolutely has to be a connectivity in this community, in this town, between what our team looks like and our fan base,” Adams told The Buffalo News during a recent phone interview. “I know every community, every city in the NHL is different. I get all that, but that's needed in this town. We have to get that identity back and it's been lost for quite a while.”

I read this as saying the Sabres roster has skill but a lack of “hard skill”.  And that the fan base wants sandpaper and grit, which is lacking on this team.  It only confirms what has been already surmised, which is Jack and Sam are both gone.  And I can see additional personnel with skill, but not hard skill added as sweetener. 

[PASabreFan]

On 6/22/2021 at 10:56 AM, Radar said:

For PA? Owners going to a game would be meddling😂

Have you not noticed where he sits?

19 hours ago, kas23 said:

Everyone laughed at Darcy and Larry Quinn back in 2001. They were actually trailblazers, pioneers, and men before their time. Jokes aside, I would love someone to interview Darcy today and ask him how that went in hindsight. 

I have no idea where I saw it, but there was an extensive article that broke down the genesis of video scouting in Buffalo, with quotes from Darcy if I'm remembering it right (IIRIR).

5 minutes ago, Broken Ankles said:

Three quotes in the article reference identity.  The other two are:

“Heart, compete, fast skill, but hard skill,” said Adams. “There’s a lot of skilled players out there in the playoffs, but it's a hard skill and willingness to go to the hard areas, just that type of team identity.”  
and 

“There absolutely has to be a connectivity in this community, in this town, between what our team looks like and our fan base,” Adams told The Buffalo News during a recent phone interview. “I know every community, every city in the NHL is different. I get all that, but that's needed in this town. We have to get that identity back and it's been lost for quite a while.”

I read this as saying the Sabres roster has skill but a lack of “hard skill”.  And that the fan base wants sandpaper and grit, which is lacking on this team.  It only confirms what has been already surmised, which is Jack and Sam are both gone.  And I can see additional personnel with skill, but not hard skill added as sweetener. 

That quote about the community is near-managerial incompetence. Someone should tell him Bethlehem Steel closed down 40-ish years ago.

[DarthEbriate]

19 hours ago, kas23 said:

Everyone laughed at Darcy and Larry Quinn back in 2001. They were actually trailblazers, pioneers, and men before their time. Jokes aside, I would love someone to interview Darcy today and ask him how that went in hindsight. 

Of course, in 2001 the available video would have been someone with a JVC and needed to be copied/moved, etc. Today, everyone has a hi-def camera on their phone with the ability to upload to the interwebs directly. We have a more extensive video scouting library available to us on YouTube (without even subscribing to any premier video services) than xGMDR would have had available. As a result, that video drafting dragged the Sabres down (as well as many other factors), whereas today I'd argue a team could probably get away with video for the bulk of the work. You'd still need the scouts for conversations on your targeted players. Off-ice, character, practice habits, etc.

[Thorny]

23 hours ago, dudacek said:

Here’s a rare positive thought:

What if the Sabres scouting restructure made them better prepared to scout in the age of COVID?

What if the Sabres 9-person team has been hunkered down over the tape, the cell phone, and the calculator amassing data while the old-school teams had half their 15-person team just twiddling thumbs, waiting to get into arenas again?

That would indeed be preferable to the "twiddling their thumbs" crew, but I suppose the hope is for a focused group that is also adequate in size. 

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, DarthEbriate said:

Of course, in 2001 the available video would have been someone with a JVC and needed to be copied/moved, etc. Today, everyone has a hi-def camera on their phone with the ability to upload to the interwebs directly. We have a more extensive video scouting library available to us on YouTube (without even subscribing to any premier video services) than xGMDR would have had available. As a result, that video drafting dragged the Sabres down (as well as many other factors), whereas today I'd argue a team could probably get away with video for the bulk of the work. You'd still need the scouts for conversations on your targeted players. Off-ice, character, practice habits, etc.

But they didn't really go to the "video scouting" as their official methodology until ~2007.

And it was really controversial when they announced that was the plan moving forward.