GDT: Flames @ Sabres, 7:30pm Nov. 19, 2025, 🎙 📺 ESPN+/MSG

[Shoot da Puck]

[7+6=13]

I'm really disappointed in Ruff.  I thought he'd bring more out of the players than this.  If nothing else, I would have bet, he'd demand and get effort.  He seems embarrassed and called out the effort tonight, but IMO, that's on him too.  Maybe he just doesn't have the energy level anymore but he sounds more like Eeyore than Lindy Ruff to me.  

[JohnC]

The owner made a nostalgic coaching hire with a charade search process. The owner hired a sycophantic GM whom no other owner in the business, sober or not, would have even considered, let alone hire.

When your owner is stubborn and hideously incompetent, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he presides over a shambolic franchise. 
 

What this fool owner does’t understand is that when you fail for a generation yet continue to do what you have already done, the results will always be the same. He needs to go back to school and retake the class that he failed labeled “common sense 101”. 

 

[kas23]

54 minutes ago, 7+6=13 said:

I'm really disappointed in Ruff.  I thought he'd bring more out of the players than this.  If nothing else, I would have bet, he'd demand and get effort.  He seems embarrassed and called out the effort tonight, but IMO, that's on him too.  Maybe he just doesn't have the energy level anymore but he sounds more like Eeyore than Lindy Ruff to me.  

Agree with this. We saw this team beat 2 excellent teams very recently. Then they come out flat against the 2nd worst team in the NHL (we are #1). To me, ability is not the problem. They can beat good teams. What lead to last night’s result is a mix of poor leadership on the team and poor coaching.

[R_Dudley]

14 minutes ago, JohnC said:

The owner made a nostalgic coaching hire with a charade search process. The owner hired a sycophantic GM whom no other owner in the business, sober or not, would have even considered, let alone hire.

When your owner is stubborn and hideously incompetent, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he presides over a shambolic franchise. 
 

What this fool owner does’t understand is that when you fail for a generation yet continue to do what you have already done, the results will always be the same. He needs to go back to school and retake the class that he failed labeled “common sense 101”. 

 

The highlighted is also the definition of insanity which strengthens the premise some have said that this has just become his personal write off for his other successful businesses. He obviously doesn't really care what the fans feel or think. Its ruined my Sabre fanhood for sure.

 

[JohnC]

6 minutes ago, R_Dudley said:

The highlighted is also the definition of insanity which strengthens the premise some have said that this has just become his personal write off for his other successful businesses. He obviously doesn't really care what the fans feel or think. Its ruined my Sabre fanhood for sure.

 

The irony is that if he managed this franchise more competently and professionally, this franchise would be a moneymaker for him with the arena usually filled with a raucous full house, as it is with the Bandits.

He took a stronghold hockey market that included southern Ontario, and because of his foolishness, suffocated it. The owner is a fool and his buffoon behavior is tiresome.

[zow2]

Realistically against Edmonton and Calgary they should go 1-1.   So they did. Expectations were met.  Just not in the way anyone expected. 

[7+6=13]

51 minutes ago, R_Dudley said:

The highlighted is also the definition of insanity which strengthens the premise some have said that this has just become his personal write off for his other successful businesses. He obviously doesn't really care what the fans feel or think. Its ruined my Sabre fanhood for sure.

 

The only insanity is we keep saying the same things, ever how untrue they are.  I don't excuse TP, he's clearly failed.  He's made multiple different types of hires, he's fired people quickly with term on their contracts, he's now kept a GM for too long.  Nothing has worked but his decisions aren't close to being repetitive.

[JohnC]

13 minutes ago, zow2 said:

Realistically against Edmonton and Calgary they should go 1-1.   So they did. Expectations were met.  Just not in the way anyone expected. 

The issue isn't whether they should be 1-1 or 2-0 or 0-2. The meaningful issue is how they played last night. There was no passion or display of urgency in their play. It seemed as if they were going through the motions against a lesser team that played harder and cared more. Considering that the Sabres are at the bottom of their division and their wretched history of failure for a generation, that is an indictment on the whole organization. 

Losing isn't the issue. It's how their collective play showed no heart and passion It's pathetic and a disgrace.  

[Pimlach]

10 hours ago, apuszczalowski said:

Cooley is Calgarys backup............

Even the last place team is doing this with the Sabres..............

They were on a back to back. 

[Taro T]

3 hours ago, sabresouth said:

Power, Bryson as a defensive pair makes no sense.

Who was the idiot that signed Bryson again?

 

Power and Bryson make no sense.  BUT you aren't breaking up Samuelsson-Dahlin, Byram-Power doesn't work, and Bryson-Byram would be a disaster waiting to happen.  Byram-Timmons looked very good against the Eulers and Bryson-Power wasn't bad against them either.  But then again, as somebody had mentioned in the Euler GDT, Bryson is actually an NHL D-man when he's playing against a fast team that doesn't play a heavy game.  So, there was a logic (personally disagree with it, but there was a way to justify Bryson on Monday) to having him in there.

That Byram-Timmons deficated the bed in the 3rd period made the thought process to come up with Bryson-Power even worse.  They needed to have a more defensively responsible guy in the lineup instead of Bryson playing vs a heavy team like Calgary because those are the teams Bryson has issues with and Power needs a defensively responsible guy to partner with and really Byram does too.  Metsa and Jones aren't that guy.  If Johnson, or even if Novikov got his 1st taste of the NHL, the team probably doesn't give up the 2nd goal nor the one Rosen is getting blamed for.  And they could've flipped Timmons and Johnson/Novikov to Power and Byram after the clock struck midnight on the Byram and Timmons pairing.

[JohnC]

5 minutes ago, 7+6=13 said:

The only insanity is we keep saying the same things, ever how untrue they are.  I don't excuse TP, he's clearly failed.  He's made multiple different types of hires, he's fired people quickly with term on their contracts, he's now kept a GM for too long.  Nothing has worked but his decisions aren't close to being repetitive.

His decisions have been repetitively bad. Just because they have been bad for different reasons doesn't alter the fact that they have been bad decisions. The one consistent theme that has applied to most of his decisions is that he has made bumbling poor decisions in who he has hired to run the hockey operation. There are multiple ways to fail. But when all is said and done, failing is failing. 

[Taro T]

24 minutes ago, zow2 said:

Realistically against Edmonton and Calgary they should go 1-1.   So they did. Expectations were met.  Just not in the way anyone expected. 

Except, IN Buffalo, the Sabres usually play well and often beat the Eulers; and they play like trash against Calgary there too.  So expectations were met EXACTLY as should've been expected.

And out west, the pattern is reversed, Both the Eulers and Flames play to their normal levels and the Sabres end up expected to go 1-1 again, but the way you expected this week to go.

[Pimlach]

5 minutes ago, JohnC said:

His decisions have been repetitively bad. Just because they have been bad for different reasons doesn't alter the fact that they have been bad decisions. The one consistent theme that has applied to most of his decisions is that he has made bumbling poor decisions in who he has hired to run the hockey operation. There are multiple ways to fail. But when all is said and done, failing is failing. 

Terry has yet to hire a legitimate hockey GM to run hockey operations.   Most of us here knew Adams was not only unqualified, but was his puppet.  Look at his past hires, almost all are out of the league for good.  

Losing the 3rd period 4-0 at home, to the worst team in the league, on a back to back, right after playing their best game of the season - it was predictable and it just happened one week earlier against St Louis.  

The players just do not want it enough, the coaches are being ignored, it’s past the time to flush the coaching staff.   

[SabresBillsFan]

5 hours ago, SabreFinn said:

I don’t understand why Terry is so boneheaded. It is simple math, a winning team sell tickets and merchandise, it is also much easier to develop players in a winning system.  Bring in professionals that can create  that and stay out of the way!

Couldn’t agree more 

[Mr Peabody]

Lindy explained their game plan of how to play the Oilers and they played it to perfection.  Do they not do this for every team?  Since forever they fold against big, strong checking teams.  Might want to work up a strategy to play these types of teams.  Or, we just don’t have the personnel to succeed against those teams? 

[7+6=13]

58 minutes ago, JohnC said:

His decisions have been repetitively bad. Just because they have been bad for different reasons doesn't alter the fact that they have been bad decisions. The one consistent theme that has applied to most of his decisions is that he has made bumbling poor decisions in who he has hired to run the hockey operation. There are multiple ways to fail. But when all is said and done, failing is failing. 

I'm not sure how anyone can disagree.  The different reasons, as I said, just nullify that he keeps doing the same thing over and over.  That's untrue.

[DarthEbriate]

The Sabres disrespected the black goathead sweaters last night.

[Pimlach]

7 minutes ago, 7+6=13 said:

I'm not sure how anyone can disagree.  The different reasons, as I said, just nullify that he keeps doing the same thing over and over.  That's untrue.

LaFontaine - first time POHO

Murray - first time GM

Kim Pegula- first time whatever it was she did while running the Sabres

Boterill - first time GM

Housley - first time HC

Krueger- HC for a few months, fired, became a soccer coach in Europe, then hired by Terry in a bizarre move

Adams - First time GM

Granato - first time HC

Ruff - retread Sabres and a lazy hire instead of doing a structured coach search

There are no different reasons.  He keeps doing the same thing - He keeps losing.   He keeps hiring people that he can control.  He keeps settling for cheap and easy hires.  He will not hire anyone that is headstrong on how to do things.  He fears he will be cut out.  He has not hired a proven winner yet. 

 

 

 

[DarthEbriate]

22 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

There are no different reasons.  He keeps doing the same thing - He keeps losing.   He keeps hiring people that he can control.  He keeps settling for cheap and easy hires.  He will not hire anyone that is headstrong on how to do things.  He fears he will be cut out.  He has not hired a proven winner yet. 

Only Bylsma thus far. And it turns out he really benefitted from that Penguins lineup and the "fire/hire new coach boost" in his first season.

Edited 1 hour ago by DarthEbriate

[Mustache of God]

Luckily the Sabres are pretty much out of nostalgia hires. Although I think it'd be funny if after Adams is canned Pegula goes out and hires Darcy. 

[Pimlach]

9 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

Only Bylsma thus far. And it turns out he really benefitted from that Penguins lineup and the "fire/hire new coach boost" in his first season.

I forgot Bylsma.  He turned out to be a mediocre HC, but he has a Cup in his resume.  He was hired because of the Pittsburgh connection, as were a lot of front office strap hangers in the tank era.  

I did not include Ted Nolan because LaFontaine put him in as HC, and Terry did not listen to Nolan or support him in any manner.  

[Porous Five Hole]

14 minutes ago, Mustache of God said:

Luckily the Sabres are pretty much out of nostalgia hires. Although I think it'd be funny if after Adams is canned Pegula goes out and hires Darcy. 

Ron Rolston’s gardening gloves would like a word

[Thorny]

12 hours ago, quill said:

This is not a team. It's just a bunch of individual players who have no clue, no common goal, no direction, no idea of how to spell the word win. They need some serious guidance which they are obviously not getting. There is no consistent passion. Shirley Temple hockey.

Some of this is probably the symptom of a GM who has overstayed his welcome in the sense that his original plan and core (cozens, Peterka, Quinn) is gone or sort of fallen by the wayside at this point, whatever his vision was whether we like it or not is essentially long gone in favour of whatever the current mish-mash of players is. I don’t think we have a coherent team build right now, it’s a salient thing you touched on there 

10 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Games like this make me want to hire Tortorella to bag skate them into submission, subtract half the roster and create enough chaos to build something new out of. 

I know I know, dinosaur, over the hill, not the guy we want. I don't care. I just want to hire him to punish these guys. They deserve it. 

Why would they feel they are accountable when the owner has proven management is not 

[Thorny]

3 hours ago, kas23 said:

Agree with this. We saw this team beat 2 excellent teams very recently. Then they come out flat against the 2nd worst team in the NHL (we are #1). To me, ability is not the problem. They can beat good teams. What lead to last night’s result is a mix of poor leadership on the team and poor coaching.

It’s largely a commentary on the roster

i think people forget sometimes that this isn’t the nfl. In an 82 game season the bad teams win a lot of games, it’s that simple 

And the good teams lose a bunch. It’s why I am always poking fun at the extreme nature of the GDTs

Like the players recently said, it’s an 80% league. Of course no one gives full effort every shift, every night. That’s pie in the sky, it’s not human 

the functional difference is the teams with the talent and roster construction to win when they play at 80. That’s not us 

Edited 42 minutes ago by Thorny