Responding here because I am not hijacking the Adams/Granato thread.
I didn't mention anything about the Covid season. I was talking about institutional support being a valid concern for any coach coming in. Spending on general maintenance (not even upgrades) are a big part of being supported. As somebody who has worked with the NCAA and USOC you would have a tough time convincing a top coaching candidate on either stage that their program will be supported properly in that physical environment.
I hate to break it to you but the facilities the coach will be using will be good (in the arena) to great (harborcenter). I don’t see them caring much about other parts of the arena. Even though fans are rightfully pissed off about those things.
I’d also point out none of this has had any bearing on us losing for 13yrs or our previous coaching hires. Pegula’s bad management hires are responsible for that.
You keep mentioning that during the Covid season Pegula spent to the upper limits of the cap. He didn't.
Oh but they did. IIRC our cap hit going into the 20-21 seasons was roughly 79.5mil, about 2mil shy of the 81.5mil upper limit. The lower limit was 60.2mil.
I checked the wayback machine as far as they go. To keep things streamline I used the starting month for each season. Here are the Sabres cap rankings.
2015: 27th
2016: 24th
2017: 19th
2018: 6th
2019: 4th
2020: 18th
2021: 32nd
2022: 32nd
2023: 31st
Over the course of the last 9 years the Sabres have been in the top half of the league in spending just twice. TWICE! Neither of those seasons were during Covid.
None of this disputes what I posted. You don’t need to be in the top half of the league in cap hits to be spending near the upper limit.
Every season the overwhelming majority of teams in the league have cap totals that are at, near or above the upper limit. This particular season the upper limit was 83.5mil. The breakdown relative to that……
-20 teams had 83+mil cap hits
-25 teams had 80+mil in cap hits
The Sabres payroll being 18th during the Covid season doesn’t dispute that they were spending near the upper limit. To prove they weren’t you’d have to show that they didn't spent what they did. Good luck with that.
The concern about institutional support from Pegula is cumulative. It isn't just the roof, or the salary cap, or the scouting dept (tied with OTT for the smallest dept in the NHL) It is all of those things combined. He hasn't supported this org properly compared to his peers in a very long time. It is and should be a concern for anybody entering the org and trying to turn this thing around.
Not only is that nonsense. But it shows an ignorance of this franchise’s history. The previous ownership group (Golisano/Quinn) gutted everything and left it that way the entirety of their ownership. It’s why we were hollowed out at all levels of the organization by the time they sold.
Pegula came in and brought funding up to normal levels. He even funded one of the bigger front offices in the NHL under Botts. Only one off-season did he neglect this. When he decided in 2020 to gut the front office and run it with a skeleton crew. By the end of 2021 we were back to a normal sized front office that was on the smaller side, similar to the Canes. He also built a fantastic practice facility in the Harborcenter thats also used by USA hockey and the NHL for major events.
Some of you have really latched onto to the 2020 offseason. You act like it represents his entire ownership tenure, as if Pegula has been Golisano/Quinn 2.0. Which is ridiculous.
EDIT: Somebody in a different thread asked about analytics and player dev. I didn't look at that across all 32 teams. We can use Pittsburgh as a high water mark or close to it with 22 people in the scouting department compared to the Sabres 14. Comparatively they have 5 people in their analytics department to the Sabres 3 and 8 people in "Player Development" to the Sabres 4.
The Sabres have accumulated and developed some of the best young talent in the NHL, AHL and have one of the best overall prospect pools. Something they did using analytics and player development. It’s a strength of their organization. You’re seriously going to attack that because they have less people assigned to it than the Penguins do ?
You desperately want to believe that the bigger the size of a front office (or department in it), the better it will be. But thats simply not the case and never has been. I would think any Sabres fan would realize that with how shitty we were under Botts.
We have a normal sized front office thats one of the smaller ones. Similar to the Canes front office which is one of the better run teams in the league. It’s not a sign of neglect on the owners part for the hockey team.
