BillsFan4

Not a single NHL team was interested in him. He said himself he hasn’t been a full time head coach in 14 years. And hey, its only a 2 year deal with ZSC. So it will line up perfectly with the Sabres next coaching search 2 years from now! lol (only half joking...)

I am wondering if this may be what’s holding up any Tippett hire. Tim Liwicki hired him to help put together a hockey ops staff, and now that Tippett may be leaving I can see where Liwicki could’ve asked him to stay on long enough to at least help put a GM in place, who can then finish assembling the hockey ops.

Not as big a deal anymore with Ken Dorsey here, and Matt Barkley as well. Best of luck in retirement DA!

Hopefully this means that we are one step closer to an NHL backed professional women’s league (WNHL). And if/when that happens, I expect Kim Pegula to be involved and re-acquire a women’s hockey franchise for buffalo. Apparently the NHL has a plan for an NHL backed league but won’t do anything while there are other professional women’s leagues (NWHL). They don’t want to be seen as trying to kill a women’s hockey league, but don’t believe that the NWHL business model will work (so they won’t get involved).

Not the Sabres, according to Vogl. If anything, I’d guess he got interest for an assistant job in the NHL, not a head coaching job. IMO he just doesn’t have the experience yet to be in consideration for an NHL HCing gig. Edit - here is what Grönborg said - Edit again - 14 years is a long time. No way was he getting an NHL head coaching opportunity without taking this step first (or coming to the NHL as an assistant)

Gronborg is out. Why this move by Grönborg tells me s that he knows his big weakness is not having in-season head coaching experience. I think he knows that he needs to be a true head coach somewhere before he will get an NHL opportunity. clearly no NHL teams were interested in him as a head coach. Why is Tippett out? If this is from my comment earlier, I did some more research and Friedman just mentioned that he was one of the candidates. Far from a done deal.

It’s almost 2 hours long. I’ll post the start time when I know it. Edit - never mind, it starts right away 2:30). lol

https://wgr550.radio.com/articles/news/sabres-sign-ruotsalainen-entry-level-deal at first I figured this was just another Antipon type situation, where if he didn’t make the team and stick, we’d probably never see him again. Glad to see thats not the case at all. Gives me more hope that this kid can be a player for us someday. Edit - even better:

Apparently WGR said today that Friedman saying that Tippett is a favorite for the Edmonton job (Someone else posted this info. I am still trying to verify it for myself). If its true, Edmonton hasn’t even had a damn GM for the last few months. Holland was just out in place yesterday ffs. I will be so pissed if the oilers get Tippett. But I guess it’s my own fault for getting my heart set on him.

So... basically the same thing Housley just tried to do the last 2 years? Playing as a 5 man unit with d men joining the rush.

St. Louis winning tonight hurt the Sabres. Had they lost, Buffalo would’ve got pick # 17-19 from them (as part of the ROR trade). Now the Sabres will get a pick in the 28-31 range of the draft. Disappointing but expected...lol

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/05/06/mike-mayock-clelin-ferrell-raiders-2019-draft-kyler-murray-daniel-jones-dwayne-haskins?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=themmqb Wonder who the 11 teams were... (was the one vote for Jones from the Giants? lol) Interesting that Rosen and Trubisky only appeared on 3 of 11 ballots, and Haskins on just 1. Sucks seeing Darnold rated so high, but not surprising. As far as Allen goes, that is a bit scary to read but to be fair, many of us were down in Allen before the draft. I still have some doubts but I am a lot more hopeful about Allen now than I was on draft night. He has the attitude and work ethic to make it (IMO). Now he should hopefully have a much stronger run game, an o line that can pass protect and an improved WR corps. Plus a good veteran C to help him with protections (etc). He also has an experienced QB coach. Now Allen has to continue building on the end of last season and show some growth as a passer. If he takes a nice step forward this year he will get more respect. Many were down on him before the draft and most of them (outside of buffalo) want to be right. So it might take some time for them to come around. But Allen still has a lot to prove first. I have high hopes for him this season!

With St. Louis winning, the Sabres will now officially be getting a 1st in the 28-31 range. We just have to wait and see exactly where, but at this point it doesn’t really matter all that much if it’s 28-31. Obviously I prefer 28, but it’s 4 spots at the very end of the 1st. I look at it more like a 2nd than a 1st at this point. That ROR trade just keeps getting worse. Craig Button called it one of the worst trades we have seen in years and I tend to agree at this point. It all likely comes down to Thompson, as the odds of getting a good NHL player at 28-31 are not very good. Buffalo has done an unbelievably poor job with asset management for much of this rebuild.

I guess he wants to wear #91 (because 9+1 =10 (the # he wore in college)). But right now Kyle Peko has it (who?)

Hell yeah! Been looking forward to this album release for what feels like forever! Is there (finally) an actual release date set? Definitely one of my all time favorite bands.

Bump

sorry if this was already posted.

Pretty sure the pats would hold his right since he was still under contract with them when he retired. Similar to the Bills with Vontae Davis.

He is only proven as a tournament coach. As I mentioned in my last post, He only has 4 years of actual regular season head coaching experienced and he hasn’t coached a regular season since 2002 and that was in a tier 3 junior league. Tier 1 is the highest junior league. Then comes tier 2 and then tier 3. And junior hockey isn’t professional hockey either. He was a coach in the now defunct AWHL, which is a league that covered the Rocky Mountain region. Honestly, I would compare it to Phil Housley’s time as a high school hockey coach. That’s about how meaningful it is... I agree we need someone proven. I just don’t think Grönborg is that guy. He is the opposite of proven.

Honest question - do you truly think the Sabres are in a position to take another shot on a totally unproven head coach? Personally i I feel like the Sabres are one of the teams that can least afford to gamble on another unproven guy. If they miss it sets them back at least 3-4 more years. Eichel is more than half way through his deal. Dahlin is 1-2 years into his 2nd contract. Same with Mittelstadt. Numerous young guys will bee off their ELC’s. With how far the rebuild has been set back already, I just don’t think we can take another big set back. Now, obviously this is true of any coaching hire.... O But at least with a coach like Tippett, we know he is a more than competent NHL head coach. He has a track record of success in the NHL. He’s been through a lot in his career. He’s handled and overcome adversity. He’s been through a rebuild. He’s made the playoffs numerous shown he can dramatically improve teams. The Stars improved 21 points in the standings Tippett’s first year, and the Coyotes improved 25pts in his first year there. Tippett has shown an ability to get the most out of his teams, even when he doesn’t have a lot to work with. I like Gronborg but he is a risk. I believe he has only been a tournament coach for the last 9 years. Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I saw I don’t think he’s coached more than 12 games at a time since way back in 2002 when he coached a 60 game junior season. We don’t know how he would handle the grind of an NHL season. He’s never been a head coach in any professional league that I am aware of. Just 4 years in the AWHL back 20+ years ago, which is a tier 3 junior hockey league (tier 1 is the highest junior level) Plus he’s a european coach. There have only been 2 or 3 coaches hired from Europe in NHL history. Not much track record of success there. It would be a big gamble. And Only 2 GM’s in Sabres history have had the chance to hire more than 2 coaches. One was Scotty Bowman, the other was Punch Imlach iirc. I think the most important thing is getting the Sabres back to respectability. We need to be a consistent playoff team before we worry about hiring some coach to take us to a Cup. If we get back to respectability and consistently competing for a playoff spot, we will be in a much better position to take a gamble on a coaching hire (to get us over the playoff hump) at that time. Just my opinion anyway. Edit - just to be clear, I’d be ok with Grönborg. I’d just prefer Tippett is all.

Here it is - Then they talk some about about how Beane has traded up 4x and traded down 0x in his 2 drafts here. Beane said it’s more a product of circumstance - being early in the building process. Plus he said in the case of Edmunds and Knox, both were sticking out on his board. And this was the last section in the Knox section - Beane said elsewhere that when he took Singletary, there were still a lot of TE’s on the board. Then right after that pick there was a run on TE’s. He said Knox was the last TE on his board before there was a big drop off in the grades he had on each. He felt Knox would never make it to their pick in the 4th so he traded up. He also addressed the Knox pick in his press conference after rounds 2+3. Here it is in case you missed it - He starts talking about Knox right around the 3:30 mark.

Unfortunately It’s not a video. Sorry for the confusion. What I meant was that there is a section in the article on each player, where Beane describes why he drafted each guy (and what he saw on their film). I can post his quotes on what he saw in Knox if you’d like.

Steve Keim: Kyler Murray will start season opener: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/05/02/steve-keim-kyler-murray-will-start-season-opener/

Really good article on the Athletic where Beane takes you through the scouting process behind each draft pick. Articles like this are why I subscribe. https://theathletic.com/959262/2019/05/02/the-film-is-the-most-important-thing-bills-gm-breaks-down-the-scouting-process-behind-every-draft-pick/ ‘“The film is the most important thing”. Bills GM breaks down the scouting process behind every draft pick’: I like that he sets his board before the combine. Beane goes over his thought process behind drafting each player. If someone wants quotes on a specific guy let me know.