I was not referring to Taylor Hall and two years. I said for the last two years, 2021-22 and 2022-34. Taylor Hall was 2020-21.
But while we are talking about Taylor Hall, we butchered that too. We let him dictate his trade for no reason. We could have easily called his bluff, and he would have had to play it out with us. No playoffs, less chance to earn next contract.
(He would have walked for nothing. I mean, who cares? At some point, you have to negotiate hard.)
And we actually got LESS than a second when you consider we took on Anders Bjork contract and gave up Curtis Lazar. The Sabres spun a ton of BS, but we lost that part of a deal with a pricier player on a longer contract. We dumped Lazar to Chicago and had to take on one of their AHL contracts.
Pegula used his money, but it's hard to imagine you could use it in a more foolish way. We gave a pro-rated $4 M on Hall so maybe $1.5 M and theb ate maybe an extra $2.5 M plus on Bjork who was never anything special.
And what did the Sabres do with that pick? Aleksandr Kisakov – not exactly an impact player in the AHL, although he is only 21. Matthew Knies and JJ Moser were picked shortly afterward.
You can pick on dozens of threads of Sabres history and find bad negotiating, bad trades where they just give a just a little too much. The drafting does look better lately.
It all speaks to an organization that just looks weak. When it spends, it wastes on things like Ralph Krueger on a long-term deal. For some reason, we extended Granato and our hands are somewhat tied firing him now. The $72 million for Skinner is like the Cadbury secret because no team could have been that close over seven years and the kid wanted to be close to Toronto. Then there is $2.5 million for Okposo and Girgensons or $2 million for Jost.
Everything just never feels organized or thought out in Buffalo.
Honestly, who runs the place?
All valid points.
And to your last question - not Jack Quinn.
