Transcript of Can The Buffalo Sabres Be Fixed? | SDP

Savers haven't won a game in 10. That's bad. They have gotten 3 out of a possible 20 points during that stretch.

Goodness. Man.

3 out of a possible 20 points. Now I'm no analytics man myself,

or at

least I can't really read them because the graphs are hard. But Yes. That's about 15% of your total potential points, which when you go back to the Sabers of 10 games ago, they had just taken a step ahead of the Boston Bruins.

Dude, they were a okay. Sabers fans, like, it. I don't want to dump on them.

Like Sabers can I while they're down or Sabers fans aren't holding back?

Why are you? No. That's true. No. No.

So I gotta I gotta be careful about how I say it. This organization sucks. They suck and, like, they can't even do the things that they do right right. Like, at the beginning of the season

Are you saying they do

them wrong wrong? Yes. They do them wrong wrong. Like, at the beginning of the season, I was talking about how they're building they're honestly building the way you should and still losing.

Yeah. But they've been doing that for, like, in 12 years. Yeah. Eventually, that's not the way you should build. The funny thing about the stat you just read, Adam, you said last 10 games.

Yep. If you go back to the last 13 games, they have more points than the the, New York Rangers.

Oh my god. Wow.

Shit. Now we're gonna get back to them. But listen, it's not good to be a New York state fan of anything right now, except for the New Jersey devils who are doing just fine. Thank you.

Jesse Blake with the pull.

Last 13 games, the Sabers got a big old 9 points. They're 3, 7, and 3. The New York Rangers, 3 and 10.

And by the way, people from New Jersey are gonna be like, New Jersey's its own state. And we're like, Yeah, okay.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, all right.

Are you arguing that this

is not a state?

No. No.

I'm I'm

arguing it's a state. I would just say, okay.

Okay. That that is worse

that is worse than regression to the meme.

I get that they have, like, a governor and elections and bridges.

I do. I do not.

I do not. I don't understand.

Have you been to New Jersey? Have you flown to

the airport? I have.

Yeah. So so here's the thing. Obviously, I,

played 4 ball there. Yeah. Oh, that's right.

And didn't hop a turnstile. Woah.

We did not. Yeah. We we went to this actually.

Oh, I

didn't hear do not know this story.

We went to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees play. Yep. And, you get this little Metro pass.

We stayed in New Jersey.

And we stayed in New Jersey, so you gotta go like through everything. We got this little Metro pass, but by the end of the night, it was like through our whatever allocation we had on that pass. And we're like, we're not paying, it was like $5 to get like a new whole pass and everything.

But I, no, I tried to buy 1 though.

Yeah. And the machine wasn't working.

And it's like, what's your zip code? And I'm like, first of all, why do you need that? Just let me take the subway. And second of all, I don't have 1.

Or do you not have tourists?

I don't have 1. Now what?

Yeah. So we couldn't buy 1 and it was ridiculous to buy a new 1. So we simply walked over the turnstile. Yeah.

Here's my money. Let me on the train. What what who do you think you are? Yeah. I don't I didn't understand it.

I didn't understand it at all.

And that's fair.

It's not its own state.

And that's why none of them can afford to put a good team, football team or otherwise, on the ice.

Because of thieves like Jesse and I.

Yeah. No. I listen.

The devils are actually really good.

I know. They're amazing. Yeah. That's what I said. I said they're doing just fine.

Thank you. And they're looking over they're looking over their state boundary like, we don't rely on you for all of our economy. Anyway, I I look at I look at what's happening with Buffalo, with the Islanders, with the Rangers. And I wanna start with Buffalo. Please do not talk about the Rangers and Islanders too much.

Why?

Unless you're referencing what Jesse did, which is they're bad. I wanna talk about the fact that the Buffalo Sabers and Lindy Ruff, people were like, wow. Garsh. Sure love this guy. What were they like?

Garsh. You know, it's so funny, man. As the Buffalo discourse has picked up, they still defend their position on Jack Eichel. And people are like, he hates the city. No.

That's the organization putting stuff out there to the media, telling you he hates the city. Jack Eichel didn't hate the city. He hated the what? Ownership. The organization.

The organization.

Which is what you said earlier. This this group of of bums, and they're bad, is this is not on the players.

I they have enough talent there to be respectable. Like, I I don't know if they're a

playoff team yet. They're a playoff team.

They're they should be in the in the conversation. Like, you look at the roster and you're like, what would you say? Like, you you could do this better, this better.

The Sens were a playoff team as of this morning. Mhmm. They're a second wild card. Yeah. Because Buffalo fell out.

Oh my god.

New York fell out.

Oh, New York fell out too.

Yeah. No. Yeah. Both. It was it's the senators passed the senators and the flyers passed the Rangers.

In what world? Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're right.

Oh my god. So with the Sabers so here's what Lindy did. Lindy did what a veteran coach does, and you have to respect him for this. Said I'm almost at a loss for words. It's on me to solve this.

This is as tough a solve as I've been around, but it's on me to get these guys to the right place to win hockey games. Nobody else, just me. And that's great. He's gonna take the bullets here. Good for him.

But when Good. Kevin Adams walked out a week and a half ago and and and took responsibility, and rightly so, in that press conference, which has turned into an absolute disaster since. You know, there that was supposed to be the hinge point. Mhmm. Hey.

Things were supposed to get better at this.

Buffalo Media for you, though. That's that's why they can't win. Well The media asked questions. So

I I'm I'm asking because I need to ask. Lindy is is a legendary coach. If he's not in the hall of fame, he will be.

Yep.

Right? Sure. Lot of his great years were in Buffalo. Mhmm. 25 years ago.

Mhmm. Yeah.

Yeah. But Lot of his great years in Dallas were

Or a goalie. Sorry.

A decade ago.

Yeah.

And I ask, as as many people ask about certain you know, coaches age out too. And I'm wondering if there's a coach problem, there's a there's a general manager problem, and it all stems from this. And this is the same problem the Rangers have, an ownership problem.

Adam, I flatly refuse to blame Lindy Ruff for any of this.

Well, he's too new on the job. He just got here.

He just got here. But also, no. It's Buffalo. The Sabers. Nothing Buffalo does.

You mean the Sabers. Please specify.

Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Because Sabers fans are rightly so are very defensive of their home city. It's not the city. It is not the city.

Every here. If you hear me speak negatively about the Buffalo Sabers in any way today, and I say Buffalo, just know I'm referring to the franchise and not the city. There we go. Boom. I flatly refuse.

Lindy Ruff could be the worst coach in the league, and I would refuse to blame him. It's 2024. It is no head coach's fault that the saber suck. Nope. Uh-uh.

Oh, what about this player that nope. Uh-uh. At minimum, it's Kevin Adams' fault, but, I mean, it's ownership. It's ownership. It's ownership beginning, middle, end.

They're the common denominator. They've been here the whole time. The team won't spend to the cap. Oh, because we don't wanna no. You don't wanna spend to the cap.

Just say it. Just just say it. Stop making Kevin Adams. Stop parading him up to the podium and having him look like an asshole because he can't speak truthfully because he's gotta take bullets for you.

Well, I'll be honest with you. I think that so there were Sabers fans that were upset. Terry Pegula has not spoken to the media in 5 years.

He's about to.

And and but there are health issues there, and I think that's why he hasn't spoken.

Okay.

And so he hires people to speak for him. And that's what Kevin Adams was doing a week and a half ago.

Yeah. Was it a week and a half ago?

Or Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Because I heard it.

It was already 4 or 5 days late when we did it last week.

Yeah. It was it's new for me. It's like discovering an old band. Oh, here's groveling GM getting absolutely destroyed by local media. Dude, I can't blame Lindy Ruff.

I can't blame a player. I mean, I'm tempted to not even blame Kevin Adams. Like, the common denominator here is real. They've fired so many GMs since the last time they were relevant. They fired so many coaches since the last time they were relevant.

They've gone through countless players since the last time they were relevant. It the common denominator has to stand up here, has to step up because this fan base is dying for well, they're dying first of all. Mhmm. And they're they're dying for a winner. Mhmm.

Here, they're dying. And it'll be great when they get 1.

A competitive team. Yep. Like, the the their best years in recent memory, they were playing meaningful games in late March. Hooray. You you know what I mean?

That's it. That's it.

Yep. That's what that that is it.

Well, I'm, like, you're gonna you're gonna fire Lindy Ruff. Right? So you fire Lindy Ruff, and you replace him with who? A head coach who's super stoked to to coach in the sabers organization? You're you're gonna fire Kevin Adams and get an executive who's the you're you're their number 1 choice.

Guys, what are we doing? What are knock it off. Knock it off. This is ridiculous. You're the outlier here.

The interesting thing about the internal cap that there is apparently under, and this has been widely reported, never confirmed, is so the Sabers have they're clearly under some sort of internal cap because they've spent to the cap exactly twice in the last 13 years in their playoff drought. So, you know, you would expect that they are. My question about that is, what's the big freaking difference between being 5,000,000 under the cap and at the cap?

Yeah. Sell a couple more hot dogs. Like, I don't understand being cheap about that.

Jesse, you win 3 games. 4 games that put you in the playoffs some of those years.

Oh my gosh. Playoff revenue? Like, who cares about the cap when you have playoff revenue?

Exactly. In Buffalo.

Yeah. Also, sell a couple more Bills season tickets. Like, I'm sure you're sold out for that new stadium you're building. Yes. I don't understand the internal cap thing when they have 1,000,000,000 of dollars.

So so the thought is apparently and again, unconfirmed because no 1 will talk about it, at least on the record, is that until you prove you can win, we are not going to invest big dollars in this team because it needs to build the foundation first. It's the same sort of thing that you're seeing in Anaheim with the Samuels. Now the difference between Anaheim and Buffalo, both smaller markets, but Buffalo has a very strong television market. Yeah. They're I they were for a long time.

I don't know if they still are top 5 in the league in terms of television viewing. And, you know, obviously, they compete with the Bills for the first half of the season, but we all remember when Buffalo was good. Though those buildings were packed and loud and rowdy. And, you know, again, I ask, if you're really operating within internal cap, you look at the way the Ducks have done it, they're like 15,000,000 sometimes underneath what the cap is. That's saving real what's $5,000,000 to a billionaire?

Right. What's $5,000,000 every single season? And you're telling me that the Sabers can't cover those costs? I'm sure they could.

Yeah. Terry Bagula's worth $7,600,000,000. And $5,000,000 to his hockey team shouldn't mean anything.

So which tells me, Jess, that it's a this is a philosophy. This is how you've run your other businesses, and it's been very successful to the tune of $7,200,000,000 fixed. You own or 6.2, excuse me. 7.6. 7,600,000,000 numbers are my thing.

Did I tell you that? But you own the you own sports in Buffalo.

Yeah.

You own both of those franchises. You bought the bills out from under Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment with Bon Jovi. They were gonna buy them and bring them north. They were. And you said, nope.

Mine. And the bills were awful back then.

Mhmm.

And and I think it I think about this, and I'm like, okay. Maybe that strategy worked in those businesses. And and and maybe there is some, in the case of the Ducks, some some, there's some intelligence that I can get behind that smaller market team wanna cover costs, whatever. But what I'm looking at here is I'm looking at 6, 7 general managers in the last 10 years. I'm looking at a 1st overall pick who traded got traded and almost immediately goes on and wins a cup with his next team.

Second overall pick.

2nd oh, sorry. 2nd overall pick.

Yeah. That's very important.

That's right. Wanted the 1st overall pick, and they were very vocal about how grumpy they were that they didn't get it.

Man, it sure sucked to get Jack Eichel.

Oh, yeah. You know? Can't wait to And by

the way, that that second overall pick who did win a cup, who was a huge factor 26 points to 22 game saber fans, I know you don't wanna hear it, but it's true. That guy signed an $80,000,000 deal to stay in Buffalo.

Oh, but enough about Sam Reinhart. Oh, to stay in Buffalo.

He wanted to be there.

Oh, I thought you meant stay where the palm trees are. Okay. Got it.

I just listen. People are are saying, well, it's impossible to blame Kevin Adams for the whole failure the last 10 years.

I don't think quite easily.

I don't think anybody is. I think we're blaming him for the last 5.

Well, I I still I'll beat this drum. I I think they've done some good things. I really do. I don't think they're a miracle away from being relevant. I think they're a new set of eyes and spending to the cap away from making the playoffs, honestly, or being in in there.

Right? Like And I I look at The 2 wildcard teams right now are Tampa and Ottawa. Yep. And you you look at the, the situation at the bottom of, well, not at the bottom. Like, right in the wild card picture, it's a it's a clump of teams.

You could easily you should easily be at at very least at the top of the clump. You should be competing well into the spring. And, like, last night, what I saw is a team just completely deflate. The Leafs it was either the Leafs tied it or went ahead. And Devin Levi, who that team is ruining, ruining.

And the sabers are the common denominator there too. He was unbelievable before he turned pro.

Mhmm.

Fantastic in the American League. Cannot catch a cold in the NHL. And he actually did make a couple pretty big saves. He did. Yep.

And but you see his body language, and he sags. And really underratedly, I I thought I I I I often push back against the, the Toronto media narrative, because I think it's just a crutch for oh, yeah. This is why the Leafs lose. Right? I I hate it as a crutch.

But there was something that happened last night where I was, like, we would have made a huge stink about that. Dylan Cousins, when the empty netter goes in, taking that misconduct

For abuse of the official.

Is that what they called it? Yeah.

It's abuse of the official.

Oh, I thought it was because he he slapped the puck into the net.

Well, I I guess probably was, like, you shot that raffle close to me. Oh. That's what they called it at the time. I'll I'll check the box score, but that's what I remember last night. I'll I'll check it right now.

Either way. Either way. And, like, he's lucky

Yeah. It officially goes down as Dylan Cousin's abusive officials at 17 5th 48.

Uh-oh. Okay. So he might get a fine today. No. No.

No. No. No.

That would take a cross check

to the Oh. 0. And we'll get to that. No. No.

Yeah. We'll get to that. But so I saw that, and I'm not calling for greater punishment here. Yeah. Okay.

You're down too. There's 2 minutes left, and it's the NHL in 2024. That's a winnable game. Mhmm. I know.

I know. Their odds are very bad.

Not for this team.

Well, maybe that's the problem. Right? But it's it's a young important player to this team Mhmm. Getting kicked out of a game in that it is still attainable.

Yeah. Well, I I think that that lends to just how the Buffalo Sabers have been playing over this 10 game losing streak well, winless streak because they did have was it 2 or 3 OT losses in there? Mhmm. So they collected some points, but no wins. In 7 of those 10 games, they led at some point in that in that game.

Whether it's a 1 nothing lead, whether it's a Colorado game, whether they're 3 to 1 lead against the Leafs? Whether it's 3 to 1 against Leafs, whether it's 4 nothing against the Colorado Avalanche. This team is able to get leads in in 7 of these 10 games, and they're not able to hold them and maintain them and close out games. And it lends to just how this roster has been built by Kevin Adams where it's extremely young. It has it okay.

The bottom 6 kinda it's kinda tough. You know? They have some bodies down there. It's it doesn't really push people around though. But it's just it's just so young up top with no real, just scoring there that spooks you.

You know, there's nothing there that's gonna that's gonna keep a lead, that's gonna really be dangerous. It's not a very well constructed roster. It's it's too young, Vymaj.