Even in Buffalo, pre-2017, he would be getting blasted every day, and Adams would be on the hot seat.
Adams gets softballs wherever he goes. If a question gets anywhere near critical, he gets really porky and short. There was a fluff Q&A in TBN yesterday with Adams. I hear him on WGR and they don't challenge him at all (actually Schopp kind of did and Adams' response was they can't go 82-0, you can hear Schopp breathe in, chuckle, and you can tell he wanted to lay into him for the strawman, but he bit his tongue).
Its the same thing with the Bills, although not as irritating because their results are largely great. If anyone asks Mcdermott a tough question, you can tell he gets really irritated and short, and it seems like the "asker" is going to get in trouble with his/her employer for that.
The media painted a picture that Lindy Ruff is some conquering legend here, come back. We pretty much unanimously ran him out of town, and it took a period of 5 years to do it. The media was 100% on board too.
And I agree on the Leafs. Their existence is similar to the Sabres' in the 80s and early 90s. Had some terrific teams, some top-4 teams in the NHL. The problem was, we had Boston and Montreal in a brutal Adams division and Buffalo just couldnt top either of them in the first round for awhile. Those seasons were fun though, and I would take that existence any day of the week over the irrelevancy we have now.