Staying the course - Comments from Season Ticket Holder Q and A

[nfreeman]

14 hours ago, Thorny said:

The biggest rug being continually pulled over the eyes of the fanbase is that something needs to be “built”. Over a long period of time. Address the roster holes. Prioritize winning right now. The goal should be fielding a playoff team before “building” a cup winner 

Now that is a Rayzor-level malapropism.  Well done.

 

12 hours ago, Sabres73 said:

"Sounds like they are preparing to miss again next year". I don't know what you were listening to dude, but that's a ridiculous comment for someone to make if they did indeed listen to it.

This has been a disappointing year, but I'm hopeful for many years of success coming. What is more disappointing has been reading flat out dumb comments this season from so-called fans spewing a lot of crap, in my opinion. I'm very disappointed in a lot of the posters on this site. Flame away.

This is obnoxious.  Do not communicate like this here.

[Believer]

57 minutes ago, Mango said:

Some info on Sabres73

- Kevyn Adams was born in 74...hmmmm off by one year? Why? To throw us off the scent? If he was Sabres74 he would have certainly have been outed.
- Joined October 2021. The starting month of Kevyn Adams first full 82 game season. And just before the Eichel trade? 
- Their first post was on the Eichel thread before he was traded. (10/21)
- Second post called the Tage Thompson signing "genius" (1/23)
- 3rd post said that they were glad fans were not the GM of the team. (1/23)
- 4th post was "I will take what this GM has done"(1/23) 
- Most posts are about how amazing the GM is and how bad the fans are.

I basically confirmed Sabres73 (74?) is Kevyn Adams. 

 

 

Interesting.

More likely his wife. Just a guess.

[pi2000]

This is great news. 

To lose patience is to lose the battle. 

[Thorny]

4 hours ago, SwampD said:

I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all.

Whats disappointing to me is that people can still buy into their promise of the future, while watching them do nothing to change that future. Unless the internal cap (which I personally believe exists) gets lifted, and we see a much different off-season this summer, I think we’re going to get the same season we have seen this year.

The biggest thing people miss is that by the prism of wanting an exceptionally slow, long form, “we love to be patient and never have results as long as the prospect pool ranks highly” style rebuild: everyone else does it/ has done it faster. Except for the exceptionally distant outliers 

we can hope that it’ll just take more time, but the plan has already proven to have objectively struggled relative to other teams (most teams do this, we aren’t special) who have employed it 

we are forced to erroneously tout “length” of build as a badge of honor (patience!) because we have no other metric by which we can compare to other teams. “Maybe if our long build is longest we’ll be best” lol 

No, the plan has failed so far. Its first big goal measure was this season and we’ve failed. By the intrinsic targets of this specific plan. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to scrap the regime but I wouldn’t give them a 3rd mulligan 

if we make the playoffs next year, that in and of itself isn’t the mark of a “successful” plan anymore as taking 5 years to make the playoffs is an absurdly long time and the stated point of a long term build was to avoid “merely fielding a playoff team”. If that’s all we wanted it’s a 1-3 year process max with competence 

Edited March 12 by Thorny

[Thorny]

4 hours ago, LETSTUCHINGO said:

Thank you Derrico for starting this thread. I too was in attendance last night. I was also there last year and without a doubt, went into this B&G with a bad taste in my mouth, hopeful not to hear the same message as last year. While I agree with some of your summary, I walked away with a different perspective. Also, I would like to add some comments by KA and DG that were left out. 

- KA was asked what his biggest mistake has been since he arrived here. He didn't dodge the question and stated that he thought it would have been much easier to attain "buy in" by the players and organization. He said that it was harder than expected and therefor people and players had to go. We all know who left.

-KA said when he got here, the Sabres were in shambles. They no money, bad contracts, and no prospects. He believes is building from within and has built up the prospect pool to the best in the league. He also said, he would 100 percent trade any of those prospects now for the right player, who would help us win now! Much different than the message he conveyed last year.

- They think very highly of Krebs. Stated he thinks about 2/3 yrs ago about Mitts, everyone was ready to write him off. Now look where he is. They both feel Krebs is in the same place and ready to breakout, especially being more with Dahlin, Bo and Power as the 3rd line C. When Krebs has been with them, he has driven the line and his offensive game has shown through. They expect more of that going forward. 

- They are extremely high on Bo Byram. They feel he will take pressure and minutes off of Dahlin. They have been looking for another 1st pair D and are very happy that Mitts has developed into the player that was able to be traded for a player of Bo's caliber. KA made reference to the fact that 2/3 years ago, no one would expected the development that occurred with Mitts. KA felt that with the injuries to Tuch, TNT, and Skinne over the last 2 seasons, Mitts was pushed up lines and we/he saw the benefits of being with Dmen like Dalhs, Bo, and Power who drive lines and push transitions up ice and keep pucks on the sticks of the forwards. Now that they have Bo, we will see more of it. Scoring will come back, but maybe look a little different with Dalhs, Bo and Power (developing) being more offensive Dmen. KA believes in building from the defense forward. That wasn't stated in the B&G (it was inferred), but he has stated that previously.

- KA believes goaltending is a strength and will only get stronger.

- Towards the end of the B&G, taking questions from the audience, 2 fans were very critical of both KA and DG. They stating views that are common among STH and this board. Both KA and DG took the critiques professionally, but IMO couldn't hide the fact that they took the slights personally. KA stated no one is working harder towards the goal of winning now and having sustainable winning going forward he he and DG. In their closing statements, DG's comments showed a great deal of passion. Everyone in the room could see how annoyed he was by the previous comments and he directed his comments specifically to them at times. He passionately reiterated that the club is looking to win now, moving in the right direction, a sustained winning team is coming, will be here for awhile, and that he guaranteed more wins and scoring are coming.

That is the best unbiased summary I can give. I left there a little more confident in the direction of the team than when I arrived. I am still upset at the lack of movement last summer showed by KA. I believe we should have made a move for a veteran goalie and we definitely should have made a move for a forward once Quinn went down. With that said, both are 1st timers in the respective roles, which was a concern most identified when they both were hired. Meaning, there was bound to be a learning curve and most fans are not in the mood for a learning curve when the playoff drought has been as long as it has been. That's neither here nor there now, what I can say is that IMO KA has this organization in the best spot it has been in in 13 years! I like DG, but if he doesn't produce a winning product next season, he will need to go sooner than later. I apologize for the long read, but I wanted to try and convey all the information and pulse of the B&G for those who couldn't attended. BIG WEEK THIS WEEK, 3-0! Go Sabres!

“In shambles” LMAO

4 years later 80% of our best players are Botterill guys 

[Thorny]

4 hours ago, nucci said:

Shouldn't expect anything to change as long as Pegula and Adams are here.

Half the fanbase is still, “we got this, stay the course” after a historically bad 13 years and a putrid league relative last 4. Right or wrong, I think that probably says something about reluctance to change 

[French Collection]

7 minutes ago, Thorny said:

“In shambles” LMAO

4 years later 80% of our best players are Botterill guys 

Good point.

He needs to turn some Adams guys into real players, very soon. BTW, none of the prospects seem ready to have an actual impact yet, so trades seem like the best option.

[Night Train]

14 hours ago, Sabres73 said:

"Sounds like they are preparing to miss again next year". I don't know what you were listening to dude, but that's a ridiculous comment for someone to make if they did indeed listen to it.

This has been a disappointing year, but I'm hopeful for many years of success coming. What is more disappointing has been reading flat out dumb comments this season from so-called fans spewing a lot of crap, in my opinion. I'm very disappointed in a lot of the posters on this site. Flame away.

13 years of no playoffs when half of the teams make the playoffs speaks volumes.

I believe that explains a lot of posts quite clearly.  

[Thorny]

9 minutes ago, French Collection said:

Good point.

He needs to turn some Adams guys into real players, very soon. BTW, none of the prospects seem ready to have an actual impact yet, so trades seem like the best option.

Also funny that Botterill was to keep his job if he merely cut costs. So apparently TP didn’t think the roster was in shambles at all.

It’s almost impossible to parse the sh*t these guys say, truthfully. It’s good we can ignore the noise and simply measure based on results 

[PerreaultForever]

9 hours ago, SabreFinn said:

The best for Krebs would be to go to a team like Sharks or Blackhawks to play bigger minutes with more responsibility.

Some won't agree, but imo he's slightly less than Curtis Lazar. He is a slightly better play maker and is maybe faster (hard to tell if you factor in age) but he isn't as good on draws and Lazar was (and maybe still is) a better physical presence. Neither can score. 

So with the right wingers, like Lazar had in Boston, he can be a marginally effective 4th liner, but that's about it.

[thewookie1]

26 minutes ago, Thorny said:

The biggest thing people miss is that by the prism of wanting an exceptionally slow, long form, “we love to be patient and never have results as long as the prospect pool ranks highly” style rebuild: everyone else does it/ has done it faster. Except for the exceptionally distant outliers 

we can hope that it’ll just take more time, but the plan has already proven to have objectively struggled relative to other teams (most teams do this, we aren’t special) who have employed it 

we are forced to erroneously tout “length” of build as a badge of honor (patience!) because we have no other metric by which we can compare to other teams. “Maybe if our long build is longest we’ll be best” lol 

No, the plan has failed so far. Its first big goal measure was this season and we’ve failed. By the intrinsic targets of this specific plan. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to scrap the regime but I wouldn’t give them a 3rd mulligan 

if we make the playoffs next year, that in and of itself isn’t the mark of a “successful” plan anymore as taking 5 years to make the playoffs is an absurdly long time and the stated point of a long term build was to avoid “merely fielding a playoff team”. If that’s all we wanted it’s a 1-3 year process max with competence 

Frankly I'm only patient because I fear the alternatives but even then my patience is running incredibly thin at this point.

It feels as if we are literally trapped in a vicious cycle we cant break; we need great players to have success, to sign great players you need to have had success, and thus we are left with the development only model at this point thanks to over a decade of failures. We have no option to bring in past successful Sabres players since the vast majority are retired. (Our last chance was with Pominville and Vanek during the 19-20 season) Our only link to our past is a player who happened to be a die-hard fan during the years of successful seasons. Tuch brings pride in playing for the Sabres but like all of us here, we have zero clue how that locker room worked besides via stories and occasional player references. 

Adams statements about wanting players who want to be here isn't a weird slogan or cop-out but his attempt at forging an identity out of basically nothing since the tank years saw to that. Paying any random guy a ton of money to play here won't create a culture since they won't give a damn about creating a team; they'd be mercenaries primarily. The other factor is multiple acquisition methods being somewhat tied to this in a more literal sense. Any NTC/NMC would need to want to be here to actually come here. UFAs have to be at least interested in being here or they'll either ignore us or ask for insane compensation. 

Most of all however is the primary issue with the trading of prospects; most top level players have protection and those that don't are typically either very old, will be very disgruntled coming here, have a very short term remaining or a combination of all three. Trading a top level prospect also comes with the added issues of losing a future star or even worse, the new player acquired being a complete bust/headcase a la Slava Koslov. No one wants to be Washington trading Filip Forsberg for Martin Erat.

[SwampD]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

The biggest thing people miss is that by the prism of wanting an exceptionally slow, long form, “we love to be patient and never have results as long as the prospect pool ranks highly” style rebuild: everyone else does it/ has done it faster. Except for the exceptionally distant outliers 

we can hope that it’ll just take more time, but the plan has already proven to have objectively struggled relative to other teams (most teams do this, we aren’t special) who have employed it 

we are forced to erroneously tout “length” of build as a badge of honor (patience!) because we have no other metric by which we can compare to other teams. “Maybe if our long build is longest we’ll be best” lol 

No, the plan has failed so far. Its first big goal measure was this season and we’ve failed. By the intrinsic targets of this specific plan. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to scrap the regime but I wouldn’t give them a 3rd mulligan 

if we make the playoffs next year, that in and of itself isn’t the mark of a “successful” plan anymore as taking 5 years to make the playoffs is an absurdly long time and the stated point of a long term build was to avoid “merely fielding a playoff team”. If that’s all we wanted it’s a 1-3 year process max with competence 

Now, if they make the playoffs, make them again the next year, and the next, and go on to win “multiple Stanley Cups,” then, and only then, should we think the plan was successful.

[Sabres73]

2 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Now that is a Rayzor-level malapropism.  Well done.

 

This is obnoxious.  Do not communicate like this here.

I'll "communicate" how I like, thank you very much. Truth hurts eh?

[#freejame]

A reminder that in the time since trading for Martin Erat the Capitals have won a Stanley Cup and we have still yet to make the playoffs.

You can’t GM afraid. One mistake shouldn’t set a franchise back that much. 

[#freejame]

1 minute ago, Sabres73 said:

I'll "communicate" how I like, thank you very much. Truth hurts eh?

lol you can communicate however you want and as a mod he can block you for whatever he wants

[Sabres73]

Just now, #freejame said:

lol you can communicate however you want and as a mod he can block you for whatever he wants

And why would a mod be blocking me? For calling out the whiners for their nonsense posts? LOL indeed.

[nfreeman]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

“In shambles” LMAO

4 years later 80% of our best players are Botterill guys 

43 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Also funny that Botterill was to keep his job if he merely cut costs. So apparently TP didn’t think the roster was in shambles at all.

It’s almost impossible to parse the sh*t these guys say, truthfully. It’s good we can ignore the noise and simply measure based on results 

When KA took over, the Sabres had just completed JB's 3rd season.  They finished with 68 pts in 69 games, utterly squandering Eichel's FIFTH season, in which he had finally emerged as a no-BS major star.  This was also their first season under Krueger, who had been out of the NHL and working in another sport on another continent for 6 years before JB for some reason hired him.

JB had also just given Skinner a zillion dollars before Krueger reduced his output to 14 goals in 59 games.

It's true that JB would've likely kept his job had he agreed to TP's cost-cutting requirements, but IMHO that was very much a Covid-era move as the NHL entered a period with no fans and significantly declining revenues for the foreseeable future.

I think the vast majority of fans here wanted JB fired that summer and would agree with the "in shambles" description.

[#freejame]

11 minutes ago, Sabres73 said:

And why would a mod be blocking me? For calling out the whiners for their nonsense posts? LOL indeed.

Uh because they are a sabrespace mod and do whatever they like? 

In reality though, it’s because your posts are inflammatory. I think you come off as a whiny Pegula shill but I don’t go making underhanded comments about it because that’s not good for the board.

You on the other hand tell Brawndo he’s dumb and doesn’t get hockey and say things like Thorny is a ***** Sabres fan for not being patient. That contributes nothing. The majority of your posts you’re either shilling or telling people they are bad fans. That also contributes nothing. 

Do better. 

[Thorny]

30 minutes ago, SwampD said:

Now, if they make the playoffs, make them again the next year, and the next, and go on to win “multiple Stanley Cups,” then, and only then, should we think the plan was successful.

Agree. For the plan to have been “successful”, nothing short of Adams assembling a perennial cup contender is acceptable. That’s not harsh: that’s what they said they wanted to build 

They could have set their sights lower: they could have said the aim was to make the playoffs. But that’s not what they wanted. 

And their execution certainly reflected that.

Absolutely no praise deserved for falling short and achieving something that would have been an appropriate goal IF the time frame was a couple years. That wasn’t the intrinsic goal of the plan. The fact they willingly threw away 3 years for development and evaluation proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt 

Edited March 12 by Thorny

[Thorny]

49 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:

Frankly I'm only patient because I fear the alternatives but even then my patience is running incredibly thin at this point.

It feels as if we are literally trapped in a vicious cycle we cant break; we need great players to have success, to sign great players you need to have had success, and thus we are left with the development only model at this point thanks to over a decade of failures. We have no option to bring in past successful Sabres players since the vast majority are retired. (Our last chance was with Pominville and Vanek during the 19-20 season) Our only link to our past is a player who happened to be a die-hard fan during the years of successful seasons. Tuch brings pride in playing for the Sabres but like all of us here, we have zero clue how that locker room worked besides via stories and occasional player references. 

Adams statements about wanting players who want to be here isn't a weird slogan or cop-out but his attempt at forging an identity out of basically nothing since the tank years saw to that. Paying any random guy a ton of money to play here won't create a culture since they won't give a damn about creating a team; they'd be mercenaries primarily. The other factor is multiple acquisition methods being somewhat tied to this in a more literal sense. Any NTC/NMC would need to want to be here to actually come here. UFAs have to be at least interested in being here or they'll either ignore us or ask for insane compensation. 

Most of all however is the primary issue with the trading of prospects; most top level players have protection and those that don't are typically either very old, will be very disgruntled coming here, have a very short term remaining or a combination of all three. Trading a top level prospect also comes with the added issues of losing a future star or even worse, the new player acquired being a complete bust/headcase a la Slava Koslov. No one wants to be Washington trading Filip Forsberg for Martin Erat.

None of this represents a legitimate obstacle to finding a way to finish 16/32 once in 4 years 

By all means: sign up some mercenaries to achieve a goal, to make the playoffs. The connotation is ridiculous but whatever: they are all “mercenaries”

People don’t want to come here because we suck? Field a winner in any way you can: home grown or not. Pay what you need to pay. Stop measuring assets by way of what they will grant you in the future: evaluate and assess how your assets can be parlayed into a playoff berth right now 

Edited March 12 by Thorny

[Thorny]

17 minutes ago, #freejame said:

Uh because they are a sabrespace mod and do whatever they like? 

In reality though, it’s because your posts are inflammatory. I think you come off as a whiny Pegula shill but I don’t go making underhanded comments about it because that’s not good for the board.

You on the other hand tell Brawndo he’s dumb and doesn’t get hockey and say things like Thorny is a ***** Sabres fan for not being patient. That contributes nothing. The majority of your posts you’re either shilling or telling people they are bad fans. That also contributes nothing. 

Do better. 

When did he call me that? Lol

[Thorny]

48 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

When KA took over, the Sabres had just completed JB's 3rd season.  They finished with 68 pts in 69 games, utterly squandering Eichel's FIFTH season, in which he had finally emerged as a no-BS major star.  This was also their first season under Krueger, who had been out of the NHL and working in another sport on another continent for 6 years before JB for some reason hired him.

JB had also just given Skinner a zillion dollars before Krueger reduced his output to 14 goals in 59 games.

It's true that JB would've likely kept his job had he agreed to TP's cost-cutting requirements, but IMHO that was very much a Covid-era move as the NHL entered a period with no fans and significantly declining revenues for the foreseeable future.

I think the vast majority of fans here wanted JB fired that summer and would agree with the "in shambles" description.

There’s “shambles” based on expected performance and “shambles” based on distance from success. I think my argument is consistent here because, even as captain of the “KA has failed so far” fan club, I’m also not the dude firing him and I’m also not the dude saying with a few prudent changes this can’t be turned around fast

you are correct I wanted JB canned but that’s not the same thing as thinking the franchise was in shambles relative to turn around to success: merely by way of how much we had failed relative to expectations

We absolutely should be a playoff team next year. We absolutely should have been this year. I wouldn’t be firing KA because he’s fallen incredibly short, I’d be firing him because it would be incredible we fell short so many times when distance from success was imminently achievable 

I post a lot, I’m not sure how much more heavy handed I can be in driving home this point time and time again: the frustration comes from the fact this is ABSOLUTELY salvageable but we simply refuse to measure results in the now 

- - -

Frankly, and this is based on league wise results of the past, solid past precedent: a team with the will to act, with that will informed by competence, is very rarely more than a single offseason away from reasonably fielding a playoff team when it’s ~ a 50/50 proposition. And that team *should* be able to do it with 2 off seasons

Nearly 70% of the current league hasn’t gone more than *2* seasons sans playoffs 

This will be Adams’ 5th offseason 

Edited March 12 by Thorny

[inkman]

55 minutes ago, Sabres73 said:

I'll "communicate" how I like, thank you very much. Truth hurts eh?

Or you’ll just get banned genius. 

[nfreeman]

20 minutes ago, Thorny said:

There’s “shambles” based on expected performance and “shambles” based on distance from success. I think my argument is consistent here because, even as captain of the “KA has failed so far” fan club, I’m also not the dude firing him and I’m also not the dude saying with a few prudent changes this can’t be turned around fast

you are correct I wanted JB canned but that’s not the same thing as thinking the franchise was in shambles relative to turn around to success: merely by way of how much we had failed relative to expectations

We absolutely should be a playoff team next year. We absolutely should have been this year. I wouldn’t be firing KA because he’s fallen incredibly short, I’d be firing him because it would be incredible we fell short so many times when distance from success was imminently achievable 

I post a lot, I’m not sure how much more heavy handed I can be in driving home this point time and time again: the frustration comes from the fact this is ABSOLUTELY salvageable but we simply refuse to measure results in the now 

- - -

Frankly, and this is based on league wise results of the past, solid past precedent: a team with the will to act, with that will informed by competence, is very rarely more than a single offseason away from reasonably fielding a playoff team when it’s ~ a 50/50 proposition. And that team *should* be able to do it with 2 off seasons

Nearly 70% of the current league hasn’t gone more than *2* seasons sans playoffs 

This will be Adams’ 5th offseason 

I'm not disagreeing at all that this season represents an unambiguous failure by KA and DG, or that the overall evaluation of their tenure here is "below average to poor" or that both of their seats should be hot next season (although as I've said, I think DG should be fired this summer if not before).

I'm simply saying that I more or less agree with KA's description of the state of the franchise in 2020 as being "in a shambles."

[Thorny]

1 minute ago, nfreeman said:

I'm not disagreeing at all that this season represents an unambiguous failure by KA and DG, or that the overall evaluation of their tenure here is "below average to poor" or that both of their seats should be hot next season (although as I've said, I think DG should be fired this summer if not before).

I'm simply saying that I more or less agree with KA's description of the state of the franchise in 2020 as being "in a shambles."

As far as your argument goes it’s fine. I agree they were in shambles relative to expected results. I don’t agree we were in shambles relative to turnaround to achieving success: that seemed to be the way KA was using it: as an excuse. “Look, it takes a long time” 

Only by way of choice

only by way of competence 

only a master of evil, darth