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Josepho

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Everything posted by Josepho

  1. The fact that our attendance stayed similar while we finished 29th and 28th in 2017 and 2016 should suggest that this market can tolerate losing hockey and that the idea that this market couldn't stomach a rebuild was baseless.
  2. No, some teams try to actually stockpile picks/prospects and properly manage their cap situation to set them up later in the future. Going all-in to make the playoffs and botching your long-term cap situation like we did because "you just never know" is an extremely unlikely recipe for success. I agree that random luck can play a part in the post-season, but these playoff underdog stories are the exception and not the rule -- very often an anomaly. Here's the regular season placement of every cup-finalist team in the standings during the cap era: 2020 Lightning: 4th, 2020 Stars: 10th. 2019 Blues: 12th, 2019 Bruins: 3rd. 2018 Capitals: 6th, 2018 Golden Knights: 5th. 2017 Penguins: 2nd, 2017 Predators: 16th. 2016 Penguins: 4th, 2016 Sharks: 11th. 2015 Blackhawks: 7th, 2015 Lightning: 5th. 2014 Kings: 10th, 2014 Rangers: 12th. 2013 Blackhawks: 1st, 2013 Bruins: 5th. 2012 Kings: 13th, 2012 Devils: 9th. 2011 Bruins: 7th, 2011 Canucks: 1st. 2010 Blackhawks: 3rd, 2010 Flyers: 18th. 2009 Penguins: 8th, 2009 Red Wings: 3rd. 2008 Red Wings: 1st, 2008 Penguins: 4th. 2007 Ducks: 4th, 2007 Senators: 9th. 2006 Hurricanes: 4th, 2006 Oilers: 14th. These are, by and large, top 10 teams in the league. Often ones who have been contenders for a long-time. The playoffs have an element of chance to them but often favour the top teams in the league, and the best way to give your team as many chances as possible is to set up the team properly long-term. Going all-in on making it to the ~16th seed is a flawed idea. Teams like Washington and Tampa were finally able to win the cup because they didn't go all-in with terrible contracts, while Chicago was able to win multiple cups by not over-committing to garbage in their period of contention.
  3. Do you know what also leads to fans not coming to regular season games? Spinning your wheels and playing like absolute $&!# while aimlessly trying to make the playoffs. Our attendance and merchandise revenue has sucked despite trying to make the playoffs in those years. The team would've been better off biting the bullet on a rebuild in ~2016. Now the team is facing a massive consumer confidence issue and has continued to lose money.
  4. Because Aquilini wanted to try and make the playoffs. The fans was always just a garbage cop-out. Do you really think stockpiling on picks/prospects and sucking is any worse for the fans than the garbage we were doing in 2016/2017?
  5. The team clearly doesn't listen to the fans that much and blaming them for this is pathetic. Benning is trying to save his job for his stupid owner. That stupid owner is the reason this team never fully rebuilt. Vancouver is currently a "pressure market" because fans are tired of watching the team constantly make predictably idiotic decisions over the past 7 years without any accountability. No other market would tolerate that garbage either. Literally everyone around the league thinks this organization is a joke at this point, it's an embarrassment.
  6. I literally said that they MAY be different in another situation. But you can't/shouldn't take on a negative value asset in hopes that he can play better in your organization's situation. And we're probably the closest team to Buffalo organizationally at this point, I don't think this is the team to get the best out of players. He's the kind of player you MAYBE take a 1x1 on in free agency and hope it works out. But Schmidt is killing it defensively in the toughest minutes on the team, moving him for Ristolainen is ridiculous.
  7. If Benning doesn't overpay for garbage like OEL/Barrie and actually attempts smarter, cheaper moneypuck-type signings, I will take back what I said. But come on now, he's literally never done this before.
  8. Ristolainen is definitely not meant to be playing the high leverage minutes he plays at all. He's absolutely terrible at 5v5. Playing Buffalo's system probably doesn't help either though, yes. At the absolute best, he's a 3rd pairing defenceman who can run your PP. We don't need that. We have several defencemen capable of playing the PP. We need a defenceman who isn't godawful defensively.
  9. The goal is clearly "be aggressive" to make the playoffs. Given Benning's track record, that means he's gonna be giving up picks and overpaying overrated pedigree players. I want the team to find cheap and effective players to throw throughout the lineup. Look at what Florida (a team that also had a good young core and awful management) did last offseason and how they're doing right now. We need to be acquiring under-the-radar, analytic-fueled signings. Hiring the guys from Florida responsible for those finds would be a great start, but the team isn't interested in gathering new perspectives and dissenting opinions.
  10. We're going to finish bottom 10 if we play Ristolainen remotely regularly. He's been consistently one of the worst defensive players in the league and is one of the biggest reasons Buffalo remains terrible.
  11. He also said to Faber that free agency and trading picks was on the table. This is a redux of 2019's offseason. Jim Benning doesn't care about building a consistent contender, he cares about barely squeaking into the playoffs and saving his job. He says "anything can happen", when the playoffs historically favour the higher seeded teams. He isn't smart enough to manage the cap well enough to make this team a consistent contender. He is very obviously not the guy to help this team take the next step but our dumb and cheap owner likes pushing him around too much to fire him. I can't wait until we stupidly pay up for Barrie/OEL.
  12. I'm glad to see the plan is to make another batch of short-sighted moves like in 2019 to make the playoffs and attempt to save his job again. No interest in building a stable contender.
  13. There's nothing wrong with supporting the team regardless (it's probably more fun than being extremely nitpicky), but don't engage in honest discussions about how the organization is run if you're taking an extremely biased approach to all of it. And yes, acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons to be negative/concerned about this team going forward. This gatekeeping stuff is such garbage.
  14. Saying that Benning has found the most gems in NHL history is just false. Go look at the Red Wings in the 80s and 90s.
  15. So you think picking worse players is good because it might lead to you picking higher in the future?
  16. That doesn't mean those were good selections. It's like saying that Pettersson was a bad pick because he prevented us from picking higher in 2019.
  17. As an owner/chairman, you are effectively a leader of the franchise. And, currently, next up on the hierarchy is Benning. These guys are the faces of our team, at least from a managerial system. Communicating often with your fanbase is a great way to get them to understand and buy in to what your franchise is doing, especially during tumultuous times. I absolutely want to see them take accountability for what they've done. All either of these guys have done is blame other factors for their failures and hide from the media/fanbase. It's pathetic to throw a (unsigned) Green out to the media for the Virtanen situation or after every terrible loss. You can call it "whiney" or "entitled", but we're the customers. The owner is trying to make their product marketable to us, because we control their revenue. And at this point there's definitely a large portion of this fanbase that has no interest in funding this garbage team with no accountability and a terrible, cowardly front office. This is how all businesses work. If I hear about a restaurant giving a customer salmonella, and the owner of that restaurant says nothing and doesn't fire the responsible employees, then I sure as hell won't ever fund that restaurant. Same thing here. It technically is his team and, yes, he can do whatever he wants to it. But this franchise and its brand has been losing value over the past decade and, if he's trying to make money, he's running his team stupidly.
  18. Okay, let's look at the gist of what all of these quotes: Miller: clearly pissed off about how the schedule was formed. Horvat: asked about support from management during COVID breakout, immediately mentions fan and family support without ever once mentioning management. Any reasonable person can put 2 and 2 together here to realize that the players were very unhappy about the schedule that management/ownership agreed to. It's extremely naive to interpret these comments otherwise. Horvat is an NHL captain who has interviewed a ton, he clearly knows what he's doing there. Matthias: said management didn't even tell him that they weren't going to offer him a contract. This is just severely unprofessional and will &^@# over potential relations with future players. This is extremely basic stuff and Benning failed to do it. Toffoli: basically just suggested management told him to wait while they were too busy chasing OEL, management didn't even offer a contract. Also very unprofessional and shows a lack of planning.
  19. Between comments from Miller/Horvat/Matthias/Toffoli, is it really that hard to believe that this management group is awful at communicating, and that that might impact their relationship with the players? Anyone who's had a job ever should know going to work and trying your best is easier when you believe in the process.
  20. Can you please point out where I said that Gadjovich had no chance of becoming a player and that it was time to move on?
  21. I have no problem with supporting players and wanting them to do well, but there's more to playing hockey than participating in a fight -- it isn't 1985. I'm not going to pretend he had some impressive debut.
  22. He played under 5 minutes, was incapable of generating any offence while he was on the ice, and had a bad turnover leading to a goal against. He literally did nothing.
  23. I'm not surprised people think Benning is a draft guru if standards are low enough to think that playing NHL games makes a top 10 pick worth it.
  24. People also forget that the Oilers brought in bad veterans (Ference, Hordichuk, Nikitin, Fayne, Eager, Belanger, Pouliot) for mentorship too. For some reason everyone seems to think a) It's impossible to have veteran insulation on short-term deals. b) Only bad players with no other justifiable qualities can be veteran insulation. I don't get it.
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