GDT: Blue Jackets @ Sabres - Tue. 7 pm ET, Dec 19, 2023, MSG-B, BSOH 📺 WGR 📻

[Scottysabres]

2 minutes ago, sabremike said:

I have a question: WHY DON'T THEY PUT HER IN CHARGE RIGHT NOW? MIKE BROWN PUTTING HIS DAUGHTER IN CHARGE OF THE BENGALS IS HOW WE BECAME A SERIOUS CREDIBLE FRANCHISE, WHY CAN'T TERRY DO LIKEWISE????????????????

I don't know. 

[Doohickie]

9 hours ago, SabresBillsFan said:

He should have been gone weeks ago. I was unable to watch the game but how did Tuch and Thompson play. These are supposed to be your offensive leaders.

Thompson I don't think is all the way back yet, and he's trying to dangle too much.  Tuch is hustling but right now ineffective.

[#freejame]

10 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

Tage was interviewed too, at least on WGR he was.

Tim Graham wrote a good article in the athletic this morning and in it he said the Sabres media team made tage came out, he didn’t do it on his own. 

[Gatorman0519]

It’s obvious this franchise is overwhelmingly broken and toxic. So much so it is now the extreme outlier for losing. This has never happened in the NHL before. We are in new territory. Think about this… the team has only won 2 in a row once this year! Who does that?  They are fragile and terrible.  
 

The fix is obvious. There are several experienced GM candidates and especially coaches that very quickly can make this team at least respectable. there is way too much talent to not at least make a run for 7th or 8th… Philly has willed themselves to 2nd place. Why? They have an alpha dog as a coach. Donny is afraid to “punish” them.  Soft! There is zero accountability anywhere in this organization. 

[Doohickie]

9 hours ago, Believer said:

Would like to know the names of the six players who stuck around.

We know two of them:  Okie and Tage, because they gave interviews.  I would be willing to wager Casey was also there.

[#freejame]

1 minute ago, Doohickie said:

We know two of them:  Okie and Tage, because they gave interviews.  I would be willing to wager Casey was also there.

Tuch was one but was unable to speak per Graham 

[SabresVet]

29 minutes ago, Quint said:

We all dreaded it when he announced that Kim was going to be "President for life." That has changed. She is no longer in the picture. In fact, she has completely disappeared from view. Pegula is in hiding from Sabres fans. That has changed too. It wasn't always like that. RJ, the face and voice of the franchise, is gone, that's change. Pegula, as thick-headed as he is, must notice all the rejections he has gotten from players and coaches he wanted to woo here with his big money. Money isn't everything. It's the situation. And this one is dire and unfixable under this Hindenburg of Hockey.Change could happen, even to someone as intractible as Pegula. 

He and his family have always gone to FL in the winter, he's 72 years old, and it's possible his wife has suffered a permanent debilitating medical event.  I'm not going to bash him for personal decisions to remain physically away from the team.  He can communicate effectively without being in Buffalo.  

That said, the start of the problems with this ownership was when they thought buying the team meant they told hockey people which hockey decisions to make.  I have a friend who covers the team who cannot tell me for sure why LaFontaine left.  Fast forward a few years and it's clear the Pegula's felt betrayed by NHL types who recommended people like Botterill which led to them hiring someone unqualified but trusted with Adams.  It's been one domino falling after another and by now the word has gotten out in NHL circles that's not a place to go.  Sure, they'll spend as evidenced by the Thompson, Cozens, Dahlin, and Samuelsson extensions, but it's not an environment where hockey people are given enough decision-making authority. 

At this point, seeing 4 HC's fired around the league, this team floundering near the bottom of the standings, I'd expect that Pegula would yield to Adams and that Adams has the latitude to change course with the HC.  

[sabrefanday1]

If it is any consolation Colorado lost to Chicago and Ottawa with their nice new coach blew a 3-0 lead and lost 4-3. I guess we are not the only team in crsis mode...Oilers lost third straight after looking so good with their new coach. begs the question: will a new coach really help in the long run?

[nucci]

2 minutes ago, sabrefanday1 said:

If it is any consolation Colorado lost to Chicago and Ottawa with their nice new coach blew a 3-0 lead and lost 4-3. I guess we are not the only team in crsis mode...Oilers lost third straight after looking so good with their new coach. begs the question: will a new coach really help in the long run?

It's not

[WhenWillItEnd66]

I have to say this is the first time in Sabres fandom that i do not want to watch them anymore. Even when we were supposed to be bad i enjoyed watching the little things good that would happen. Unfortunately there are no more little things good and this team is an embarrassment. We are the easiest team to play against. Just forecheck them hard and crumble like old cards. The do not forecheck or back check physically. They won't go to the front of the net. The whole team are expert stick checkers. This team is built drastically wrong. When they are fully healthy i am not seeing a difference in how they play. Even simple decisions seem beyond comprehension. Sitting RJ? I know everyone on team is not blind. RJ is actually responsible. I hate to say, but i will not be wasting my evenings getting frustrated over the lack of just about everything on this team. I am tired of 13 years of excuses and ineptness. Thank you Sabres for assisting in ruining my love of my favorite sport. I can even care less about the drafts as this team has not seemed to learn.

[Brawndo]

1 hour ago, Scottysabres said:

We all are. Him and Kim answered this 7 or 8 years ago. The team will be going to the oldest daughter, from Terry's first marriage, a rabid fan like her dad. Short memory?

Laura Pegula represented the Bills at the owners meetings last March. She has not represented the Sabres at the BOG nor been seen at Key Bank Center.

None of the kids have. 
 

 

[Doohickie]

8 hours ago, Second Line Center said:

This might also come across to some as insulting but I’m sorry - Okposo is a good ambassador to the game.  But he is just a God awful captain. 
 

Sure the guys like and respect him.  
 

Because he is the anti Mark Messier.  He didn’t give you a look on the bench if you had a bad shift or loafed and immediately regretted all life decisions up to that moment.  
 

This team has not had a legit captain since the guy in my profile pic.  
 

Okposo is captain by default.  The worst kind of setup.  The coach and captain can’t both be “friends” to the guys.  Half these kids on the roster were 10-13 years old the last time Okposo was actually good - in his contract year.  
 

This isn’t his fault.  It just shouldn’t be his job.  KA absolutely bungled this.  It also showed the kids they needed that “here is how you do things in the NHL the right way” guy.  Not a real sign of trust to a group you think is ready.   
 

We need more than that - this team needs Dahlin to be captain asap.  

Well if the GM and coach aren't going to be fired, it's probably time to have a players only meeting.  Let the players figure it out, and if it means moving the C to someone else's jersey, let the players decide (the A's as well).  And if there's a closed, players only meeting, I think it will become organically obvious who should get the letters.  They may not be the players the team management and fan base would expect.

But if they did something like this it would possibly provide a demarcation point to the season in the absence of a coaching change or major trade.

And it would also (likely) be a hand-off of team leadership to the young core.

[Scottysabres]

1 minute ago, Brawndo said:

Laura Pegula represented the Bills at the owners meetings last March. She has not represented the Sabres at the BOG nor been seen at Key Bank Center.

None of the kids have. 
 

 

That's not what I was addressing though. I can only go by what Terry and Kim said during that press conference all those years ago. Unless Terry says or has said differently, which he hasn't yet anyways, it's all I have to go off of. Speculating the possible sale has been convo's for more than a couple of seasons now, but I've seen nothing from Terry that's going to happen.

But, let's speculate for a moment. He sells, who's buying that would keep the team here with an utterly destroyed support base in a small market? I'd wager the odds are overwhelming the team would leave Buffalo and the NHL, always looking for new, larger money markets, would throw its full support behind such a move. What little hockey fans that are left here would just be absorbed in to the Leafs market or the other downstate NY teams or scattered across the league I suspect. In a couple decades or less, the despise for Toronto would evaporate the league probably figures is my estimation.

Anyways, that's my view of a speculation scenario on the team being sold.

[PASabreFan]

5 hours ago, Rasmus_ said:

Fire Granato into the sun 🌞 

We'd hit the post.

1 hour ago, Scottysabres said:

We all are. Him and Kim answered this 7 or 8 years ago. The team will be going to the oldest daughter, from Terry's first marriage, a rabid fan like her dad. Short memory?

Terry a rabid fan? Give me a break.

[ExWNYer]

8 hours ago, Thorny said:

a *sophomore* slump. A sophomore *slump*

Kyle 'Bluto Blutarsky' Okposo...

 

[SwampD]

4 hours ago, Nitro60 said:

For two years, 200-3-2005, the team was in limbo.  Rigas empire was in tatters and the fate of the Sabres was in the balance.  Rumors of a new owner and moving the team were rampant.  In 2008-2009 Jim Balsillie was with a group trying to land a team in Hamilton.  The Sabres were in their sights.  Fortunately Gallisano resisted and sold the team to the Pegulas.  

Not sure those early dates are correct, but,… K

And Bettman chose to keep the team in Buffalo and actually have it run by the NHL itself, rather than sell it to Balsillie and move it to Hamilton.

The team was never going to move.

[LGR4GM]

2 minutes ago, SwampD said:

Not sure those early dates are correct, but,… K

And Bettman chose to keep the team in Buffalo and actually have it run by the NHL itself, rather than sell it to Balsillie and move it to Hamilton.

The team was never going to move.

"The team moving" is the boogeyman of Buffalo. 

"You can't have anything good because WHAT IF THE TEAM LEAVES!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!????!?!?!?!?!!" 

Screw em, leave at this point. You can't win. Or hell maybe someone will keep the team here because as the years progress the gate is going to become less important than the TV revenue and good teams get watched. 

[Billznut]

41 minutes ago, SabresVet said:

He and his family have always gone to FL in the winter, he's 72 years old, and it's possible his wife has suffered a permanent debilitating medical event.  I'm not going to bash him for personal decisions to remain physically away from the team.  He can communicate effectively without being in Buffalo.  

Pegula was just in Buffalo not even two days ago for the Bills game. In fact, Terry Pegula attends EVERY Bills game home and away. So the Florida excuse holds no water. The Bills are his favorite toy and it’s not even close. It’s also understandable, they are a winning franchise and worth a hell of a lot more than the Sabres. I believe once the football season ends each year, then Terry pays more attention to the Sabres, but not from August-January and he never has nor ever will attend every Sabres game. The Sabres are his hobby, the Bills are his life. 

[Quint]

41 minutes ago, SabresVet said:

 Fast forward a few years and it's clear the Pegula's felt betrayed by NHL types who recommended people like Botterill which led to them hiring someone unqualified but trusted with Adams.  

First he bought the Sabres. First thing he did was remake the lockeroom to the tune of $10 million. Then he spent a lot of money on players. The money didn't help and the players left. Losing ensued. Things weren't going well, then he went crying to LaFontaine. I heard he was literally crying. Then he sacked LaFontaine. Then he went to the NHL to seek advice on who to hire.

When you have to go to the NHL to seek advice on who to hire, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.

 

[That Aud Smell]

 

[sabresparaavida]

Watched the first period, fell asleep in intermission, woke up and it’s 6-1. Didn’t watch the rest.

[Scottysabres]

27 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

 

Terry a rabid fan? Give me a break.

I didn't elude to rabid as in desire, I actually am starting to believe he has rabbies, given his poor decision making 😀

[Billznut]

9 hours ago, Second Line Center said:

 

This might also come across to some as insulting but I’m sorry - Okposo is a good ambassador to the game.  But he is just a God awful captain. 
 

Sure the guys like and respect him.  
 

Because he is the anti Mark Messier.  He didn’t give you a look on the bench if you had a bad shift or loafed and immediately regretted all life decisions up to that moment.  
 

This team has not had a legit captain since the guy in my profile pic.  
 

 

Agree with your first sentiment. Okposo is a terrible captain right now for what this team needs. He’s never been a winner, so I have zero idea how he is supposed to “teach” the kids how to win, when he himself has never done so. And yes he is wayyy too nice to be effective as captain. I will disagree with your last comment though because Peca was late 90s captain and was great. But Chris Drury came after Peca and was a very legit captain and was a major reason the Sabres were amazing from 2005-2007. A Drury type of captain on this team could do wonders. Thats my hesitancy with Dahlin getting the C, I have serious doubts he would get in people’s faces, but maybe he would prove me wrong. 

[Believer]

7 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Well part of the problem (only part) might be the "captain" was back on the bench smiling about scoring a goal when the game was 7-2. 

Yep… Saw that and couldn’t believe it… 

All wrong mindset… from our Captain no less…

 

 

[Scottysabres]

Priceless....... 🤣