May Day 10

the problem i have with this, is Adams doesnt have any experience. Not even as AGM that guys like Drury, Brodeur, Francis, Sakic, Yzerman etc do for years. Adams has spent time under PS&E performing roles not closely related to the hockey department at all. His limited experience comes here with the Sabres at this clown college. His appeal to the Pegulas is that he has an education, played hockey and lives in Buffalo, a nice guy, and is willing to completely be subservient to ownership and probably Krueger/the coach. That is not a real GM, and I have no interest in the Sabres allowing him to try to learn on the job. This is a massive lift to restore this franchise and needs experienced hands from the outside, who is given full autonomy from the Pegulas. They dont even allow their GMs to choose and move on from their coach anymore. They will never attract a serious candidate like that. Furthermore, they completely pooped on their reputation with what they pulled this Summer with some pretty awful cold-hearted moves. This organization has a credibility issue on all fronts and needs a Rutherford/Lombardi/Dudley to restore it.

While FA acquisitions have proven to be a terrible way to build a team, New England loading up makes me nervous due to previous trauma. If this were the Jets, I would be making fun of them.

The players keep quitting. There is no leadership, including Eichel. There is no management. Adams is a fake GM with zero-point-zero experience. Krueger is a HC with limited NHL experience, and he has done a lot of losing in that experience. They have gutted their entire hockey department. Promoted a few intern-level employees to head of Scouting and head of analytics and pushed a ton more responsibility onto those positions. Ownership thinks if the media was nicer to them, then the fans would love them and the team would perform better. This team was trying to contend this year. They signed Hall to a 1 year deal, brought in Staal. Spend 99% of the cap... and they have a team that has won 4 regulation/OT games out of 27!. This isnt some sort of team deep in a tear-down. This level of failure is beyond comprehension. This organization is so far from contending. Like another galaxy. Even if the Clampetts came to terms with how severely damaged their franchise is, it is still an enormously heavy-lift, everything needs to be cleansed out, and we are looking at a 3-4 year rebuild to do it the right way. What is going to happen is A: they will stay with Kruger because they will excuse the season away to injuries, covid, hard division, etc and "continuity".... or B: can Krueger after the season, keep everything else the same, and hire a crappy NCAA/USDP coach like the Providence HC with no NHL experience and no ability to shoulder this massive lift here with this group of millionaire personalities. In that case, we are going to have to wait 2 more years of disaster until the Pegulas figure out it isnt working, then we again need to hope they do the right thing, get experience at the top of the org, and begin a 3-4 year rebuild. There is no end in sight. But you know 'the lines of communication have never been better' or something like that.

I think the wording is just tricky. I think he means that All the tickets werent bought by STH so there are tickets available to the rest of the public

It's like they are actively trying to be a villain

Im very close to OFF with the Sabres. As it is I watch no games. I hope they lose every game. It isnt about draft position. I hate what the organization has become. Whether it is losing in general, messing up a rebuild that was teed up for them, disenfranchising my favorite all time athlete and also coach, messing up alumni jerseys, mismanaging simple deadlines so they cant wear the goat head, jerking me around as a STH and punishing me for staying loyal through bad seasons to retain my seat location (price jumped 18% after last season because I happen to be in the middle of the 300s, and this is after a long line of grueling increases under this ownership), the awful way they purged their entire hockey staff along with a rather heartless attitude. And never replacing anyone. General tone-deaf nonsense from the team and owners that lacks self-awareness. I actually dislike the Sabres and what they have become. They are the worst organization in the NHL and it is not particularly close. I never got close to this during the entirety of my 40-ish years of being a Bills fan. I was always a Sabres fan first and took great pride and personal identity with the team. The only way to solve it is a clear change in direction and basically a re-branding from the top-down.

It comes down to what the owners are willing to provide as far as autonomy and budget. He wouldnt come to the Sabres not because he hates Buffalo and we dont have a downtown club scene. He wouldnt come here with the Pegulas telling him what to do, who to have as a head coach, etc. If the Pegulas gave the keys to someone, they absolutely can hire whoever they want. That is likely what Ledecky and Malkin did to get Lou. They were clearly serious about winning hockey games and were willing to give Lou the space needed to make it happen. In Buffalo, we would get, you can be the GM, but you have to keep Adams on as co-gm because he is educated and we think he is an authentic guy, is college educated, played in the NHL and is from Buffalo. We also hire the coach who reports directly to us. You also need to have a phone conversation with ownership daily as does the head coach.

I think Lamoriello and Trotz are as far from a 'lucky hire' as you can get. Adams is a GM they promoted from within, probably to maintain their and their coach's influence. He has zero experience, not even as an AGM, director of scouting... anything. He is basically our Garth Snow hire in terms of the Islanders.

The McDermott thing is interesting. I know the NFL helps guide these things. Also, in the NFL, organizations have become Coach-centric where everything seems to radiate from the coach. It is also simpler than an NHL team because you arent scouting apples to oranges 17 year olds around the world and developing them. You also need to live with mistakes for the long-haul as the contracts are guaranteed. NFL, you can turn over an entire roster and clear the cap in like 2 years and find a lot of immediate starters in the draft and UFA. NHL is so much more of a long-haul asset management game. I think the Pegulas tried to replicate the McDermott structure with Kruger which is absolutely impossible and doomed to fail. They absolutely have distrust of outsiders for some reason and feel the need to create this "lines of communication" brand of front office. Its basically the Bills of the 00s post-Donahoe. The talk of trading Eichel (or anybody) without any sort of amateur or pro scouting system gives me indigestion. I think it is quite easy to find a president of hockey ops. I can name 3 of them who are available. Any one would like to do it as long as the $ is fair and the Pegulas vow to stay out of the way and provide decent budget parameters. Rick Dudley, Dean Lombardi, and Jim Rutherford. I am also sure there are plenty of people available to the Pegulas who would give a blunt assessment of the situation and provide some ideas.

This is where we are. I dont know if it was Kruger who motivated them with some sort of efficiency in management philosophy, but they gutted the entire hockey department last Summer. They also installed an internal hire for GM who has next to zero experience in kevyn Adams. Even if you pretend he was observing and learning along the way: He was observing and learning watching this organization and its failure and dysfunction. Now we have a coach who has shown he has no clothes and is just a windbag of useless mental management jargon. They promoted two barely intern-level employees to head up their scouting and analytics departments and expanded those roles to include much more (efficiency!) Also, you have a group of players who quit for entire stretches of game(s). There is something rotten there, they never appear as a team, the captain never goes out and takes lumps for them publicly. You see the body language of someone like Staal on day 1. Other things in the recent past as well. Players who left that throw a little shade but stop just short. Berglund quitting. Players' performance falling off a cliff. If you were a parent of a draftable 18 year old hockey player, would you ever want your kid drafted by the Sabres at this point? This is such a heavy lift. The entire organization is in shambles. It needs to be fully rebuilt and redefined. What they have now is not salvageable. Look at what the Sabres are up against, just in their Division. Boston and Tampa have 2 model front offices. Toronto will be good for the forseeable future. Florida got serious with Zito and Quenneville. Detroit has Yzerman and a growing asset pool. Ottawa is even looking healthier overall with more upside.

This idiot organization gifted Skinner with a full No-Movement Clause, so unfortunately, that is not possible.

Thanks, john. Desperate to grab onto any kernel of hope that this doomed management structure is ending. Don't necessarily want them to sell. I understand the stability that would sacrifice (I would imagine the pegulas would try to ensure local interests)... but a team President is what I am hoping for. This really is the worst though. I can't even watch games anymore. Watched probably 99% of them from 1986-2013. I catch a period now and then. Get bored, do something else.

This is the 3rd time eichel has played a part in absolutely desecrating a coach. 2 of which were hand chosen to work better with his personality. I think it is a combination of everything. Just a terrible franchise that needs a new start and a thorough structuring/building

So they say... But he doesnt/never struck me as grasping the Sabres or the sport of hockey like a long-time fan. He never seemed to get it. Ted Black did only because he immersed himself in it, and at the time it gave the organization a flavor of 'getting it'. Anyways, rumors originally made the rounds today the Sabres were 4 sale, but some of the chatter morphed into 'help' or a Team President.

That's just it. I hesitate to just blanket them with the 'idiot' label... I mean, they have several billion dollars in assets. The way they have run the Sabres, and how stubborn they have been is nothing short of comical. Just hire a team President and don't get in his way. Nobody needs to hear your 'exchange of ideas'. Terry Pegula sounds like a low information sports fan, and I never believed the huge Sabres fan origin story. When he speaks he sounds like the low information guy in a group watching a game who keeps making dumb or overly simplistic comments and everyone else rolls their eyes. The over-arching pattern with this team is they always chase former high 1st round draft picks, even if they are busted out. No rhyme or reason other than that. Its crazy to think of the inexperience and ineptitude there is running the Sabres with next to no scouting, training, or development staff. We have the Pegulas, Kruger, and Adams in a model where both Kruger and Adams report directly to the owners. That doesnt work in the NHL. They took over this team and the city was still all about the Sabres. There was a locked-in STH waiting list and they were relatively healthy as an organization. They have bungled it in so many ways, and there is nobody/nothing else to blame. If they would just let someone with experience do their job... Sabres fans would still give the Pegulas a mountain of credit, it would be more 'fun' to run the team (although they wouldnt be intimately involved on many decisions), the team would be profitable, they wouldnt be besieged by the media local and nationally, etc... I dont get it. How is this fun? And dont think the Bills are safe in any way. I think they are very susceptible for a "Linda Bogdan" moment.

I really wish we/someone could archive and catalog active photos of the aud, everything anyone can dredge up and scan from personal collections and the media. It would be great if someone could someday create a 3d model of the facility. Check this out of old comiskey https://bandboxballparks.com/comiskey-park/

When I think back to that streak I remember botterill speaking during the collapse. He was trying to defend staying the course with Housley and he actually said that he/they knew the team wasn't that good during the streak. I was shocked. Couldn't imagine why the players quit on them. Such a loser attitude and it transcends coaches and general managers at this point. Like now how they pretend everything is great and this team is still on the path while winning 4 games in 21

I tossed my season tickets of 20 years before last season was up. I was never this hopeless as a bills fan through the drought. There is no realistic way out of this unless the Pegulas do a 180 and go against most things they have said publicly. It is going to get worse, which is tough to imagine how, but it will.

Its one thing to gut the scouting department... and yet another to not replace anybody and go at it with nothing but a barebones crew of extreme inexperience. Development mis-steps and asset management are also to blame. Its organizational failure.

No, I dont either. When they fired Murray, Terry Pegula sat there in front of a microphone and said their biggest mistake was giving up control to somebody (LaFontaine). That is what needs to happen. Kicking Kruger to the front office does nothing. He doesnt seem to have any idea how to win in the NHL, nor does he have any real NHL experience. They have almost no hockey staff right now save Kim and terry Pegula, Adams from Harborcenter, and Kruger from Soccer and Swiss hockey. They also promoted 2 internal, inexperienced nobodies to all-encompassing umbrella roles of 'director of scouting' and 'director or analytics'. Things will not change until the Pegulas give up control to a Dudley, Lombardi, etc at the top of the organization. It is in such disrepair it is a HEAVY lift. This is much worse than the Bills ever were throughout the drought. It is going to get worse when Eichel demands out, Reinhart wants out, all 3 of their NHL goalies are UFA, and they compound their bad decisions with more bad decisions (waiting for Hall's 8-year contract).

Team president and the end of amateur hour would be nice

I thought I remember hearing that the NFL makes available some sort of assistance/consulting with hires and McDermott was someone who was recommended.

This is going to be great https://stbcbeer.com/buffalotaproom/

They got McDermott, who seems to be a great person to build a football program and install a positive and winning culture. Brandon Beane seems to have been selected by mcDermott and they work in unison. The problem is, the Pegulas seem to think that approach is the same with the NHL. It is much more difficult to rebuild an NHL team because you are scouting all across the globe from the age of 16 in leagues that are comparing apples to grapefruit. You have an in-house development system. You also have the cap/guaranteed contracts. An NFL team can overhaul an organization in like 2 years and grab like 8 starters from the draft and UDFA in a good year if they are building. The Pegulas like kruger and have bought into his philosophy, much like McDermott. That coach-centric model doesnt work in the NHL and that assumes Kruger has any clue how to do NHL. Adams seems to be a 'smart' guy they had in house who is willing to be controlled by Kruger and the Pegulas (because he wouldnt sniff a GM position elsewhere otherwise). His first act was to sheepishly fire pretty much the entire hockey department. NHL you need much more of a President/GM centric model, and with a few exceptions, head coaches are temporary mercenaries, to be discarded for a variety of reasons.

Southern tier has great restaurants in Cleveland and Pittsburgh (and one in nc?) Along with their flagship in lakewood. They know what they are doing. I've been dying for them to open a location in buffalo. That'll be a great spot!