All Things Pegula 2

[Jim Bob]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1829259074065842261

 

[Chainshot]

I see Jess did a thing -

At 30, Jessica Pegula is on the brink of her first major semifinal

While some of her closest friends on tour are retiring, Jessica Pegula is only getting better with age. Next up: Iga Swiatek in the US Open quarterfinals.

www.espn.com

Beat the top seed at the US Open in the quarterfinals.

 

[MayDay]

Jess Pegula came back from down a set last night to advance to the women's final. Her first final appearance in a major.

Also, since one of the men's semi-finals today features two Americans, it guarantees there will be an American in the men's final as well.

First time since 2002 there have been Americans in both the men's and women's finals of the US Open.

 

[Jimmybarndoor2]

Wow. This would be a good thread to talk about Pegula rather than hijacking every other thread

Then I and others could click on ignore thread if we are not interested. Wow

 

[Jim Bob]

Pegula to vie for US Open title after semis rally

Jessica Pegula shrugged off a sluggish start and came back from a set and a break down at the US Open to defeat Karolina Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 on Thursday night for a berth in her first Grand Slam final.

www.espn.com

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5749179/2024/09/05/pegula-muchova-us-open-semifinal-result/

 

[TehDoak]

Wow. This would be a good thread to talk about Pegula rather than hijacking every other thread

Then I and others could click on ignore thread if we are not interested. Wow

The owner sets the budget and the budget affects lots of things, including the roster.

 

[HogtownSabresfan]

The owner sets the budget and the budget affects lots of things, including the roster.

It is amazing how much of the fan base just ignore this and wants to blame GMKA

 

[TehDoak]

It is amazing how much of the fan base just ignore this and wants to blame GMKA

They are intertwined in the blame.

The is no reasonable explanation as to why Adams was hired other than the Pegulas trust him.

Adams failures are the Pegulas failures. There's no reason to shove a person with no experience in that position. And no reason to continue to keep him.

The Pegulas budget is not the reason for Adams failures though.

He literally was told what was going to happen when he got hired, the Pegulas told everyone what was coming.

That being said, I do feel bad for Adams to some degree. He took a prestigious job he didn't earn and was given no support staff other than the phone number to a football GM and a soccer executive pretending to be a hockey coach, and eventually he got a former owners son to help and some math nerds that I'm not sure he actually uses.

He wasn't setup for success. And at some point, he's going to be the fall guy, he simply doesn't know it yet.

 

[Gras]

It is amazing how much of the fan base just ignore this and wants to blame GMKA

Or they tire of hearing it ad nauseum in every thread.

 

[old kummelweck]

Pegula to vie for US Open title after semis rally

Jessica Pegula shrugged off a sluggish start and came back from a set and a break down at the US Open to defeat Karolina Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 on Thursday night for a berth in her first Grand Slam final.

www.espn.com

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5749179/2024/09/05/pegula-muchova-us-open-semifinal-result/

I watched. Found it odd that her father wasn't there for her first semi-final. Just her sister.

 

[Andiamo]

I watched. Found it odd that her father wasn't there for her first semi-final. Just her sister.

Terry was at the match, sitting in a box. The broadcast showed him watching a few times.

 

[sabremike]

San Marino won a competitive match before the Sabres made the playoffs under the Pegulas.


* Yes, I know some pedantic dipshit will point out "ACKSHULLY they qualified two months after buying the team". Whatever, they clearly had f*** all to do with that.

 

[HogtownSabresfan]

Or they tire of hearing it ad nauseum in every thread.

Or maybe they realize a 14th year of no playoffs is a distinct possibility as ownership penny-pinches down to making Ruff accept coaches we already hired and not bring in his own people.

 

[sabremike]

Or maybe they realize a 14th year of no playoffs is a distinct possibility as ownership penny-pinches down to making Ruff accept coaches we already hired and not bring in his own people.

The reason he ends up a topic in every other thread is that he is THE problem that causes every other problem in the organization.

 

[HogtownSabresfan]

The reason he ends up a topic in every other thread is that he is THE problem that causes every other problem in the organization.

At the very least, a lot of them. It's not surprising, given budgets drive many organizational decisions in any situation. What drives me nuts is the idea Pegula saved the Sabres. It's his team, he can do what he wants. I don't get it but he owns the team. But it's an absolute lie that he saved the team, and I hear this on a regular basis.

 

[Dreakon13]

I'll be honest, I really don't have the energy to read through the whole thread (and the one before it I guess) and I don't follow this side of things... is there like, a lot of hard evidence that Pegula is the problem?

Or is it like a pandemic layoffs + free cap space = here's a list of why Pegula is the reason for everything bad, kind of dot connecting happening?

 

[TehDoak]

I'll be honest, I really don't have the energy to read through the whole thread (and the one before it I guess) and I don't follow this side of things... is there like, a lot of hard evidence that Pegula is the problem?

Or is it like a pandemic layoffs + free cap space = here's a list of why Pegula is the reason for everything bad, kind of dot connecting happening?

I mean, he's presided over the entirety of the longest playoff drought in NHL history.

he got in at the end of the rochester core, did the entire tear down to the studs in 4 years.

Drafted top 2 two years in a row, traded for a top line center by the start of the 2015-16 season.

Had that tore completely down by the end of the 2022 season, and we've watched every big player we added in 2014/15 (Reinhart/Eichel/O'Reilly/Lehner) go on to significant roles elsewhere (A conn smythe winner, conn smythe runner up, and cup winning goal scorer on 3 seperate teams)

At the very least, that is multiple, consecutive terrible management hirings.

And given we've had multiple GMs mention that they talk with Terry on a daily basis, it is more likely than not he played a major role in several bad decisions.

The Pegulas are the only common thread here. The players and management have changed over, multiple times. It's poor ownership.

 

[Dreakon13]

I mean, he's presided over the entirety of the longest playoff drought in NHL history.

he got in at the end of the rochester core, did the entire tear down to the studs in 4 years.

Drafted top 2 two years in a row, traded for a top line center by the start of the 2015-16 season.

Had that tore completely down by the end of the 2022 season, and we've watched every big player we added in 2014/15 (Reinhart/Eichel/O'Reilly/Lehner) go on to significant roles elsewhere (A conn smythe winner, conn smythe runner up, and cup winning goal scorer on 3 seperate teams)

At the very least, that is multiple, consecutive terrible management hirings.

And given we've had multiple GMs mention that they talk with Terry on a daily basis, it is more likely than not he played a major role in several bad decisions.

The Pegulas are the only common thread here. The players and management have changed over, multiple times. It's poor ownership.

I guess I meant in regards to being cheap specifically

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

I guess I meant in regards to being cheap specifically

Read Fairburn’s latest piece in the athletic if you want some facts on this. Lance has several pieces on the topic too.

There really is no room to argue that Pegula isn’t being cheap with the team - the only legit defense that he has is that the team probably loses money annually for him.

This part is from me, but implied by Fairborn and Lance as something they wonder about too: he might be only willing to go back to spending more when the team proves they will do something with it and get to the playoffs.

 

[TehDoak]

I guess I meant in regards to being cheap specifically

I mean, cheap is a "relative" term.

It's easy for us to say someone is being cheap when we see other teams spending at or over the cap. The reality is, the Sabres do lose money. The NHL is a gate driven league, and the Sabres don't have the gate revenues. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the Pegula family has lost more money on the team in year to year expenditures than they spent in buying the team in the first place. Easily 100M+ easily over their 13 years of ownership. Their real saving grace is that their team value has grown much more than that.

Are the Pegulas being cheap when they chose to only 'lose' 10M a year in operating costs vs 20-30M? (and these are just spitball guesses, the losses could be much higher)

In taking a step back, my guess is the Sabres reduced spend has likely been connected to the new bills stadium. As of April it appeared be at 600M in cost overruns. That, combined with the initial pandemic panic that the Pegula's had coincide with the Sabres spending at the bottom levels.

The Bills stadium broke ground in mid 2023. So in 21/22 and 22/23 when we were spending on the bottom of the league, the Pegulas knew there was a large cash outlay coming.

My hope is, the stadium costs should largely be over at some point in 2025. And revenue coming in 2026. That should, at least in theory, re-open the coffers for the Sabres.

 

[sabremike]

I mean, cheap is a "relative" term.

It's easy for us to say someone is being cheap when we see other teams spending at or over the cap. The reality is, the Sabres do lose money. The NHL is a gate driven league, and the Sabres don't have the gate revenues. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the Pegula family has lost more money on the team in year to year expenditures than they spent in buying the team in the first place. Easily 100M+ easily over their 13 years of ownership. Their real saving grace is that their team value has grown much more than that.

Are the Pegulas being cheap when they chose to only 'lose' 10M a year in operating costs vs 20-30M? (and these are just spitball guesses, the losses could be much higher)

In taking a step back, my guess is the Sabres reduced spend has likely been connected to the new bills stadium. As of April it appeared be at 600M in cost overruns. That, combined with the initial pandemic panic that the Pegula's had coincide with the Sabres spending at the bottom levels.

The Bills stadium broke ground in mid 2023. So in 21/22 and 22/23 when we were spending on the bottom of the league, the Pegulas knew there was a large cash outlay coming.

My hope is, the stadium costs should largely be over at some point in 2025. And revenue coming in 2026. That should, at least in theory, re-open the coffers for the Sabres.

Will Terry be generous enough to comp me (a Sabres plan holder) a tix to a Bills game since my money is going to them? And not for nothing but the reason they have lost so much on the Sabres probably has to do with the single worst stretch of failure in the history of the sport. That bastard destroyed this team and if he had a single goddamned shred of dignity he'd do whatever it took to fix what he completely wrecked.

 

[TehDoak]

Will Terry be generous enough to comp me (a Sabres plan holder) a tix to a Bills game since my money is going to them? And not for nothing but the reason they have lost so much on the Sabres probably has to do with the single worst stretch of failure in the history of the sport. That bastard destroyed this team and if he had a single goddamned shred of dignity he'd do whatever it took to fix what he completely wrecked.

The big issue is, even if he threw money at the team (which he has at the past), he's not guaranteed a win. The issue has been the people he's hired and how he's managed them. Until he finds a management team that is both competent and Terry feels comfortable enough to be hands off with, we are going to be stuck with Co-GM Terry or "Intern GM" Kevyn.

 

[sabremike]

The big issue is, even if he threw money at the team (which he has at the past), he's not guaranteed a win. The issue has been the people he's hired and how he's managed them. Until he finds a management team that is both competent and Terry feels comfortable enough to be hands off with, we are going to be stuck with Co-GM Terry or "Intern GM" Kevyn.

The belief of everyone in the sport is that being GM of the Sabres is a no win situation because the idiot owner is constantly meddling as even after 13 years of unprecedented failure Terry is too dumb and clueless to realize the single best thing he could do is sign the checks and get the hell out of the way. It's why Botts actually got another job so quick: Everyone in the league blamed the awful decisions he made while our GM on Pegula.

 

[May Day 10]

The big issue is, even if he threw money at the team (which he has at the past), he's not guaranteed a win. The issue has been the people he's hired and how he's managed them. Until he finds a management team that is both competent and Terry feels comfortable enough to be hands off with, we are going to be stuck with Co-GM Terry or "Intern GM" Kevyn.

It all starts with management. Smart, experienced, and savvy. They need to be autonomous from Pegula's "communication" and be empowered to make any moves they see fit within the front office. Some of these jokesters/grifters they seem to employ for life would be evaluated and let go or retained (Nightingale, Jakubowski, Forton, Crowe, Devine, etc). An open budget to populate an actual functioning/functional NHL front office.

Pegula's little circle of trust is keeping this franchise in the dark ages.

 

[Jim Bob]

It all starts with management. Smart, experienced, and savvy. They need to be autonomous from Pegula's "communication" and be empowered to make any moves they see fit within the front office. Some of these jokesters/grifters they seem to employ for life would be evaluated and let go or retained (Nightingale, Jakubowski, Forton, Crowe, Devine, etc). An open budget to populate an actual functioning/functional NHL front office.

Pegula's little circle of trust is keeping this franchise in the dark ages.

Given the hires of Karmanos, Ventura, and Galamini and all the talk about how the analytics team and the scouting staff work together, I cannot go there at this point.

There are plenty of things to question from having one of the smallest pro scouting staffs in the NHL to the well below cap spending for years, including this season which is supposed to be a "Win Now" season, and the consistent hiring of rookie GMs.

But, they have made moves to not be stuck in the past. Now if they had hired Peters and Rivet to be co-GMs and made zero effort to use analytics in their decision-making processes...