It's pretty hard to actually finish last. What are the odds of it happening after spending time and resources to get better?
Giving idiots time to use those resources demonstrably doesn't work. Hindsight vision being 20/20 yadda yadda yadda....
Posted 17 April 2018 - 09:43 AM
It's pretty hard to actually finish last. What are the odds of it happening after spending time and resources to get better?
Posted 17 April 2018 - 09:55 AM
For someone who was heralded as not giving any effs...well...I give him a giant F for his tenure.
Unless Asplund, Pu and a few other later round picks pan out that grade might be raised to a D.
Posted 17 April 2018 - 10:07 AM
Posted 17 April 2018 - 10:23 AM
A ###### +. Just cause he's getting slammed for doing what every GM does. He made moves. Some worked, some didn't. We will look back on GMTM more fondly than now when the dust settles. Some people just have a never ending desire to denigrate GMTM.
I didn't. I just looked back at it and thought what a joke he was. He totally failed, IMO
Posted 17 April 2018 - 11:10 AM
The old saying was and still is the team that gets the bets player wins the trade...EXGMTM got O'reilly who was and is by far the best player in that trade. he also got a amazing power forward that anybody would want in Evander Kane so he won those trades. I do agree he gave away far too many prospects in many of his trades and totally neglected Rochester. Of course you can only do one thing at a time and he seemed more focused on trying to do something to improve the big club. GMJBotto seems more intent on improving Rochester.
The fact is, if we had won those stupid draft lotteries and EXGMTM had been able to get McDavid that in itself would have changed things significantly.. The previous draft (2013) the Sabres had drafted d-men in Risto and Zadorov so they took who was the top rated forward in Sam Reinhart in 2014. Virtually everybody who attempted to rate the players in that draft had Sam at either one or two. EXGMTM did what anybody would have done in drafting Sam.
In the 2016 draft, we yet again got smoked in the draft lottery getting pushed down to 8th spot where we took again what most projected to be the best player in Nylander. How would things have been different if we'd actually won a draft lottery and got Mathews. or even Laine? Suddenly EXGMTM would have looked like a genius if we'd got McDavid and Mathews.
Maybe EXGMTM brought some of his demise in himself with some questionable trades, but the fact is luck played a huge part in his apparent failures when we lost the shot at McDavid and Mathews or Laine.
Edited by Sabre fan, 17 April 2018 - 11:12 AM.
Posted 17 April 2018 - 04:46 PM
Yeh but, he gave away picks for Lehner, didnt do enough research on Nylander, gave away too many D, Bogosian trade was bad... though Kane came back and giving up Compher and Armia there are your wingers for Jack. attitude that he was too smart killed him, for his own good. JBots is building from ground up not top down. 1st rounders in a good draft shouldnt be given away. He did, he stinks.The old saying was and still is the team that gets the bets player wins the trade...EXGMTM got O'reilly who was and is by far the best player in that trade. he also got a amazing power forward that anybody would want in Evander Kane so he won those trades. I do agree he gave away far too many prospects in many of his trades and totally neglected Rochester. Of course you can only do one thing at a time and he seemed more focused on trying to do something to improve the big club. GMJBotto seems more intent on improving Rochester.
The fact is, if we had won those stupid draft lotteries and EXGMTM had been able to get McDavid that in itself would have changed things significantly.. The previous draft (2013) the Sabres had drafted d-men in Risto and Zadorov so they took who was the top rated forward in Sam Reinhart in 2014. Virtually everybody who attempted to rate the players in that draft had Sam at either one or two. EXGMTM did what anybody would have done in drafting Sam.
In the 2016 draft, we yet again got smoked in the draft lottery getting pushed down to 8th spot where we took again what most projected to be the best player in Nylander. How would things have been different if we'd actually won a draft lottery and got Mathews. or even Laine? Suddenly EXGMTM would have looked like a genius if we'd got McDavid and Mathews.
Maybe EXGMTM brought some of his demise in himself with some questionable trades, but the fact is luck played a huge part in his apparent failures when we lost the shot at McDavid and Mathews or Laine.
Edited by North Buffalo, 17 April 2018 - 04:47 PM.
Posted 18 April 2018 - 08:13 AM
I applaud GMTM on his candor and his ability to give us meme-ready ZFG tidbits. "How many words to make a draft selection by a host city" was a conversation.
He wanted LA Kings East (in their prime, not the descending team that just got swept -- Good job, Goldies!) and make our team tough to play against. His biggest pieces brought in did that. Lehner liked to tussle with forwards and lose his helmet. Kane and Bogosian could skate and hit. O'Reilly was tenacious. It was a solid goal and you could see him following his vision.
Where did he go wrong? Bylsma and the front office chaos... poor leadership setup. He didn't build from the ground up -- despite having tons of 1sts and 2nds to make that happen. Bogo and Lehner weren't dependable, and he continued to rush the kids along before they were ready for the NHL. We weren't in cap trouble, but his contracts were a major problem to depth and keeping kids in Rochester while they seasoned. Moulson = good, Moulson for five years = oh my! Meszaros to get to the cap floor and still tank = good, but 2 defensemen would have been better to keep young guys (yes, like Risto) in Rochester longer and away from the planned tire fire. Rochester suffered just as greatly.
Grade? Apology accepted, GM TM.
Posted 18 April 2018 - 04:49 PM
Edited by dudacek, 18 April 2018 - 04:58 PM.
Posted 18 April 2018 - 05:22 PM
I think time will remember Tim Murray as being hoisted on his own petard of being a good judge of horseflesh.
I think his love for certain thoroughbreds led him to place too much trust in his own eye for talent and blinded him to the care and effort necessary for melding that talent into a team. He never understood he was dealing with people, not horses.
He acquired personalities ill-suited for leadership (Kane, O’Reilly, Lehner) and dropped them into a leadership role.
He acquired veterans to lead (Gionta, Moulson, Gorges) who could no longer play.
He failed to install the proper structure necessary to properly mould young talent (Reinhart, Risto, Eichel, Nylander) into pros in the context of a team.
He underestimated the importance of depth and having good role players.
And he hired a ineffectual blabbermouth to coach a dated strategy to a room that lacked the internal strength to compensate for Bylsma’s flaws.
He then neglected to either understand or react to the mess this stew was creating - a muddy soup of strong-willed “uncoachable” prima donnas too easily distracted into their own selfish patterns and away from the discipline and consistency necessary for winning - so that when it finally blew up, he had no answers for his angry boss.
I suspect Lafontaine’s plan was that he (Pat) would be the one providing the structure and human touch to balance Murray’s lack of both, but that was never really given a chance to happen and Pegula failed to fully recognize Murray’s fatal flaw until it was too late.
I like your words.
Posted 18 April 2018 - 07:56 PM
I think time will remember Tim Murray as being hoisted on his own petard of being a good judge of horseflesh.
I think his love for certain thoroughbreds led him to place too much trust in his own eye for talent and blinded him to the care and effort necessary for melding that talent into a team. He never understood he was dealing with people, not horses.
He acquired personalities ill-suited for leadership (Kane, O’Reilly, Lehner) and dropped them into a leadership role.
He acquired veterans to lead (Gionta, Moulson, Gorges) who could no longer play.
He failed to install the proper structure necessary to properly mould young talent (Reinhart, Risto, Eichel, Nylander) into pros in the context of a team.
He underestimated the importance of depth and having good role players.
And he hired a ineffectual blabbermouth to coach a dated strategy to a room that lacked the internal strength to compensate for Bylsma’s flaws.
He then neglected to either understand or react to the mess this stew was creating - a muddy soup of strong-willed “uncoachable” prima donnas too easily distracted into their own selfish patterns and away from the discipline and consistency necessary for winning - so that when it finally blew up, he had no answers for his angry boss.
I suspect Lafontaine’s plan was that he (Pat) would be the one providing the structure and human touch to balance Murray’s lack of both, but that was never really given a chance to happen and Pegula failed to fully recognize Murray’s fatal flaw until it was too late.
Posted 18 April 2018 - 08:15 PM
I think time will remember Tim Murray as being hoisted on his own petard of being a good judge of horseflesh.
I think his love for certain thoroughbreds led him to place too much trust in his own eye for talent and blinded him to the care and effort necessary for melding that talent into a team. He never understood he was dealing with people, not horses.
He acquired personalities ill-suited for leadership (Kane, O’Reilly, Lehner) and dropped them into a leadership role.
He acquired veterans to lead (Gionta, Moulson, Gorges) who could no longer play.
He failed to install the proper structure necessary to properly mould young talent (Reinhart, Risto, Eichel, Nylander) into pros in the context of a team.
He underestimated the importance of depth and having good role players.
And he hired a ineffectual blabbermouth to coach a dated strategy to a room that lacked the internal strength to compensate for Bylsma’s flaws.
He then neglected to either understand or react to the mess this stew was creating - a muddy soup of strong-willed “uncoachable” prima donnas too easily distracted into their own selfish patterns and away from the discipline and consistency necessary for winning - so that when it finally blew up, he had no answers for his angry boss.
I suspect Lafontaine’s plan was that he (Pat) would be the one providing the structure and human touch to balance Murray’s lack of both, but that was never really given a chance to happen and Pegula failed to fully recognize Murray’s fatal flaw until it was too late.
Well said. Pretty much sums it up.
Posted 18 April 2018 - 11:19 PM
As an extra thought exercise... what would GM TM's Vegas Gold Squadron Jedi Knights look like at the beginning of this past season, and also now today?
Posted 19 April 2018 - 10:32 AM
As an extra thought exercise... what would GM TM's Vegas Gold Squadron Jedi Knights look like at the beginning of this past season, and also now today?
He would have turned to evil and hunted down and killed the Jedi Golden Knight...
Posted 19 April 2018 - 12:24 PM
I think time will remember Tim Murray as being hoisted on his own petard of being a good judge of horseflesh.
I think his love for certain thoroughbreds led him to place too much trust in his own eye for talent and blinded him to the care and effort necessary for melding that talent into a team. He never understood he was dealing with people, not horses.
He acquired personalities ill-suited for leadership (Kane, O’Reilly, Lehner) and dropped them into a leadership role.
He acquired veterans to lead (Gionta, Moulson, Gorges) who could no longer play.
He failed to install the proper structure necessary to properly mould young talent (Reinhart, Risto, Eichel, Nylander) into pros in the context of a team.
He underestimated the importance of depth and having good role players.
And he hired a ineffectual blabbermouth to coach a dated strategy to a room that lacked the internal strength to compensate for Bylsma’s flaws.
He then neglected to either understand or react to the mess this stew was creating - a muddy soup of strong-willed “uncoachable” prima donnas too easily distracted into their own selfish patterns and away from the discipline and consistency necessary for winning - so that when it finally blew up, he had no answers for his angry boss.
I suspect Lafontaine’s plan was that he (Pat) would be the one providing the structure and human touch to balance Murray’s lack of both, but that was never really given a chance to happen and Pegula failed to fully recognize Murray’s fatal flaw until it was too late.
Posted 19 April 2018 - 03:20 PM
Our team was so broken and run so poorly for so long that we think 2nd and 3rd rounders are busts because they aren't playing in the NHL only two years after being drafted.
If we were run properly, this would have/should have been Grigorenko and Zadorov's first year playing for the big club.
Posted 19 April 2018 - 03:59 PM
Grigorenko shouldn’t have been playing in Buffalo until 6 seasons post draft?
He is right now only 23 years old.