BillsFan4

Is episode 8 the end of the first season? I saw they released 8 episodes, but I was unsure if that was the complete season or not.

I am definitely planning on checking it out. I watched the preview and it looked interesting. I’m a big fan of the fallout series games. I think the fallout universe has enough potential to be a great TV series if done right. “The wasteland” in the games is such an interesting place filled with so many interesting characters, storylines and lots of dark humor.

Yes, that’s true. But he wasn’t fired as you claimed. And Pegula wanted to keep him. He just wasn’t willing to give extensions out since Marrone still had 2yrs on his contract. So I don’t really feel like anything I said was untrue. Do you think Pegula has done an overall good job hiring people in his time owning the Bills and Sabres? I’d say he did great hiring McDermott, and I credit McDermott more for Beane than Pegula. Otherwise I would say it’s been mostly bad hires and missses between the Sabres hockey and business side + the Bills business side (the football ops hires have been mostly Beane & McDermott). I did like how he was willing to swing for the fences early on in his ownership (like trying to hire Babcock). Those days seem gone now. I’d absolutely love to eat my words though, like if they threw a pile of money at Rod Brind’amor this offseason! lol

Marrone opted out of his contract.

I think the main thing Pegula is doing wrong is that he absolutely refuses to hire anyone with actual NHL experience in their job and then allow them to simply do their job. He has not hired a single GM with any experience, and only 1 coach with any experience (Bylsma), who he quickly fired because the players wanted him to. I feel like he keeps trying to be the “smartest guy in the room”, hiring these inexperienced coaches and GMs. I think he wants to find a young coach that can be around for many years, which sounds good in theory but it rarely happens in the NHL. I mean, Granato is the 6th longest tenured coach in the NHL right now. NHL coaches are hired to be fired. He also seems to value communication with ownership over actually being good at your job. I guess that’s why talks fell apart with Jim Rutherford. Imagine if they had hired him to be president of hockey ops years ago when they had discussions with him. Look how quickly he’s turned around Vancouver. I think with the Bills he got lucky. If it were up to Pegula alone, Whaley would probably still be GM. He wanted to keep Marrone. He hired Rex freaking Ryan (though I give him credit for firing him so quickly). They lucked into McDermott and Beane. It was reported that to hire McDermott/Beane, Pegula had to agree to give them total control of football operations. And it was also reported a couple years ago that the decision to give them total control over football operations is something Pegula regrets. Even with all the success. Yikes! I think we are damn lucky he found McDermott, who brought in Beane. I just hope like heck that both are never fired at the same time, otherwise I’d be very scared who he’d hire to replace them.

their current 13 years streak is 2 or 3 years longer than any other team in NHL history. Both the oilers and panthers hit 10 year streaks. Some say the panthers streak hit 11 years but that’s counting a season they were inactive. So I say 10 is more accurate. https://champsorchumps.us/drought/longest-nhl-playoff-drought#tab-drought-historic the one constant that entire 13 years? Ownership. Hard not to pin a lot of the blame for it on them.

https://theathletic.com/5404392/2024/04/10/sabres-playoffs-drought-streak/

of everything I’ve read on potential plans for the coyotes arena situation, this makes the most sense: they can’t keep playing in this little 4000 seat arena that doesn’t even have proper locker rooms for the players. It’s making it impossible for the coyotes to operate like a true NHL team. The NHL has been abundantly patient with Arizona and this arena situation. They’ve had multiple different proposed arena locations fall through over many years now, and now the latest one seems to yet again be under attack by Arizona politicians (the mayor this time, who made the new proposed location sound doubtful). Arizona has made and is making it extremely clear they have no interest in keeping the coyotes. i feel bad for Arizona fans, and as a Buffalo fan who knows what it’s like to live with the fear of losing your teams, I never root for relocation. But this situation is unique. They literally don’t have an home arena and haven’t been able to get one done over many years now. Even the Arizona voters have rejected numerous arena proposals iirc. If/when they ever actually get an arena built and ready to play in, then allow them to get an expansion team (although I’m not crazy about the idea of more expansion teams though). you definitely should! I’ve barely watched the Sabres in months now and I’ll be watching the playoffs. It’s hard to beat good playoff hockey. I look forward to it every year.

The cloud cover was definitely a downer but we still got to see it quite a few times. We had a great view when it first started shortly after 2pm. Then we got a good view when it was about 1/2 eclipsed, then saw it again for a while when it was about 3/4. Then maybe a dozen times when it was totally eclipsed, but those views only lasted maybe 3-15 seconds each time. The darkness was amazing. Just how quickly it went totally dark, then how quick it got light again 4 minutes later. It was almost like instant sunset and sunrise. So cool! I was not expecting it to be that drastic. Now I see what the hype is about being in the path of totality.

yup. This team just melts under pressure.

Down 3-0 less than 10 minutes into the 1st period 🤢🤮 Another must win game and the Sabres look completely unprepared to start as always. Hard not to feel like it’s a coaching issue when they look so consistently unprepared to start games.

I definitely believe this. Thanks for sharing! confirms what Josh Norman said to John Wawrow.

kind of how I feel

Not sure if this has been discussed yet. wonde did this will be designated as a post June 1st trade? Can they do that? the dead cap looks way better if so. https://overthecap.com/player/stefon-diggs/3994 it shows an $8.8M dead cap hit and $19M in savings for 2022.

https://www.buffalohockeybeat.com/sabres-jeff-skinner-set-to-play-1000th-game-without-playoff-appearance/#:~:text=Skinner will become the 394th,every year of his career.

So the path of totality is anywhere in between the blue lines, correct? https://assets.simpleviewinc.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1/clients/newyorkstate/ILNY_eclipse_factsheet_5c1604b7-cc9f-4640-8c28-9f842fc597fd.pdf i don’t need to be at the center (white line) do I? Also, here’s a cool interactive map: http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html

I am so sorry for your loss. My heart breaks for you and your family. My condolences to you all. I didn’t know Tom in real life but I always enjoyed his posts here. I will miss reading them. RIP Tom. I hope you are at peace and no longer in any pain.

That’s really good money for him coming off 2 serious injuries like he is. Happy for him!

The segment on the players still being mad starts right around 8:44am for anyone looking for it. Yeah if what Paul Hamilton was saying is true… yikes.

i am getting so sick of reading comments like this after players leave Buffalo. Paul Maurice said something similar about Okposo not being used to the way Florida practices. That they do it much different than in Buffalo. We've been hearing this for years now, going back to previous coaches and GMs. I remember Marcus Foligno saying something similar when he was traded to Minnesota. And Reinhart to Florida. And ROR to STL. And Eichel to Vegas. Maybe it’s time to get a real, experienced NHL coach for once?

Because, for some reason Pegula doesn’t trust career hockey people (it was reported on after Botterill was fired). I have no idea why. He’s never even hired anyone experienced… 🤦‍♂️ yeah, it’s been over since before the trade deadline. Even when they were “3 points out” it was a mirage because the team in front of them had like 3 games in hand on Buffalo. Honestly though, I’m kind of glad they won’t just miss the playoffs by a couple points. Last year that was used as an excuse not to make any meaningful changes or additions. Hopefully they are going to be forced to make real changes this offseason. Unfortunately, I think the change that is needed most (firing Granato) won’t happen. His new contract extension doesn’t even start until next season 😢 Im at least hoping for new assistant coaches. I don’t like rooting for people to be fired. But I just want this team to be good again.

Exactly. Simple solution for everyone: just stop reading into/paying attention to every little thing Diggs tweets. Problem solved! 😮‍💨 people read into every little thing Diggs tweets, then blame him for it… 🤷‍♂️ even though he’s said over & over he wants to retire a Buffalo Bill.

Good first period then they just totally collapsed once Detroit scored. 🤬 It’s going to be really tough for the Sabres to make up this loss. When you are playing a team you are chasing in the standings at this time of year, they are basically 4 point games. Red Wings moved into the final wildcard spot with this win, and now sit 5pts ahead of the Sabres with 1 less game played. Playoff odds are down to just over 3% now.

What’s your chiropractor’s name?

I didn’t realize the importance of this game until after it was already over and I heard the announcers say the Sabres are 3 points out of a playoff spot. I wasn’t sure I heard them right so I rewound it and listened again. Then googled the NHL standings to verify for myself 😂 Guess maybe it’s time to start paying attention to the Sabres again. I’ve been so checked out the last couple months. I did see part of Byram’s first game, and part of the redwings game. Then I actually watched the 2nd and 3rd period of tonight’s game. They were playing good hockey. I just hope it’s not too little too late again.