The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 368: Rebuilding the Sabres

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

Chad DeDominicis joins the show to deep dive the Buffalo Sabres rebuilding in perpetuity. We discuss all of the instability and turnover the organization has gone through over the past decade, how much of the blame should go the ownership's way, and how much Taylor Hall will be able to help Jack Eichel moving forward. Topics include: 2:30 The Sabres playoff drought 8:00 Tim Murray's 'Process' 17:00 The role the Pegulas have played 23:00 Jason Botterill's last stand 33:00 Rasmus Ristolainen's trade window 44:00 The fit for both Hall and the Sabres Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Subscribe to front and center today. Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P.D.O.cast. With your host, Dimitri Phil. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich, and joining me for today's episode is my buddy Chad the D. D. D. D. D. D. Menisus, Chad. What's going on, man? Hey, man. How are you? I'm good. I'm a little sneak peek behind the curtains here for listeners. You and I've been planning the show since I believe it was like mid to late May. It was during the peak quarantine days. And we were trying to figure out a time to sort of deep dive the sabres and talk about it. And I guess it's a good thing that we waited because since then they basically fired everyone.

in their organization. They added a former MVP, and they've had at least a couple interesting stories written about ownership and sort of the machinations behind the scenes of how the teams run. So there's been certainly a lot of new topics added to our agenda since we initially started planning this. It's been an absolutely wild ride. I mean, I was just going to say, like,

when we first started playing this, Jason Broward was still the general manager, and, like, there was just so much uncertainty. And now it's like, oh, now Taylor Hall's here. and Kevin Adams, and there's still ownership, uncertainty, kind of. It's just, it's a saber. It truly is a wild ride, that's for sure. Yeah, they're the, like, the office meme of zero days, and it's our last nonsense with a...

Basically. It's, well, so the inspiration for this was, and I sent you the link, it was a while ago now, but Evan Silva did this show about Bill O'Brien and the Houston Texans, and he sort of did this, like, full-on investigative deep dive where they were just, like, sort of uncovering, like how deeply rooted all of the issues within the organization were and how far you could take them back and sort of just kind of the insidious nature of like when an organization is set up to

fail like how it's more than I guess what just sort of meets the eye or how it's like a accumulation everyone just thinks it's like one really bad move here or there but in reality it's like a lot of bad decisions and if anything it's sort of decisions that are motivated by not the best of intentions and that's usually how you get into a place where you're an organization that keeps losing year over a year. And, you know, we can take that any number of ways with the sabers, but basically the way we're going to tee this up and get into this deep dive is we're going to start with kind of taking it all the way back and going, how do we get to this point in time with the Buffalo Sabres before we started talking about their most recent moves and kind of

looking ahead to the future and what they can do. So I don't know how far you want to take this thing back, but I guess it would sort of make sense to go back to the start of the old. ownership by the Pagulas and I maybe gets taken it back to like 2011 or so in terms of the different eras and stages of Sabres hockey and sort of how it's all led up to this this point in time. Yeah, I think it even goes a little bit farther back than that, to be honest. If you really want to go all the way back to when the quote unquote short window glory days of the Sabres ended, it would be January 1st, 2007. That's the day that Breer and Drewie both left.

so like I think it goes all the way back to that and the Sabres never really recovered from that I think they had like one or two playoff years between that and now but it's just it the core they thought they had in place never really lives up to expectations

there was always struggles there even the one good year they won the division like I remember people sitting in Buffalo being like yeah but then I've really that good and then they lost in the first round and then they had that miraculous run when the Pagool was bought the team like they were way out and then they finish the season like 21 and 7 or something crazy like that they could

in and play the flyers and the flyers didn't have a goal turn like they like switch your goal every single game and the saber still lost so it's it's a wild thing to go back and look at it all and then to see where we are now i mean no playoffs in nine years and it's it's crazy because then after the pagoolas bought the team they went in big now that that's the airoff and lanel off season right they're going to go spend their money they kind of thought you know what we'll just throw money at this, right? I mean, that was a problem with the Sabres. They had an owner previously in Galasano who didn't, like, you know,

who had a restriction on how much money they could spend. And so we're just going to throw some money at this. We'll get good players. That'll fix it. Absolutely didn't. So that's kind of when things started to go downhill from there. And then it's trading off Vanek, trading off Pomerville, you know, all those big name guys, Derek Roy, you know, and moving on Brian Campbell shortly after

that. So it's, you know, it's. it's crazy to go all the way back so that and kind of look at you right now and then because then you get into the tank years right so that and you know the mc david ickel year or even before that it was a reinhart year you know but then the mac david uncle year is the big one yes so then they then they're awesome it's great it works you know here we're gonna go we're gonna start going now and then at that point um that's when you have tim murray in here and tim murray you know he's the outgoing will tell you how he feels GM who says crazy ridiculous things that you could Google and like about slapping people's things and it's wild it was a wild slapping beepies yeah basically yes well okay let's let's take this thing a step of a time because as you're going through all that it's like yes it's it's exact this is going to be the exact show that I was hoping it be there's there's so much to unpack here I think the reason why I said going back to 2011 obviously beside the fact that that that's when the ownership changed when

the pagula took over it's it kind of coincides with this mark of the the Fosafers have not made the playoffs since then you alluded to nine consecutive seasons missing out. And that's kind of remarkable just to think about just on its face because it seems almost next to impossible to go that long of a period of time in the NHL without one sort of random PDO bender season where you just for whatever reason sneak in. I mean, this is a league that prides itself on its year-over-year parity and sort of the turnover. especially on the margins and how tough it is for teams to, you know, stay atop the league for more than a couple years at a time. And you look at that where it's like, yeah, the Sabers have been out of the playoffs for nine years.

The next longest drought is Detroit at only four. You've got the senators at three, the ducks, kings, and the devils at two. And those are the only teams in the league that have gone multiple years without making the playoffs now. And so it's kind of crazy to think that we're already at nine here. And I guess the one silver lining would be you'd go even further back 13 years without a playoff series win, which is still more recent than the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won a series. So I guess...

Sabre fans don't forget that step. I have that going for them. So I had to throw that one in there, so it's not all doom and gloom here. But, I mean, you know, I guess it is nine years. I guess you would say that the asterisk on that streak is that those nine years in between them, it kind of sandwiches this two-year window where the Buffalo Sabres were, to an unprecedented any degree, I think, for a non-expansion HL team, just going full tank rebuild, sort of along the lines of what the Philadelphia Sixers did in the NBA with the process where you had Tim Murray replacing

Darcy Regier, as you mentioned, and just fully them sort of giving him the licensed engineer a full tear down. And that started, I guess, kind of partway through the 2014-15 season, or I guess in January 2014, so the year before. But when you look back at those process, years and the Tim Murray run. It's, I still don't know. It's, it's been a handful of years now. And obviously the Sabres, um, beyond a couple of young kind of cornerstone pieces, don't necessarily have that much to show from those disasters.

Like when you think back on those years, what, what sort of, um, is the lasting kind of takeaway or the way it's thought about in Buffalo and with people that are both cheer for and cover the team? Because it's such a, it's such a tricky and sort of touchy subject in a, hockey circles because it is just so running against the grain of how you normally see NHL teams conduct themselves

during such rebuilds. Yeah, I mean, it's, there was a segment, I would say minority probably, the fan base at the time and still that thinks tanking was the wrong decision. And one of the reasons why the franchise is where they are now, you know, that's the, you know,

well, you tanked how many of years ago, you put this losing culture in, but I mean, come on. Like there's been turnover. Those players are gone. I just don't buy that excuse anymore, to be honest. And, you know, at the end of the day, they achieved their objective in those years for to get good young players and get a lot of draft picks.

The problem was the execution. If you go back and look at their drafts, they were horrendous, like terrible. They got basically nothing outside of the first round, those top five picks that they got. Ryan Hart has been good. You know, Eichol has been good. and, you know, for other people that'll say, well, they really want to McDavid that year.

Well, of course. But the whole point of the tank, and the way it worked back then is you wanted to be last because when you didn't win the lottery, you were getting one of the two. So anybody who tells you like, yeah, but it was McDavid the whole time. Well, of course, sure. I mean, that's, you know, the main guy because of how good he is. But there's, you know, Michael was a great consolation. And, you know, where we're seeing it now, you know, in my opinion, he had a MVP caliber season last year.

You know, that team without him is an AHA team, in my opinion. the season but you know it's I tell people all the time and it's so odd to say that that honestly might have been the most fun I've had watching Sabres hockey because that 15-16 season

and it was basically it was a you know a reverse playoff right because you're watching games every single night one you're seeing if the Sabres lose and then you're seeing how that impacts the standings at the bottom.

And then you're saying, oh, Arizona's playing so and so, or are they winning or losing? And then you're watching Edmonton and other teams. And it's really, I mean, that's kind of like the most focus you've been on the standings that late in the season. And then you have that wild Arizona game, Sabres game near the end of the season where Sabers fans are openly rooting against their own team. People are wearing like taping Coyote's logos over their jersey. Like, I was at that game. And seeing that, it was insane.

So to have those things in your memories, it's just wide. You also had the Michael Neuberth run where in February that season, he played nine games at a 938, say, a percentage in those games. And I guess you just say he won them eight points. I guess in that case, he lost them or cost them. Yeah, eight points. And then they're like, okay, we need to get this guy out of town. They kept trading goalies until they got bad ones. Yeah.

They got Allen Flindback and he was good too. And they had to put him behind somebody. They kept getting goalies that were playing well. Yeah, when you think about it, whether it was a success or not, I guess obviously you'd say it wasn't just in the sense that. the team still hasn't made the playoff since, and I guess hasn't manifested itself into anything sort of tangible looking like success for the organization since then. But, you know, you go back to it in those two years. I mean, my God, 44, 102, and 18 record. They got outscored by like 200 goals over those two seasons. I think set a new low watermark, which I don't think will ever be

matched again in NHL where at five on five, they had a sub 40 expected goals percentage. for those two years. And just to put that to perspective for people, last year's Detroit Red Wings, who were, like, could not win a hockey game for very extended periods of time. We're at 43%, which is really bad, but a significant step up for where those Sabres teams were.

And so, you know, when I think back to it and sort of look at it in terms of success or failure and what can be kind of taken from it, and learned from it, and replicated, I guess the issue for Tim Murray and the Sabres was kind of twofold, right? One was the damage in a way was already done where Regier on his way out, especially with the new ownership, kind of empowering them to come in with a bunch of cash and spend it and make big splash moves

in that summer of 2011 where they signed Airhoff and Lano, as you mentioned, that kind of put them behind the eight ball there. And then shortly after, that also includes while Regier was there giving Tyler Myers, like $40 million, dollars giving Cody Harts in a six-year deal and a lot of mistakes that they're still sort of paying for organizationally even if it's not by cap hits just by money that's going out the door and the drafting is another thing as well and that's sort of part two of the big issues there where there was the poor lottery luck where they obviously just didn't get the first overall pick and I wonder how much differently it would be thought of if they had either McDavid or Eckblatt in either those two years and and even if you stretch it back to the

gear years. I mean, it's just, it's stunning to look back in 2012, 13 and go, in those two drafts, you have the 8th, 12th, 14th, and 16th overall picks, and you come out of it with Rasman-Sterlinen, Nikita Zedorov, Mikhail Grigarenko, and Zemgus Gerkinsons. I guess the sort of counter that would be, well, you used half of those four to go and get Ryan O'Reilly, but I mean, that's still a pretty tough look. And when you're a rebuilding team, when you're just not having anything tangible to show for premium assets like that, it really hurts you. I mean, there's the first round pick that was traded for Robin Leonard, too. Yep, yep.

Well, I mean, it all culminates. So I guess that's sort of, you know, the next step of it. I think that I wonder, you know, how much of the blame for this lays at the, at the feet of Tim Murray and how much of it is a bigger organizational ownership issue that we can get into when we talk about Jason Botterill's tenure as well, where it does seem like after those two years, there was a quick sort of change in approach or philosophy where I don't know how much of it was, you know, you kind of take a step back and you reflect and you're like, yeah, the idea of tanking and being the worst team in the league seemed like a good idea and a good

way to get better, but it was kind of a joke and the way we're being talked about in league circles and the way people are thinking about us and just sort of the apathy involved isn't something we want to keep doing and keep subjecting this organization to for years on end. And so it did feel like there was a quick sort of philosophical pivot or maybe like an urgency to expedite the rebuild and get better in that summer of 2015 where they go out and they make the Ryan O'Reilly trade. The following summer they spent a bunch of money at Kyle Cposo. They moved that first for Robin Linder, as you mentioned.

Those were kind of, that's the thing that I always think about where those were moves that went kind of very counter to what they had sort of established as their agenda or their motive for how they were going to run their organization for the two years prior. Yeah, I think that's exactly. Yeah, I think

with regret that planned the whole time was to get those picks and make those picks and kind of build that way. And then when he was out the door and Murray came in while they kind of talked about that, yeah, that's their plan. You know, he was more, I'm going to hit the ground running here. And like you said, I mean, it's the Evander Kane trade. It's

Ryan O'Reilly. It's Robin Leonard. You know, it's getting Kyle Loposo. A lot of people forget, like, they were one of the teams out on Stamcoast, too. He took their phone call. Like, so, I mean, they were in on that too, and they really wanted them before he back to Tampa Bay. So, you know, they were guns blazing once they got Eichol, and we saw it in that draft year. So, yeah, it's odd to think about it because it's, you know,

you culminate all these picks, and then not only do you draft poorly from grabbing all those picks, you move a ton of them for players that weren't here very long. What Kane was, what, a year and a half, O'Reilly, two years-ish. So, I mean, and Leonard, you know, I mean, he's a great goaltender now, but we know about the struggles he had on the Buffalo off the ice and then he had the injuries. When he played, he was fine, but it just, it never, it just, it, just, it, just, it, just, it, just, it, just, it, just, it, it's, it never all comes together. And it's, it's, it's, it's crazy.

When Ryan O'Reilly and Jack Lago are your top two center. your team should be fine. You shouldn't be the worst team in the league still. So it's sometimes it's just mind-bbing to see things like that. And, you know, what results are written? You're like, how? How could they have been that bad? Because, you know, quickly than nine years again,

like you almost have to try that hard to miss that many times. You have to try really hard. And just this is how that team goes. They always figure out a way somehow, some way. Well, it's okay. So if you look at, you know, even less than that nine-nine year stretch over the past eight years, They're on their sixth coach now. They're on their fourth GM.

In that time, they fired both Darcy Rhaer and Tim Murray less than a year after extending each of them. Most recently publicly backed Jason Botterall and said they weren't making changes in late May gave a hilarious interview that ranks really high on non-intentional comedy scale where it was justified by saying that the Sabres have a little more information than the fans do. and there's some inner workings that we see as positives, quote unquote. And then 20 days later, they fire Botero, they fire, I think, 22 people total,

most of the hockey ops scouting department, including accidentally firing the head of IT, who they had to rehire. And that was kind of the ultimate, only the Buffalo Sabres. I guess the Ottawa Senator, as you believe that story as well, but it's just, it's, it's really like kind of, it kind of blends in with everything else. but if you just think about that sentence, I just said, it's pretty crazy and surreal to think about. But then you also include the list of PRLs that I alluded to earlier

where it's like, think about all the stuff that's happened sort of tangentially around the Sabres and the Pagulas since this team even played a hockey game, right? Like you've got the taking care of staff during the pandemic stuff. You've got Tim Graham's piece on the toxic culture of their work environment. You've got the hilarity of pausing construction of the quote unquote super yacht. I mean, and that's, I guess, the reason why I'm sort of illustrating all that stuff or laying it out like this is because I do think, you know, we can talk about Darcy Regere, we can talk about Tim Murray, we can talk about Jason Botero, we're going to talk about Kevin Adams coming up here and sort of what he's done out of the gate running the Sabres team. But it's always going to come back to ownership. And we typically when we talk about teams, we talk about the coaches, the players, the GMs, when we're evaluating the moves they make.

But I think in this case, it is a really fair, and I think pointed question to consider how much the ownership and the state of it and sort of how the team's been operated under Pegula's five sort of feeds into this organization's seemingly constant state of disarray and turmoil and always something sort of weird and out of the norm is happening with the sabres. And that's, there's just, I guess there's one sort of common denominator over these past nine, ten years. Yeah. And it's, you know, you're absolutely right. It's, there's so many things. It's crazy kind of how it went from when they first got here. You know, they were, you know, superheroes, if you will. And then now, to see where they are now, it's, it's insane.

Like, I think it'd be even worse, it didn't have the bills, to be honest. But, you know, there's so many, there has been. recently so many PRR opportunities from to just do the right thing just get some sort of fan engagement done properly and it just every time they fumble it it's the pandemic stuff it's uh the we know more than the fans it's the jurt the 50th anniversary season where yeah you got a nice third jersey they had but they're just so much in between it like the unfortunate part for them is the Vancouver Canucks were doing their 50th anniversary the same time the sabres were the same season and they just blew the

Sabres out of the water. I mean, they were wearing their old jerseys and warm-ups like, Severs couldn't even be bothered to do that. I mean, you know, many people you could have made happy if you just would have wore the black and red goadheads in one warm-up, just like one time, and they couldn't even do that

because they forgot to put in a, you know, meet the jersey deadline to do that. They forgot to do it. And it's not, and then you go back to the alumni when they came for, uh, 90s night, I think it was, or 80s nights, one of those nights,

the names on the back of the jerseys were spelled wrong. They had like the Chinese knockoffs of like the 90s night jerseys. They're like crooked. They don't match. Not the right ones. It's, it was just embarrassing and cheap the entire way through. And then like I said,

they didn't get into the pandemic stuff. And then you get into the, you know, more than the fans. And then it's the, you know, it just always seems like they kind of put themselves. above and they're just so out of touch with everything. I mean, we had, you know, we had this, this embedded series.

They just did recently, but they kind of showed the whole behind the scenes of the Taylor Hall Center, which is really cool. But the I roll thing in there is there's like a clip of Terry Bagula saying, well, if we get Taylor Hall, it doesn't only show that we're going to be a playoff team, so we're going to be a Stanley Cup contender. And you're like, dude, like, how out of touch are you? Like, no, it doesn't. You're not even really a playoff team right now with him.

It's just stuff like that where just, you're so. out of touch that, you know, and they're invested in the bills, they're always run the bills. You know, they're doing well right now. That kind of makes, you know,

makes Sabers fans feel like in the Sabers themselves, kind of like the stepchild now, right? They're number two. And oh, when you have time, we'll get over and get involved in what you're doing. Yeah,

they basically hit all the checkpoints of like my least favorite qualities that I'd like to see from an ownership group. It's like the combination of trying to cut corners where they really ultimately do not need to be cut. meddling and micromanaging. I think the worst, though, is changing opinions and plans on a whim and ultimately not really having anyone whose opinion you trust or that has the cachet to step in and be like, no, we need to stay en route here.

We can't just go from one plan for how to run this organization and what to do with this roster to another. And I guess that's what I kept coming back to because I was sort of looking at their most recent moves and trying to make sense of, you know, Jason Botterill's last sort of ultimate moves that he made at this past trade deadline where you look back at it and it just, it seems like complete nonsense. It was weird at the time, but then considering how they ended the season where you're just giving away a pick for expiring Wayne Simmons. And I understand it's a future fifth. It's not like it's a pick of consequence. but the more egregious one in my eyes is flipping Marco Scandela for a very clearly washed up Michael Froelik. I used to love him as a player.

He was incredible for a long time playing with Backland on a line there in Calgary where they were highly underappreciated. But anyone that had watched him play recently knew he was not that player anymore. And they bring him in and sort of parade him around as this guy who's going to suddenly solve all of their depth issues up front. And meanwhile, Montreal quickly, like a month later, turns Marco Scandela into a second and a fourth round pick. And you're just looking at that and just stunned and disbelief, wondering how that could have happened. And this happens time and time again where for whatever reason, this organization seems to struggle with evaluating the value of assets in terms of how they're held around the league and just sort of maximizing them wherever they can. And those are kind of recent examples. But at the same time, it's like, did Jason Botterall really believe that those were the missing links to get this Sabres team over the hump and keep Jack Eichael happy?

Or was it a mandate and a bit of a push to kind of, I guess, safe face and pretend like this team was ahead of where it actually was in reality. Because the sort of trajectory of where the team was at the time and where they ultimately wound up going and those types of moves really didn't align. And so that was very, very head scratching for me. yeah i mean it's the for a league thing is just you know their penalty kill was struggling and they thought that he would help when statistically you look at like his short-hitted numbers he came here and was the worst penalty killer on the team it's like all right that that's great

in that dimension you paid four million dollars for him and then you go back and you look at the you said like the simmons straight of the deadline like what are we doing here you're 12 points out of a playoff spot like what are you doing you're buying players and then then the rod you know Rodriguez-Mishiri for Cahoon, it looks like a good deal, you know, and then, like, here we are seven months later and, oh, he plays for

the Oilers now. All right, okay. Well, I guess that doesn't work. So it's, you know, it's all of it. It adds up. And then, you know, you look at that for a leak deal in that, you know, that causes an overage in their salary gaps. So now they have to deal with that. That's your role up to next year.

But either way, they have an overage because, you know, he had to acquire that guy, not to mention for full price, too. Like, you couldn't even get Calgary to retain any of that. money. It's nuts. And the embarrassment of flipping scandela for a second into four, six weeks later, it all adds up.

And then just to listen to Bottle, you know, after you made those deals on deadline day and talk to the media and talk about like they're trying to make a push for the playoffs. Like, dude, you're 12 points out with like four weeks to go. Stop. You're not fooling anybody. This fan base is educated.

They know what's going on. You're not tricking anybody. Not to mention after that, they went on the road and lost like four, like all four games the Western Conference road trip and that was that was the end of that and then the pandemic came but like it's just it's knocked man it's and that maybe that should have been maybe it was who who knows at this point that should have been the final shot for him apparently it wasn't going to be and then all of a sudden it was and you know we'll say that because we're going to get into that and there's some theories around that too here but it's

yeah let's get let's get into it let's do right now okay well yeah I mean it's it's well there's two approaches behind it. There's the approach that the Bougulas will tell you that they had the time. Now that they weren't going to return to play whenever they fought maybe in June so not until like August and the Sabres themselves

were not going to come back to play anyways. So they had more time. They did internal review and then they decided that Baudrill wasn't good enough and they're going to move on which is odd because two weeks earlier he was fine but whatever. Okay. So that's approach A. Give me the actual approach now. So what

probably really happened. I think Frank Serravelli had the report on this from TSN is that you know how 22 people got fired. So I think what it seems like probably happened is the baguoulos went to the bottom and said, okay, we're going to fire these people. And he basically said, no, I'm not doing that.

So basically trying to stick off for, which is the crazy part of all the Sabres fans that, you know, despise him and wanted them gone at the end of the day that the Bouglas kind of made him out to be a hero because he was trying

to protect his staff and we're like, okay, then we'll fire you and we'll get argue, I don't want to say yes man,

but our guy, Kevin Adams in there who will do what we tell him to do and he'll fire 20 people. So that's basically

what I said, I think Sarah Valley of the report is what actually was the reason behind firing him two weeks later. Yeah.

Yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of what I was, uh, what I was getting at where I didn't definitely not to absolve Jason Butterer. I think just based on the performance he had running this team, it was an understanding.

He deserved to be fired. Absolutely. But not for the reason he was, though. It's the thing. Well, and the way they got there is very telling for this organization. That's ultimately the, at the end of the day, it's the sort of Mickey Mouse nature of how they're running their business is very upsetting. And you're right, it is a very smart fan base. I get a lot of interaction from Sabers fans.

They are very passionate about their team. I'm sure a lot of them are going to download and listen to this episode and they're going to have comments and thoughts and they're going to be passionate about it. And they deserve better. And that's what kind of trying to pass it off as if we're not in 2020 and everyone doesn't have access to the internet and is aware of everything that's circulating and all this stuff that's being talked about. You just can't really run your team and your organization and your business that way

and they keep trying to sort of pass it off as a palatable thing, which it certainly isn't. We didn't even mention the Ryan-Orati trade, which is like the thing that Jason Bauer wasn't aware around his neck for the rest of his career. I mean, and that goes back to a money thing too. It's, you know, for these Pagoolas, this ownership that, you know, when they first came in, talked about, though they want money to he'll drill another well. And then, you know, here we are. I get a pandemic, but we're talking about now efficient, effective, super short, slim hockey department. It's weird.

But, like, that Ryan-O-Radley trade, they could have gotten better trades from different. teams with the problem is they didn't want to pay his bonus. They didn't want to do it. I don't know if it seems like probably what happened is it was spite out of the owner who didn't like the comments that he made at the end of the year. But that wasn't the reason he was traded because it came out later that they were trying to trade him at the deadline before that. So it really wasn't the reason he was traded,

but maybe that's why they refused to pay the bonus because the owner didn't want to pay $7 million to this guy that just said he lost his love for the game. and you know and then they take that blues deal that is an absolute mess all they had from that blues deal is tage thompson now that is it berglin left after like a month suboka was a disaster i guess they used one of those picks to get Colin they used that first round pick uh uh the third the third round picked again or the second round i definitely one of them i believe and it was funny because i remember the time when the trade happened i was like this is the best asset they got back for Ryan o'reilly it's like well yeah half of Colin Miller

Yeah, exactly. And then they used that first round pick they got. They get a low-sealing left-shot defensemen for the second year in a row, and they draft them in Tiams from the year before. They go grab Ryan Johnson at 31, so now you have two low-ceiling defensemen. And, like, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't help that Johnson had a really poor freshman here in Minnesota.

So now it's, what do you really have in that guy? A lot of the draft guys will kind of tell you now that, you know, there might not be much there. So it's frustrating that literally you have to bank all your hope out of that. deal as Tage Thompson and even that really has it gone that well to this point well they certainly got their revenge at ran a rally when a year later they were watching him celebrate the Stanley Cup winning the Selkie and the Khan's might so they sure got him and then you can say Zach Begogean this year right they caught him and he goes and wins the Stanley Cup of Tampa Bay I mean again he just

he for his play deserved it but still it's just like it always it always happens he did and and not that either of o'reailly or Bogosian fit into this idea but just when you think think about teams that have been as bad as the Sabres have for a while. I think part of the issue, especially with more sort of fringe players, is, and I think this happened a bit with Larson, where it becomes difficult to sort of separate the player from the team and the situation, and players can sometimes kind of get that stink that's around them, on them themselves, and get scapegoated and blame for it. And then certainly you see them go to better environments or they're putting up position to succeed,

and they thrive and they look like completely different players. And not that, you know, Larsen go to Arizona, he's suddenly going to blow up there. But it just becomes, I think, tricky to evaluate players sometimes when you're a team like the Sabres because it's not an ideal sort of situation to just figure out who is actually good and who's not because everyone winds up looking worse than they probably actually are in actuality. Yep, exactly. I think you're right. And it's, you know, it's just, it's obvious.

though like you say Larson goes and then Giergensons comes back on a three-year contract way over market value like $2.2 million for three years is crazy when you see guys like Livo and Yetto taking league minimum contracts like what are you doing and it's but that's that's the owner's guy you know that's his boy and that's we want it back and it is what it is I guess okay let's take a quick break here we're going to hear from sponsor I want to keep going and uh on the tease things on the other end of this break we're going to talk about Rasmus to line it. Sponsoring today's episode of the Hockey Pedyo guest is Bet Online.

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Try Indeed out with a free $75 credit at Indeed.com slash Blue Wire. This is their best offer available anywhere. Go right now to Indeed.com slash Blue Wire. Terms and conditions apply. Offer valid through December 31st. All right. Let's get into Risto here because Actually, I will start out with this.

I have a question for you. So over the past five years, cumulatively, how many players do you think have played more total minutes than Rastas or Sistralignment? Oh, Sabres. No, no, in the league. Oh, in the league. Entirely.

Oh, I feel like I saw this somewhere. Total minutes. I think it's like five, right? Something like the five or six. Three. You got Drew Dowdy. Ryan Suter and Brent Burns. And in the 9,000 plus

minute club, which we're still in as part of over those five years, you've got Roman Yossi, Alex Petrangelo, Mark Giordano, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Duncan Keith, and Eric Carlson. It's one of those things in all the other that signal sesame sheet, Sean? That's why it's so amusing

that you still, it's quieted down. It's not as much as it was even last year or especially two or three years ago. But there's still people holding out hope saying that he's got untapped potential, which is amusing to me because he's about to hit 500 NHL games. He's 26 years old, and he has played the literally top, like only three other players in the entire NHL have played more minutes than him. I think the issue isn't sample

size here with the Rastasers the line and trying to figure out what he is. I think we at this point know, and if you disagree with it, then chances are you probably just have your head buried in the sand. Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, the, There's no room anywhere for growth and development. It's just past the point of making excuses. You know, it's always, you know, line mates and partners and bad teams and this and that. It's just, you know, it's been consistent over the years of all the bad teams is this guy has played the most minutes on that team every single year.

The bad team always has him playing the most minutes, and it probably ties together in some sort of way. I mean, he hasn't had the best partners. I understand that. At the same time, you look at his minutes last. few years, well, he's a defenseman who played with Jack Eichael the most. Okay, so his quality of teammate really isn't that bad. And if you look at it, you look like, oh, but he plays against the top minutes.

Well, actually, if you read what people write in the research, the quality of teammate actually matters more than quality of competition. So if he's playing with Jack Eichol, the majority of the time at five on five and on the power player we actually is good at, that there's really just no excuse anymore. He's just, he's just not good in the role that he's forced to play. and maybe the maddening part is you mentioned, what, six GMs, four coaches, that you all keep playing him in the same role. It's insane how nobody's like, maybe we shouldn't do that.

Every single coach does it and it doesn't work. How has not one of them been like, let's not do that and try somewhere else there? And my fear next season going into next season is Dahlene, you need to figure out, Dahlene's contract is going to be up and need to figure out what you have in if he can handle those top pair minutes. I believe that he can, but you need to see him. it. Well, with Montour and Ristelan here, those are going to be your roadblocks to

doing that. Now you can give Daly in the minutes, but oh, you're going to saddle him with Ristelanin when that hasn't worked in the past? That's not fair to him. And it's just compounds and compounds and compounds every year that he's here. And then you can make an all-star team with the players he could have been traded for. Eelers,

Hall. We can just keep going down the list of players that he could have been traded for the last few years, but they just didn't make the moves for some ridiculous reason, and, you know, here we are now. Yeah, the one common denominator has definitely been, this team has just been statistically a mess with him on the ice.

This past year was the first year that he broke even in five-on-five goal differential with him on the ice, and it was literally 48 goals for or 48 goals against. And all it took was an elevated hot-eye shooting percentage in like 450 minutes or so. I was going to say, you're going to mention it. Yeah, and his on-ice percentage was, like, ridiculous, too. Yeah. Yeah, very sustainable stuff that certainly will be repeatable for years to come. And like I'd be willing to buy the idea that because he's certainly not

the void of talent, I think sometimes you can kind of, it's a bit of a red herring when you look at the one sort of highlight real goal he scores every 45, 50 games and go, this is the player he is because if he was, he would be able to channel that more often. You know, if he was used differently and certainly I guess in a smaller capacity and sort of had his mitts manicured more tightly, you could squeeze some value out there, but this is just an organization that, as you mentioned,

has demonstrated no either understanding that's necessary or willingness to accept that they need to do so. And this is what I wrote last year about him, and I'm going to quote myself, which I understand is very obnoxious, but the market is hot for blue liners. He's a 25-year-old right shot that's cost control for the next three years.

That would make him a tremendously valuable asset that if he were actually good at hockey. The fact that he isn't is irrelevant here because history has taught us that at least one team out there will talk themselves into fixing them based on that profile, and they'll pay handsomely for the opportunity to do so. Considering some of the deals we've seen in recent years, it would be almost impossible for them not to come out ahead by simply doing so.

And when we kind of know how we're spending it forward and thinking ahead how they can fix this and whether the window to sell high on him is closed, you're talking about some of the trades that have been linked to him out there in the past and I think the most egregious one that was passed up on or wasn't executed at time when they still could was a Nikola Euler's ones, Nikola Euler's ones, because they certainly, that, that deal is no longer there for the taking. So that's one that I think was a really big swing and miss. Yeah, I mean, it's nuts. I mean, I don't, all over just quabbling overthrowing

and then at the end of the day, just when I got tired of it and was like, all right, just forget it. We'll just see where our season goes and then we'll maybe talk later and that never happened. And now the problem is you waited so long, teams have caught on. Teams understand now that he's not that good. So you're not really fooling anybody. I mean, I understand we still see Jack Johnson getting contracts and we see, you know, it feels like Erica Branson gets traded every single offseason. But like, it's just, you're not getting anybody anymore. And this is a team who if they do move them, they're hard-headed. But like, well, we're moving them, we're getting a top six forward. Nobody's giving you a top six forward anymore. It would be, I made argument.

this year that I would just trade him for a draft pick. I don't even care what the draft pick is. You make your team better by simply getting him off your team. Addition by subtraction. It's simple as that at this point. You clear some space. I mean, they have a ton of right-shot defensemen too. And they brought Montour back and they're going to make him to the left side now,

which was absolutely terrible last year. But here we go. Let's run that back and do that again. It's all because they're unwillingness to move guys out and to make these decisions. And he's always the guy at the top. And there's, you know, and you match and maybe you reduce his minutes and he gets better. Well, I would say he, I don't think he does. I've done the research on him.

His minutes are reduced and he doesn't play that much at five on five. His numbers are not that much better. So I don't even know if that would help him. He's just not a good five on five hockey player. The majority of his points, at least for the majority of his career, have come on the power play where he actually is good at that. Now, giving credit the last two years, his five on five points have gone off. Maybe you could try to sell that to somebody.

but he's just not a good five-on-five player. Whenever it's on the ice, he hurts you. So in theory, you limit his minutes. He's on the ice less, so he hurts you less. But I just don't think it's going to improve him and make him a better player by reducing his minutes. Yeah. Nick Eilers was literally tied with a Kenny Malkin and Brad Marshawn

for 8th and 5-on-5 scoring this season. Making $6 million per season for his age 24 to 29 years. Yeah, it's tough. It kind of reminds me of the Sends balking on the rumored Cody Cici for Hall trade back in the day before the devil stepped in with Adam Larson where I was like, oh, well, you know, this is a big defenseman who's hard to come by and we drafted them early. And so we are afraid of passing on his potential. It's like after a certain period of time, if all you have, and remember it was easy at the time. And it's a similar thing with Luselian where it's like,

oh, look at all the minutes he's playing. It's like, well, just because he's literally playing those minutes doesn't mean that he should be or that he's using them effectively to actually return you're banging for the buck and it's not translating into results and ultimately the senators had to take a massive out on it because they basically just wound up trading in cc for for nikita zytezayev and that's what they were had to show for their blind faith and i think it is a valuable skill for any organization out there to be able to emotionally detach themselves from a former high pick of theirs and critically and sort of quickly um you know differentiate and determine how good that player actually is and will be and whether, you know, it's fools gold and whether

they should sell on them. And it's just remarkable to think of what Rist-Linen could have been traded for for so many years and how we kept talking about it. They should do it. They should do it. And teams are still interested. And now I really do genuinely wonder if he was made publicly available what the best thing they could get is because it would make the team better just by not giving him those minutes. But it would be really, really tough pill for them to swallow publicly and save face after just comparing it to what was available in years prior. Yeah, it's crazy to go back and look at all the first round picks they did. Sadorreger Renko, Neelander.

I mean, we're at the point where we're having a conversation now on Casey Middlestads. Did you, you know, pull bait on him and trade him right now? But, yeah, he's the guy that remains here. It's, I don't know. I don't know what it is. I know the owner likes him. Maybe that helps. I mean, Ralph Kruger is a big fan of his.

So that's one of the reasons why there's no trade chatter this year because I think everybody just resigns the fact that's coming back. The market, it wouldn't be good anyways on him. And the coach really genuinely likes him. So, you know, he's the de facto assistant GM at this point. So he's coming back and we're going to do this again and bang our heads off the wall again and keep wondering why, you know, we're not getting the results here.

and, you know, it's the majority of people are just going to point at him and it's not going to change. It's, it's maddening to figure out that this guy is probably going to finish out his contract, you know, for this team. And it shouldn't be that way, but it is what it is. Forget finishing out this contract. I'm curious to see what his next contract looks like. That's the fear, though, right? I mean, it's funny, I was talking to a friend about it the other day, and I said, you know, if they extend them, I'm done. Like, I'm going to cover another team.

I'm going to go cover Seattle. If they give him a contract, that's the final show for me. I cannot continue to cover this team anymore and watch the guy play hockey. They could just, they'd be the most egregious move, I think, any organization. I shouldn't go that crazy. But it'd be terrible. It'd be nonsense. Yeah.

All right. Well, let's kind of let's talk about something that's more positive then because, you know, the Taylor Hall signing. It's one where you don't want to make too much of it because I'm not sure. ultimately what the result is going to be and how much it's going to move the needle. But just on the surface, when you look at, you know, how low of a commitment it is in terms of the one year and the potential of what you could do with him in the lineup and how you could utilize his skill set and getting into all that. And we will hear it does seem like a no-brainer.

And so from that perspective, it's like you don't want to overthink this thing too much. it's like, okay, we can just add Taylor Hall for nothing and absorb them onto our cap or not. I think I'm going to lean with option A. And so that's basically what I keep coming back to here where it's like you just added Taylor Hall and you didn't have to give up anything off your roster. So I'm going to go with that one as a big win. Oh, yeah, without a doubt. I mean, it's surprising. One of the most surprising things they've done in a while.

I mean, when you're, I keep telling people, when you pull one over on the big insiders and they're like, whoa, didn't see that. coming. I mean, you really pulled one over. So it's, you know, good for them. You're good for them to bring him in. I think the Ralph Kruber connection helped a lot in stealing that. It's only one-year deal. So, you know, we'll see where it goes for both sides. I'm actually more optimistic than a lot of people that I think if things go well, that he's, that he does resign after this season, but, you know, we'll see how it goes. That's still a long way away from getting to that point. But I guess from his perspective, maintaining the flexibility of either way, potentially getting back on the market and sort of trying to figure it out next year and still getting

that $8 million deal is appealing to him. I do think what I keep going back to, the opportunity to play with Jack Eichol was the ultimate selling point here. And that's a testament to the strides Eichael has made because, you know, it's one thing to be like a young former second overall pick that's exciting to watch, but it's another to have that type of a sway to convince, you know, a star in his own right and a former MVP to come and basically ride shotgun with you because you're that good. And that's the point we're at with Jack Eichol. Yeah, I mean, he's taking the, in the Jeff Skinner approach, right? It worked for him. Come to Eiffler for one year and play with Jack Eichol, boost my points way up, and then I'll have free of agency again and get paid a lot

of money. So, you know, it kind of works out for both of them. You know, it gets Eichol I think happy that they're trying to do things that they get them, you know, a forward like that on this team. So yeah, I mean, it's the ultimate sign to fans. And even for an ownership group that we've talked about money being, you know, a sticking point for them, you know, for them to go out and give that $8 million, even though it's one year, you know, that's way over the report of, you know, contract offers we heard of $5, $6 million for Hall. So they went an overpaid market value for them to make sure they got them and you know there's really nothing that you could hate about this and i think overall it gives the team some credibility um you know it gives them back in the eyes of people

around the hockey world too so um you know full marks like i haven't adams for pulling that off because that that was a really nice nice job there well i guess the the the interesting thing in terms of stylistically trying to project how what this is going to look like is is exactly that because initially i thought the two of them i thought it was a bit of a nod for fit. I just thought they would clash a little bit because when you think of them at their core, they're both. What they do best is their prolific puck carriers through the neutral zone. Oh, absolutely. You know, their transport is especially rushing the puck with on their stick. I think, and it's interesting that you be playing together now because for years, Taylor Hall

was up there at the top of the list for this category. And then Ico kind of took that mantle the past year and a half or so of player of winger especially who's the best at going back retrieving the puck and just being a one-man breakout where they take it close to coast and create and don't really need anyone to help create room for them and so when you think about it that way it's like oh is there a bit of a point of diminishing returns here where it doesn't ultimately make that much sense to play them together but then you know i was thinking about her a bit more and over time the idea really grew on me because throughout his career hall has still had success in his MVP year he played primarily with Nico Hishir, who is similarly a primary neutral zone puck transporter

in his rookie year, in McDavid's rookie year, I should say, Hall and him played 75, 5-1-5 minutes together, and they were outrageously good together, as you'd expect. And I guess, you know, the Oilers really did everyone involve their disservice by not giving the two of them a longer look together. And there's been some weird revisionist history about how the two of them didn't mesh or, you know, they couldn't play together for whatever reason because the number certainly tell a completely different story. So I think ultimately, like, when you get into two players of the caliber and with the

physical tools that Eichlett Hall have, they're going to make it work. And it might be a bit of an adjustment, but they're eventually going to figure out each other's strengths and how they can sort of play off of them. But just in terms of sort of mapping out what having the two of them out on the ice at the same time is going to look like was sort of the most fascinating component of this to me because it really is. like they are such similar players in so many ways and seeing how they do wind up playing off each other will be really fun to watch.

Yeah, it's, I'm in the same exact quote you were. I mean, he first, when he first came here, you know, everybody knows. He didn't come here to not play with Jack that, Glor, so he's doing it. But when you look at it, you're like, well, it probably makes sense, though, to put Skinner with Eichol and then put Hall with stall and kind of, you know, split it up that way. But yeah, yeah, I've come around the same way you have. I think it'll work, you know. in the beginning it might be difficult they might start off slow or at least not as hot some people think kind of getting few each other and you know playing with jack ikel is not an easy thing um you know i mean sam reinhart has stuck there for a while he's figured it out but there's been a lot of transition on the other wing because he's not an easy guy to play with and not because like he's a bad teammate or like anything like there's a puck hog it's just you know it's he does his thing and you kind of got to find out where you fit in and ryanhart has figured that out where he fits in you know how to how to benefit off of ickel and you know how to you know how to you know how to you know how to you know

how to help Ikel too. You know what I mean? It's Reinhardt's the guy that sparks that transition in the defensive zone for Ikel. And, you know, he knows where to go on the offensive zone to go to the net and how to create offense for him too in cycle situation. So I think Hall is going to have that similar adjustment or he's kind of got to figure out, you know, how to play with Jack. You know, Jack is up and down the ice guy.

And I guess Hall is too. But, you know, it's going to kind of, I think, be that part in the beginning. And they might struggle a little bit. But, yeah, I mean, they're two extremely talented occupiers. and I'm pretty confident they'll figure it out, and they're probably going to put up some ridiculous numbers. The question is, you know, is it going to be enough to carry the sabers over the top?

I guess ultimately is the question dealing the day. Yeah, I guess I call is a bit of a tricky player to play with in the sense that he likes to grab the puck and go and he moves really fast and he occupies his certain areas of the ice, and it's up to you as his linemate and his teammate to sort of get out of the way and make yourself useful by occupying the areas he's not in. I mean, Skidder figured it out last year, right?

because I go is kind of that shooter two years ago, you know, and Skinner realized, okay, he's the shooter, I'm just going to go over the net and finish. And if you look at Michael's things on 18-19 season, he was a lot of low-quality shots, but he did that for reason because he knew he had Skinner, and he knew Skinner was a finish from the net. So he was shooting for rebounds, essentially,

for this past season, he started shooting more because he didn't have that winger anymore. And, you know, so he has the ability to mold his game, but still it's kind of figuring out, I think as we're alluding to, you know, where you're going to fit in the style that he's going to play. Yeah, that was a really interesting development where, for the first four years of his career on about a thousand shots,

so it's a reasonable sample size. Eichl was at like 9.7% as a shooter, and you would always think that while he certainly was a volume shooter, he was too talented as like a true talent level, be like that similar to early year or early career Nathan McKinnon. And this past year, he jumped all the way up to 15.9, and I'm not necessarily certain that at that volume, he's going to be able to maintain that as well.

But there certainly must be some sort of a middle ground there and moving forward that he can maintain. And it would lend a lot of confidence in his ability to keep up his goal scoring totals near what he was at this year, which was a significant, you know, uptick from where he'd been at in his first four years. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, exactly, he has the shooting talent to do it.

I think what he's done this year is, or this past year, is he kind of narrowed in on it. I think he crafted a shot with me to shoot it as hard, but he wanted to shoot it more accurate. That was always an echo's thing where he could rip it. But even the power play, like he would miss the net a lot. And, you know, I think he's cut down that slap shot that he always did from the, you know, the Stamco's point. And he went to his lean on his wrist shot a lot. And, you know, that helped his game and that helped his scoring.

So, yeah, I agree. I don't think he's going to be a 15% shooter for the rest of his career. but if you drop down to what 11 or 12 percent i think that that's more than fair for the kind of shooting tail he has well i guess like from the sabers perspective while i do while i did say like yeah when you can add taylor hall for nothing you do it and you sort of figure out everything after that um just in terms of sort of the sort of the fit of like how he'd be utilized whether he would play with ickel um and sort of how they maximize having taylor hall in the team i guess part of my thinking for not for them not being together was just, you know, throughout Eichol's career, especially, well, I guess this most

recent year where with him on the ice at 515, the Sabres were like plus 9 or something. And without them, they were minus 13. And in that one game he did miss, they got throttled 6-1 by the Flyers. And it was kind of like a, that is a career trend for him where whenever he hasn't been on the ice at 515, the Sabres have basically generated goals at like what you'd expect from a fourth line. Like, they're like, generating like 1.8 goals per 60 or something at 5-1-5 whenever Ikel hasn't been on the ice over the past five years. And that's something that's really hard to comprehend that that's even possible.

But, you know, moving forward when you think about not only appeasing Jack Eichel and making him happy, but the Sabre's taking a step in the right direction and improving as a team, you'd think how do we improve those minutes without Eichol? And I think that might be just a bit overly simplistic to think of it that way, because as I thought about it more, I was like, okay, well, you know, you have haul out there, especially throughout his career. He's been a possession driver.

If he can get back to playing the way he did during his prime where he was an elite sort of puck retriever and he can help grind out extra possessions and he can get Ico when he's on the ice, go from 50% or so shot share, which he was at this year to 53, 54 and potentially become a very elite player. That ultimately makes life easier for every line that steps over the boards after where they're kind of starting with a head start territorially and they're pulling. playing against tired opponents and they're able to kind of keep that snowball growing and generating more looks.

So I think just having, improving Ico's line in a way does also make the team around them better because it affords them different opportunities. And that's kind of a maybe a bit of a counterintuitive way to think about how you'd improve the Sabres without Ico by making Ico better. Yeah, I mean, you're exactly right with the whole setting. It forces depth down the lineup. So it pushes Skinner down to the second. on the play with Stahl now.

You know, Victor Olson, who had a great rookie season, it pushes him maybe to the third line or the second line, they can move him around wherever the top key lines you want to put him on. You know, Sam Rihart. Now, he doesn't have to stay on that top line. You don't need to put all your eggs in a basket anymore on that top line. You can move Rangard around and let him be that play driver. We know we all can be, but they refuse to take him off of Eichl's pocket for some reason.

So now you can move him around and do that. You know, and again, you hope Skinner can bounce back to the player he was. You know, he had a lot of bad. puck luck last year and you hope it kind of bounces back and the way skinner's career is it's up down up down up down so we have an up here company so we'll you know we'll see what that means and you hope that stall slows that game left it looks like in his numbers that he does and you can squeeze one more year out of them and then you got to remember too they're going to have dylan cousin step in so what are going to get out of that you know i'm not going to say he's going to be a 50 point player that probably

not but you're you know a 30 point player to 25 30 point player you can add your team he's probably going to start on the wing and that that's more speed you know he's he's of that Eichel in that hall mode. He's that puck carrier big six foot four forward that likes to use his speed and fly up and down the ice. So, you know, you have that benefit too. And then I guess I'm not a big Eakin fan, but, you know, you finally have three centers at least. Real center is we're not trying to jam a square peg in a round hole with Marcus Johansson's your second line center. So, you know, you have the semblance of a real team here.

And at the end of the day, for me, it kind of comes down to Ralph Kruger's utilization of it. There's enough, even with Ristelan and, you know, Montour and the holes that are in this roster, there's enough of a roster there where they have the talent. They can be a competitive playoff team, or compete for the playoffs, at least. And he just has to utilize them correctly. And, you know, I don't, I'm not sure if he can do that yet. I guess we're going to find out. Well, well.

I'm glad we ended this on a relatively positive note, especially compared to the way the podcast started. I guess you could say that we definitely tore down the sabres, similar to how Demerre did, but we built them back up in a much more efficient manner than Jason Baudrill did. Exactly. I mean, if things go their way, I guess if you get some players to bounce back, if you get proper utilization,

if you can avoid injuries, so you're big players, maybe you get a step from Allmark. Maybe Dahlene takes that stop and kind of makes up for, the poor, you know, minutes of risk-landed amounts where they're still going to be there and you kind of get through those things. At this point, they're not trying to win a Stanley Cup next year. They're just simply trying to make the playoffs or at least get pretty damn close to doing it.

Hold on, Chad. That's not what I heard from Pagua. You're sending me a mixed message here. I thought they were trying to win a Stanley Cup next season. In his mind. In his mind. I'll dare to dream. All right, man.

This was a blast. I'm glad we did this. Is there any other stuff that we failed to. to get to. I feel like we did a pretty good job of getting into most of the kind of big talking points. No, I don't think this. I mean, we got it all. You know, right? Ownership versus lining. Money. Hall. All the GMs. We got it all. Tanking. You got it all in. All right. Chad. This is a blast man. I'm glad we finally got to do this. It was, what, five or six months in the making, but we finally did it. Plug some stuff. Where can people check you out?

What are you working on? Give them all that good stuff in the lowdown. Yeah. So about, So, what do we get now? Five months ago. I started my own hockey website, covering the Sabres, called Spectad Buffalo. We're an analytically focused website that covers a Sabre, so ExpectedBuffalo.com is our site. Myself and then a colleague of mine, Anthony, Anthony, Chandra, have the two writers for that site right now. You know, at this point, it's a subscription-based site, but that's kind of where my main focused is now in the hockey world. You know, I don't recommend a lot of people starting a hockey website in the middle of a pandemic.

But, you know, it's actually worked really, really well for me. So, yeah, that's where I am now. And it's going to be, it's going to be tough. We're in off-season mode 2.0. You know, we did a draft or team profile on target for every single team. We did like a 30 free agent profile for that to get us through the first off-season for the Sabres. And now we're at a point. We're going to have to kind of pull some content out here.

So we'll see me. up with, but we do have a few things in our head that we're going to kind of try to spit out here for the hopefully not too long future here, but who knows of this league? Well, if I know the Buffalo Sabres, they'll give you something to talk about any day here now. So look forward to that. This is a blast. I'm glad we got to do this. And yeah, we'll definitely chat soon down the road and do this again, man.

This is a lot of fun. All right, man. Thanks. I appreciate it. Eocast, Dimitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud. at soundcloud.com slash HockeyPedioCast.