GDT:Sabres at Vancouver 10/22/22 10pm MSG, CBC, WGR 550

[Doohickie]

3 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

 

Damn!

I know it must pain him to have Vancouver at #32.

From the comments on the video:  "the East is 26-5-4 vs. the West so far this season, which is crazy."

Edited October 23, 2022 by Doohickie

[DarthEbriate]

8 hours ago, JohnC said:

An interesting bar room discussion can be had over who is more happy about the firing of Krueger: Dahlin or Skinner? 

The entire team. Mitts was scratched. TT was in danger of floating to RFA without a tender. Dahiln was lost. Skinner was on the 4th line and scratched. HCRK should have been nuked from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[JohnC]

Just now, DarthEbriate said:

The entire team. Mitts was scratched. TT was in danger of floating to RFA without a tender. Dahiln was lost. Skinner was on the 4th line and scratched. HCRK should have been nuked from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

If the owner would have waited until the end of the year to fire this lost cause coach, this franchise would have been set back even further. As it turned out there is still a sizeable faction of the fandom that left and may never come back. Demoralizing is too weak a word to describe what happened to this proud franchise. The slate has now been mostly wiped away of its ignominious past and it is at a renewal stage with a promising future. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JoeSchmoe]

4 minutes ago, JohnC said:

As it turned out there is still a sizeable faction of the fandom that left and may never come back.

If the Bills have taught us anything, it's that they always come back.

[JohnC]

11 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

If the Bills have taught us anything, it's that they always come back.

This is just my opinion but the issue is more problematic with the Sabres than with the Bills. I'm hoping that I am wrong and that the arena becomes more populated with paying customers sooner than later. 

[PromoTheRobot]

39 minutes ago, JohnC said:

If the owner would have waited until the end of the year to fire this lost cause coach, this franchise would have been set back even further. As it turned out there is still a sizeable faction of the fandom that left and may never come back. Demoralizing is too weak a word to describe what happened to this proud franchise. The slate has now been mostly wiped away of its ignominious past and it is at a renewal stage with a promising future. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

If the Bills have taught us anything, it's that they always come back.

 

17 minutes ago, JohnC said:

This is just my opinion but the issue is more problematic with the Sabres than with the Bills. I'm hoping that I am wrong and that the arena becomes more populated with paying customers sooner than later. 

Ticket sales, while better than last year, are still lagging around 10K-12K.  Maybe once football is done it will pick up.

[JoeSchmoe]

2 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

 

Ticket sales, while better than last year, are still lagging around 10K-12K.  Maybe once football is done it will pick up.

Plus, the Sabres haven't really done anything yet.

 

[PromoTheRobot]

1 minute ago, JoeSchmoe said:

Plus, the Sabres haven't really done anything yet.

 

The goal posts are always moving.

[Taro T]

5 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

 

Ticket sales, while better than last year, are still lagging around 10K-12K.  Maybe once football is done it will pick up.

Historically, between '79 & '06, it always did.

Expecting that'll still be the case.

Heck, even last year attendance (beyond just the 3 "big" games) picked up noticeably after the Bills were done. 

[Doohickie]

2 hours ago, JohnC said:

5 hours ago, K-9 said:

I’m embarrassed to say I ever bought into one second of RK’s bs.

Don't be embarrassed because you are not alone in being seduced by the word master at the podium.

He struck me as a BS artist from day one.  It just pained me to talk because he would use lots of words and either say nothing, or contradict himself.  For a while I was okay with him, reasoning that it doesn't matter what I think of him as long as the team is winning.  But when the tide turned I felt he needed to go.

Granato is so affirming, not that he coddles the players, but the he finds what they're good at and tries to fit that into the system.  I look at Casey Mittelstadt and he just doesn't seem like he fits the mold of the rest of the team yet Donny gets a lot of utility out of him for the things he does well.  I think for the Casey haters a lot of his talent is in support roles- backchecking, penalty killing, passing, and it just doesn't get the big headlines like a Tuch hat trick or an Ollie one-timer.  It seems like even his shorthanded goal is already fading into the background.

But the point is Granato uses the tools Casey has to the benefit of the team.  He doesn't try to make all his guys use the same tools like Ralph did.

[Doohickie]

5 hours ago, JohnC said:

Kevin Adams has made a lot of good decisions in his relatively short stint. The most consequential is elevating Granato to replace Krueger, and then making him the head coach. 

There's a helluva lot he's done but yeah, that was probably his best.  I'm also very impressed by the way he handled the Eichel situation and eventual trade.

[apuszczalowski]

On 10/22/2022 at 10:28 AM, SDS said:

How the hell is Vancouver favored in this game?

Sabres were +1.5 a t one point yesterday before the game.

I had to do a few double takes before placing some money down because I couldn't believe they were favoring a winless team so much against a team thats playing so well. The only reason i can think of now was that they saw Ryan ,Miller was in the area and assumed he would be playing for Vancouver last night?

[JohnC]

8 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

There's a helluva lot he's done but yeah, that was probably his best.  I'm also very impressed by the way he handled the Eichel situation and eventual trade.

I don't look at the Eichel trade in isolation. I see it as part of the Eichel/Reinhart/Risto group in which the old core was exchanged for a new core that included players young players on the roster, such as Dahlin, Tage, Cozens and Mitts etc. The GM was judicious in not only sending out players for pieces for new building blocks but also was smart enough to not completely blow up the roster up for the sake of starting over. 

I remember when he took over the hockey operation he was on WGR and spoke about his philosophy in building a Cup contending team. He stressed the importance of building a roster where the talent was spread out throughout the roster as opposed to relying on one a high-end first line. Carolina was his model for a Cup caliber team. As you also point out overall he has done a sterling job. 

[JohnC]

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

 

Ticket sales, while better than last year, are still lagging around 10K-12K.  Maybe once football is done it will pick up.

I'm hoping that after a very successful west coast trip that the Sabres draw a big crowd for the Montreal game, the next home game. The players deserve it. 

[PromoTheRobot]

21 minutes ago, JohnC said:

I'm hoping that after a very successful west coast trip that the Sabres draw a big crowd for the Montreal game, the next home game. The players deserve it. 

This is ticket availability for Montreal Tuesday.

[apuszczalowski]

48 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

This is ticket availability for Montreal Tuesday.

Your expecting fans to show up 2 days early to fill the arena?

Lol

 

[Doohickie]

That represents tickets available, not who's there.

[erickompositör72]

18 hours ago, Flashsabre said:

I would just love to know what was going through Granato’s mind as he sat on that Krueger coaching staff.

I would love to know the conversations between KA & DG that convinced KA to relieve RK and replace him with DG.

[Doohickie]

2 hours ago, erickompositör72 said:

I would love to know the conversations between KA & DG that convinced KA to relieve RK and replace him with DG.

I would love to know the conversations between TP & KA where KA convinced TP to relieve RK.

******

I've presented my conspiracy theory previously that frames Keyvn's ascendancy to the GM position as "coup".  It's kind of dramatic and stuff, but I really do think that Kevyn used the resources available to him to convince TP to make him GM.  These resources included:

• Kevyn's existing relationship with the Pegulas including understanding what makes them tick.
• Kevyn's understand of the team- the players, the locker room dynamics, the politics, based on observations.
• Botterill's style as GM including his strengths and shortcomings and how that affected the roster based on observations.
• Krueger's coaching methods based on observations.
• And importantly, Don Granato's takes on the team and the coaching situation.

Whether Don approached Kevyn or the other way around, I'm pretty sure those two were talking together prior to Krueger's firing, and perhaps even prior to JBot's firing, and that Granato was kind of a "mole" in the room reporting to Kevyn.  So when Kevyn did his coaching search he already had an active relationship with Granato and knew Donny checked all the boxes. 

Bear in mind that KA was coming into the job as an "outsider" to the profession but had enough knowledge to have formed opinions of what he wanted to do.  From that perspective he didn't necessarily see previous NHL HC experience for the Sabres coaching job as a hard requirement, so people like Budreau and Gallant and such didn't have an inherent advantage over Granato who had limited experience at the NHL level.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Doohickie

[Thorny]

On 10/23/2022 at 9:06 AM, kas23 said:

Didn’t we cause the Winnipeg implosion last year too? 

Yes 

[steveoath]

On 10/23/2022 at 3:06 PM, kas23 said:

Didn’t we cause the Winnipeg implosion last year too? 

And the Toronto one this year!

[Thorny]

22 hours ago, JohnC said:

It had to be an excruciating experience for him. My understanding is that Krueger didn't tolerate dissent from his staff. So, it's likely that Granato kept his views to himself. As soon as he took over, he undid everything that Krueger did, including how he conducted practices. Another interesting bar room question is how much further along would this franchise be if Granato was hired instead of Krueger? 

I've said this before so I apologize for the repetition: Kevin Adams has made a lot of good decisions in his relatively short stint. The most consequential is elevating Granato to replace Krueger, and then making him the head coach. 

If Granato is his most consequential decision, it pains me to say we'll need to credit Botterill a little bit as well, as he hired Granato in the first place. 

While Botterill's finger prints are still all over the roster, and staff, a lot of what Adams has done actually is take the pieces Botterill brought in and re-mould them into something greater than the sum of its parts. The hard part, I suppose 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Thorny

[Doohickie]

20 minutes ago, Thorny said:

While Botterill's finger prints are still all over the roster, and staff, a lot of what Adams has done actually is take the pieces Botterill brought in and re-mould them into something greater than the sum of its parts. The hard part, I suppose 

He also surgically removed the cancer without harming the good parts of the body.  That's the really hard part.

[Thorny]

36 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

He also surgically removed the cancer without harming the good parts of the body.  That's the really hard part.

Maybe. 

If Jack is as much of a liability as everyone says he is, perhaps that was one of the easier decisions he made. 

[Doohickie]

The hard part was knowing what to cut and what to keep for the team he is building.