JohnC

See my response to Plezmd.

Every thing I have heard is that contract discussions are underway and progressing.

Wow! Your exotic mind is spinning out of control. If you really believe that a wink and a nod deal with Skinner is going to work bringing us an extra haul then my recommendation to you is to lower your LSD dosages. Think about how crazy and fanciful your surreptitious deal is. Do you honestly believe that a team would trade for Skinner without contractual assurances that he would remain with the team? With respect to the highlighted segment I can assure you that you are not there but rather you are far out there! You are in plain view precipitously declining. Seek help. Don't run to K-9 for help because he is your enabler.

Unless the talented Swede is hurt or fatigued he should continue to play. Rookies are going to make their share of mistakes. That's part of the learning process. Sometimes when he is struggling in a game some minutes can be distributed to other blueliners. But I wouldn't sit him. Your belief that there is an acceptance that the Buffalo teams have to suck is ridiculous. Where the heck is that foolishness coming from? Against Winnipeg the Sabres played a cup contending team evenly. The hard fought game had a playoff feel to it. We lost. As a measuring stick game it demonstrated that this team is not far from being a very competitive team. We are not there yet but this team is progressing. You might not be able to see it because you are too invested in your negative position. But from what I have seen this team with a roster full of young players is coming along. What I can comfortably say is that the Sabres are substantially ahead of the Bills in assembling a contending roster. You are starting to act like a broken old man sitting at the end of the bar by yourself speaking to no one in particular lamenting how downtrodden you are because your team ain't what you want it to be. Please stop this maudlin act. Before you throw in the towel let the season play out.

Plezmd hates you! Watch your back. If he gets the chance he will shank you. Your positive attitude based on a longer perspective will not be tolerated in a room full of despair.

The attached link by Harrington of the Buffalo News very well captures my thoughts. https://buffalonews.com/2019/02/10/buffalo-sabres-nhl-jack-eichel-winnipeg-jets-blake-wheeler/ I only watched the first period. So I can't talk about what I observed after that period other than what was gathered from reports. In that period I thought the Sabres played a Cup Contending team evenly or maybe slightly outplayed them. In the end they lost a closely contested game. That's certainly disappointing but it's not something that should stoke a depression or a spasmodic fit of rage. Hockey reporters like Mike Harrington and Paul Hamilton have posed the hypothetical question that if before the season started and you were told that the Sabres would be contending for a wildcard playoff up to the end of the season would you consider that acceptable? Many of us would say yes and gladly accept this team getting better and moving up the ranks. Obviously, not everyone would accept that proposition, certainly not you and K-9. You and the angry others want this team to fire its coach and make deals to catapult this team upwards. Putting aside the coaching issue what deals would you propose that could alter our status this year? You don't think our GM, like every GM, isn't willing to make a deal if it would improve the team as long as it didn't hurt its future prospects? It seems that after every tormenting loss you become a raging bull that wants to cut loose and horn someone into a bloody battering. You desperately want this team to be better than the talent level of its current roster. It's not going to happen because this is the real world and not your fantasy world. I implore you to let the season play out before you go full bat shiiit crazy because of your unrealized grandiose expectations. As I see this season unfolding it is well within what I expected. So I'm reasonably satisfied. Your expectations have been demolished because they went beyond what they should have. That's the problem: It's you!

I'm rooting for you to not witness the game. There is nothing personal. But it has become abundantly clear that you are a jinx. When you watch the games your contaminating mojo spills onto the team. If playing ping pong and having your snickering brother-in-law hustle the chump out of his wallet is what it takes for Sabre success then I encourage you to keep whacking at that little white ball.

If you think the Housley critics are in a state of frothy anger now wait until next year when he is still behind the bench. Housley is presiding over a fringe playoff team with a lot of young players when the season started. He has that caliber of team competing on the fringe of the wild-card spot. That is to say that he has them performing up to their talent level. So essentially he has them playing to their talent level and for that the majority of voices are condemning him as an abject failure. I simply don't get it.

Chip Kelly and his approach was a little different than what is being discussed here. Yes, he wanted to rebuild the roster with his type of guys. But in order to do that you have to have a relationship with the remaining players and have their support during the arduous rebuild. Philly had a fuller roster when he took over and started the remake. He didn't care what the players thought and within the organization. His downfall related to his lack of interpersonal skills. When you dispatch someone's friends it shouldn't be surprising that there was going to be some residual resentment. He didn't care. And correspondingly the players and people didn't care about him. When you are in a people business and fail at that basic interaction level you are going to end up sabotaging yourself. That's what happened there. Very often the players are saddened with the firing of a HC. In this case when he was fired the champagne corks were popped in celebration of the liberation.

Isn't this a similar plan that McBeane devised for the Bills? Get rid of players from the prior regime and take a bulk cap hit in one or two years ? The strategy is to acquire picks and use those picks to fill your roster with cheaper first contracts. There is nothing new about this strategy. The Raiders are going full blast with this approach and the Bills to an extent are doing the same thing. The key for this strategy to work is to get your franchise qb from the draft and within his first contract fill out the roster as much as possible.

Housley has done a good job handling Dahlin. He started the season by easing him in and steadily increased his load and responsibility. It is tricky task to coach a great young player because there is a delicate balance between over and under coaching a prodigy. I've noticed with some young players he has them on a tighter leash than he does with Dahlin. I'm in a very distinct minority on the topic of Housley. In general, I think he is doing a reasonably solid job coaching a roster full of very young players. He has to balance developing players and trying to win. So I'm satisfied with him as our coach. And to further antagonize the majority of the lynching crowd here I believe that Scandella has played reasonably well in his role as a third pairing defenseman.

As you noted we beat a team that we were supposed to beat. I'll take it. I didn't see the first period so I can't comment about it. For the other two periods I thought we outplayed them. What is encouraging is that we are getting secondary scoring at a greater frequency. That's a positive sign. I give much of the credit to Reinhart. He has continued to play well even when not playing with the top line. As you well know I'm not hung up on the playoff chase. However, I do believe that we will be playing meaningful playoff implication games until the end of the season. Is that a big deal? For me it is. What I'm keenly watching is the play of the young players and their development. I see Mitts steadily getting better. Dahlin is a gem. Tage flashes talent but his game is untamed. As the season grinds on to the end stage few people have delusions about how good this team is. As you well know at this time of the season the style of play becomes more grinding than an artistic for all teams. You don't earn points based on style.. A win is a win and I will gladly take it. This team is far from being a finished product. This roster is full of a lot of young players who are steadily getting better. I'm encouraged with what I have seen. As I stated in other posts I foresee the Sabres earning between 20-25 (closer to 25) points more than they did last year. That's very good progress.

The recipe for a win is having Plezmd play ping pong instead of watching the game. That dour guy is a freaking jinx! Don't tell him that the Sabres play tomorrow against a good but struggling Winnipeg because I want to increase the team's chances for success. This team is still a work in progress but when it gets secondary scoring their chances for success go exponentially up. Sheary is playing well and Mitts is steadily getting better. My MVP is Reinhart because he elevated a deflated second line. And that was desperately needed.

Get off my lawn you young rascals!

I simply don't know about the rankings from PFT or any other rating service. It just seems to me that nothing that I have read or heard about him indicates that he has secured his guard position. If he remained on the roster and solidified his guard spot that would alleviate the necessity for nearly completely remaking the line. It just seems that this staff is not enamored with him. Maybe with a new OL and a different blocking scheme he might be in a better positions to succeed? As it stands I'm not sure he will be back.

If you so desire it you can ignore him and Guhle when they are on the roster next year. That's your prerogative.

When Botterill took over he used the year to do a comprehensive review of the organization, top to bottom. While you and many of your cohorts are absorbed with how many points this team previously garnered the GM was doing his own analysis. The Sabres as they were previously constructed were one of the slowest teams in the league. Before this year Jack was playing with players who couldn't keep up with him. In general, this team was a slow and sluggish team. That is a recipe for failure when the game was emphasizing speed and skill, not only from the forward lines but also from the blue line players. The Murray approach was a mishmash approach of acquiring players. The Botterill approach from a roster and organizational standpoint emphasized speed and skill. Systematically, that is being done throughout the organization.. ROR was traded for a variety of reasons. But one of the underpinning reasons why he was dealt (among many reasons) was that although he was skilled he was a slow player. The players that are steadily being added to the mix are players who are faster and quicker. Dahlin, Mitts, Sheary, Pilut, Tage (to a degree), CJ Smith, ERod etc. My point is that this roster is being overhauled because the current GM has philosophy that he is in the process of implementing. So your constant looking back to compare to what we now have is not so applicable because we are purposefully moving away from the old school model to the new era NHL model. If you want to compare O'Reilly to Mitts no one can argue that Mitts is better than the former Sabre. At least right now. But in the long run Mitts is going to be a better fit (my opinion) for how the GM envisions a roster should be built. The NHL has rapidly changed over the past few years. And Botterill is in tune with it. With respect to Bylsma he had problems relating to players and how they adapted to his very rigid system. The primary player whom he didn't establish a good relationship with was Jack. It doesn't take long for the players of today to grow tired and resist the old school methods. If the old school coaches don't have the interpersonal skills to deal with new era players they are going to go by the wayside. The world has changed not only in hockey but in every field of endeavor. If you can't look forward because your mentality is to look back you will not survive in this business or in many other businesses.

This twitter mob mentality of gotcha is stupid. When a player is interviewed immediately after a hard fought game that ended in disappointment it's not surprising that all one's responses are not going to be smartly crafted. The general takeaway from the interview is that players didn't always play responsibly and smartly defensively. That's an accurate statement as it relates to this game and many recent games.

You are mistakenly and unfairly merging the failure of the previous regimes with this one directed by Botterill. So please stop doing that. It makes no sense and doesn't add to the discussion. I don't want to be repetitious and bore the audience so review what I said to K-9 in a previous post. You and he have the same belief that Housley is the source of most of this team's problems. I strenuously say no because I believe the primary source of our team's problems relate to roster deficiencies. And I believe that steadily those issues are being address by the GM. Vengefully chasing the bogeyman coach may make you happy but it will not address the substantive issue relating to the talent level.

The probability that Housley is the coach next year is greater than he won't. We will see how that plays out. This team should garner nearly 25 points more than last year's dreadful team. The Sabres are in nearly every game. That wasn't the case last year. As much as they can be exasperating, especially with their repeated crushing defensive lapses, they are a much more entertaining team compared to last year's team that had nothing redeeming as an entertainment product. Look at our roster makeup: Dahlin, Mitts, Pilut, Sage (I consider him a rookie though technically not so) and CJ Smith can be added to the list. Next year, Guhle and Nylander should be on the NHL roster. That's a lot of young players on a NHL team. In addition, I'm hoping that the GM can make a Skinner type deal in the offseason to bolster this roster. I said it before and I will say it again to you and the catatonic Plez that this team is moving in the right direction and is not far away from becoming a serious team. Your coaching bogeyman has little to do with our team's manifest problems. Our core problem revolves around our talent deficiencies. Steadily, those deficiencies are being addressed. You can scoff at may positive attitude and perspective but I am very encouraged from what I have seen. It's not about the now as much as it is about the near future. My recommendation is for the most part to stay the course.

You must be schizophrenic. You give advice that parallels what I have been saying all along. What you are actually saying in your surprisingly adroit response is let the rebuilding process continue on and add to your core with the development of the young players on your roster and in the system. That's what I have been saying all along while you have been constantly nipping at my heels like a rabid dog. Where I depart from you partially lucid response is your demand of jettisoning of Housley to satisfy your cravings for a head on a platter. What this turbulent franchise that is finally becoming stable under our smart GM needs most is continuity. As I have repeatedly stated to K-9, who has a similarly dismissive attitude toward the coach, is the constant churning of coaches who bring in their own systems doesn't solve the problem of talent deficiencies. It exacerbates it! Your fixation on the playoffs is being short-sighted. I want the Sabres to make the playoffs as much as anyone here. The fans deserve it. But making short-term moves to qualify as a wild-card playoff team at the expense of dealing off young assets makes little sense to me. Be brave plensmd. Don't get wobbly and frightful when facing the daunting challenge in front of you. Having the courage to maintain a strategy that is actually working even in the face of some immediate setbacks is the right thing and smart thing to do. Stay the course and stop with your foolhardy thinking that getting rid of a coach will solve the shortcomings that this team has.

If the Sabres win Plezmd will still complain about how Housley juggled the lines. When it comes to the coach he can be very robotic and programmed. To his credit he is consistent.

The below link is a 10 min discussion with Chad DeDominicis on WGR. I was reluctant to post it because I fear that the combustible Plezmd becomes even more flammable after listening to this interview where he criticizes some of Housley's decisions. Chad uses the analytics to support his positions. It's a good discussion that very much mirrors our discussions here. https://wgr550.radio.com/media/audio-channel/02-07-chad-dedominicis-die-blade-howard-and-jeremy

From a short term and talent standpoint the ROR trade hurt the team. But as you noted it gave us future cap relief and the ability to sign or resign players. Also, Mittelstad got a lot of playing time as the center on the second or lesser lines because of the departure of the ROR. So hopefully, the additional playing time that the younger player receives will accelerate his development. I think he is really going to be good in the not too distant future. Although the production isn't there now the offensive talent is evident. ROR was the team captain when he was in Buffalo. When he left Jack became the captain and leader of the team. It seems to me that the players are more receptive to respond to Jack than to the more introverted O'Reilly. Another aspect to this deal is that Botterill wanted to upgrade the speed of the team. Last year, we were one of the slowest teams in the league. Our defensive unit and our forward lines are collectively faster. That is important in a league that is becoming faster and more skilled. When everything is tallied it is evident that in the short term we lost more than we gained. But in the long term the pendulum should swing in our favor. And if that extra first round pick becomes a chip in a significant signing then the deal would even look better.

I also liked the pickup. There is a good probability that the Bills won't have a genuine #1 receiver. If that's the case then you can still upgrade the unit with good #2 receivers. Sometimes these little and obscure deals turn out to be big hits. If not, so what? You then move on. I applaud the organization for scouring the market to improve the team.