Speculation: I Was Wrong About Tanking

[Diaspora]

The only reason the Tank failed was horrible coaching hire after horrible coaching hire. Should have hired a proven winner and that never happened.

Which Jack Adams candidate was going to coach the NHL's version of the Austin Ice Bats featuring Bratty Jack Eichel?

Go back and read #10 again and let it sink in.

Then close this thread.

 

[Willgamesh]

Which Jack Adams candidate was going to coach the NHL's version of the Austin Ice Bats featuring Bratty Jack Eichel?

Go back and read #10 again and let it sink in.

Then close this thread.

literally anybody if you offered enough $.

 

[Diaspora]

literally anybody if you offered enough $.

Established coaches are financially independent. They're not going to put on your chicken suit for a few shekels.

See: Mike Babcock

 

[SabresFan26]

Established coaches are financially independent. They're not going to put on your chicken suit for a few shekels.

See: Mike Babcock

Just like I don’t think Berube would accept it now. He’ll have the pick of the litter come the summer.

 

[littletonhockeycoach]

Terry doesn't like to hire anyone with balls. It seems like Terry surrounds himself with ass kissers and view valid criticisms as being negative.

Kim's the one with the balls........

 

[Willgamesh]

Established coaches are financially independent. They're not going to put on your chicken suit for a few shekels.

See: Mike Babcock

so if he was offered even double it still wouldnt work? yeh not buying it

 

[Diaspora]

literally anybody if you offered enough $.

And wasn't Disco Dan a recent Cup winner? That team was way beyond the help of any coach

His team was Ryan O'Reilly, a pile of rancid dog meat, and two rookies on a tandem bike. Nobody with any professional ability is walking into that.

Give @GellMann comment of the year (#10 on this thread. Seriously, there's nothing more to say.)

I'm shocked that there are folks around who, in spite of the last ten years' of lived experience, still think tanking was the right thing to do. No animosity, but . . . really????

I didn't come to this forum until way after the damage was done, but I thought it was a terrible stain on "the best fans in hockey" when the home fans cheered against their team live. The Buffalo Sabres have been a zombie franchise since the fans cheered for Arizona to beat them on home ice. That was the day that "f*** Buffalo" became an NHL given.

 

[5 Minute Major]

Tanking was still the right call.

No it wasn’t.

I thought it was at the time but all that it has done is created a losing culture.

The Buffalo Sabres are losers.

 

[tsujimoto74]

It wasn't. Not as intentionally as we did it, anyways.

You would’ve rather we lost Vanek, Pominville, and Miller at the end of the season for nothing instead of trading them for picks? The team was headed for the basement whether we made those move or not, it was just a question of how soon.

The problem with the rebuild wasn’t the simple fact of doing it. It was the garbage GMs and coaches we had along the way.

 

[Ace]

The tanking wasn’t the problem. The rebuild has been.

Still need someone to explain what they would have done in Buffalo’s situation. Old core wasn‘t winning and key players were going to walk. Should have held on to them and lost them for nothing? That actually makes them even worse.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed but players don’t want to come here now…they didn’t in 2014 either. So what was the plan? Draft in worse spots, still be terrible….but do it admirably?

no.

Hire experienced, qualified people to run the front office at any point in this drought and they would build a good team. But Pegula doesn’t want that.

Tanking in 2014-15 doesn’t create a losing culture in 2023. Kevyn Adams did that.

 

[sabremike]

He means gutting the roster so thoroughly that it was impossible for any reasonable offseason or string of offseasons could add enough talent to get the team competitive any time soon again. It completely severed the Sabres from competitive NHL hockey for two full calendar years. The offseason after the tank they added 4 20+ goal scorers and a few other guys and a goalie, the vast majority of whom had plenty of team success elsewhere after leaving here, and it was still only enough to be an 81 point team (ie bottom 10 EASILY). There was no real path back to contention outside of obscene luck, because it is unreasonable to ever expect an offseason as good as 2015's was in terms of net talent added to an organization. I know hindsight will lead everyone to say that "well they should have done this or that instead and they would have been fine." Sorry, everyone here and everywhere else was over the moon in those days. And the results were never even close to competitive because the starting point was as far back behind the pack as it is possible to be. Putting yourself there on purpose is a major reason why we are still where we are today, even if competent management since could have eventually fixed it. It's hard to get that competent management when you build the reputation that began to take hold in those tank years.

Wwhatever intangible substance they lost by severing themselves from the NHL, they have never come close to recovering it. They are the ghost of a baseline NHL franchise, let alone the sterling franchise they once were.

Also don't forget that the absurdly transparent and in your face way that the sociopath GM went about doing this led directly to the league changing the draft lottery to do as much as they could to prevent us from getting McJesus without outright rigging the thing. And then when we got Jack GM Sociopath acted like his dog had just died (essentially poisoning the well from the start).

 

[DJN21]

we've gotten this far into it without the embarrassment of klesla or whoever it was that refused to report to the team after being traded here? Our berglund willingly retiring lol? Come on guys step your game up....

 

[MOGlLNY]

You would’ve rather we lost Vanek, Pominville, and Miller at the end of the season for nothing instead of trading them for picks? The team was headed for the basement whether we made those move or not, it was just a question of how soon.

The problem with the rebuild wasn’t the simple fact of doing it. It was the garbage GMs and coaches we had along the way.

That isn’t what I said

 

[KeyserSoze81]

Tanking was fine. Everything that followed after it was the problem.

 

[May Day 10]

The tear down and deep rebuild was necessary at the time.

The problem is, they changed management multiple times in the rebuild, and had tim Murray as a GM eventually who donked assets off at pennies on the dollar.

 

[Dreakon13]

The only "tank" was the Eichel year, the rest was several botched rebuilds/retoolings for a variety of reasons.

I don't think the tank was the problem, hard to blame all this on one year. The problem was and still is never having both a smart, strong willed coach and talented leadership-quality players (plural) at the same time. It's arguable we haven't had either at any point in the last 12 years.

I don't have the energy to expand on this thought so I'll leave it at that. We've tried buying these things, we've tried developing it internally. I'm not sure how to fix it, there's a lot of reasons that caliber of coach and player wouldn't want to come to Buffalo at this point... clearly they don't know how to fix it either.

EDIT: I can understand why they're taking the wait and see approach with this current group given their relative success last year... whether that's because they would have trouble bringing better people in, or just because of their ages and the potential they see in them.

 

[May Day 10]

The only "tank" was the Eichel year, the rest was several botched rebuilds/retoolings for a variety of reasons.

I don't think the tank was the problem, hard to blame all this on one year. The problem was and still is never having both a smart, strong willed coach and talented leadership-quality players (plural) at the same time. It's arguable we haven't had either at any point in the last 12 years.

I don't have the energy to expand on this thought so I'll leave it at that. We've tried buying these things, we've tried developing it internally. I'm not sure how to fix it, there's a lot of reasons that caliber of coach and player wouldn't want to come to Buffalo at this point... clearly they don't know how to fix it either.

EDIT: I can understand why they're taking the wait and see approach with this current group given their relative success last year... whether that's because they would have trouble bringing better people in, or just because of their ages and the potential they see in them.

The way to fix it is fairly simple... but is not realistic with our owner.

They need to clear out management. Hire a P of hockey ops with experience and credibility. Put out a clear and deliberate "Under New Management" sign in front of the key bank center broadcast to the hockey world.

In order to attract a good president with credibility, pegula will need to give assurances this person will enjoy both full autonomy and resources to build the organization from the top-down.

They needed to do this when they bought the team, but certainly the moment they/regier decided for the deep rebuild. They kind of half-a'd it with the November lafontaine hire with Craig Patrick but ownership couldn't keep their hands away. They have needed to do it ever since, but drifted farther and farther from that ever being a possibility outside our wildest imagination

 

[BFLO]

Not enough patience coming out of the tank.

Way too much patience recently, 6-8 years after the tank.

The main reason for our "losing culture" is pretty simple: Shipping out players who wanted to win, because "they don't want to be here" and keeping a bunch of losers who "want to be here".

That and having more prospects in the starting lineup than an AHL team.

 

[Dreakon13]

The way to fix it is fairly simple... but is not realistic with our owner.

They need to clear out management. Hire a P of hockey ops with experience and credibility. Put out a clear and deliberate "Under New Management" sign in front of the key bank center broadcast to the hockey world.

In order to attract a good president with credibility, pegula will need to give assurances this person will enjoy both full autonomy and resources to build the organization from the top-down.

Sure, replace everyone with better people is the fix. How you get from where we are now, to that, is certainly no guarantee even under better circumstances. Or how many more years it adds.

 

[May Day 10]

Sure, replace everyone with better people is the fix. How you get from where we are now, to that, is certainly no guarantee even under better circumstances. Or how many more years it adds.

I don't think the most drastic changes would add years. It would likely subtract them.

Like it or not, the core of this team is locked in long-term and many of them are immovable. They also have a decent trove of assets right now to work with.

It also isn't splitting the atom. The bar right now is to finish in the top 16 teams in a 32 team league. I have confidence that an experienced management and coaching staff could get the Sabres there rapidly.

 

[Dreakon13]

It also isn't splitting the atom. The bar right now is to finish in the top 16 teams in a 32 team league. I have confidence that an experienced management and coaching staff could get the Sabres there rapidly.

The difficult part isn't getting results when we have an experienced management and coaching staff, it's getting the experienced management and coaching staff.

And I don't think it's entirely Pegula's meddling that makes that difficult. It's also that no sane, smart, successful person wants to take a shovel to their career/legacy trying to be a hero here.

 

[May Day 10]

I think it would be a somewhat attractive position with autonomy and resources.

The stigma and stink that keeps people away is the fact that they are required to have daily conversations with Terry pegula, likely pressed to implement his "ideas", and probably also forfeit the ability to even hire/fire your own coach.

If pegula presents a canvas of young players, assets, and cap space and promises to keep his distance (and also pay well), they can fill that role with anyone available imo

 

[MarkusKetterer]

we've gotten this far into it without the embarrassment of klesla or whoever it was that refused to report to the team after being traded here? Our berglund willingly retiring lol? Come on guys step your game up....

Klesla AND Halak. But at least the latter actually dressed for the team.

 

[Sabresfansince1980]

I think it would be a somewhat attractive position with autonomy and resources.

The stigma and stink that keeps people away is the fact that they are required to have daily conversations with Terry pegula, likely pressed to implement his "ideas", and probably also forfeit the ability to even hire/fire your own coach.

If pegula presents a canvas of young players, assets, and cap space and promises to keep his distance (and also pay well), they can fill that role with anyone available imo

I'd like to hear more about this. I read a ton of comments here about Pegula being a meddling owner but no real details or known examples. I don't doubt the possibility, but I prefer facts before making that conclusion.

I don't blame any owner for wanting to be kept in the loop of major decisions (which seems understandable after TM). Then there's a foggy area where some people might think an owner is interfering just by being involved or adding his opinion. Then there's flat out dictation by telling a GM what to do.

I still don't know where Pegula falls. I wish there was more specific examples from people that have been in the know, but that type of info might never be available.

 

[Beerz]

I think Murray had the right idea..and was actually building something.

His failure was targeting some bad guys for either bad character, drama or injuries.

I think he would of got us to playoffs if given more time