darksabre

Some beach, somewhere...

Not to mention Hitchcock who is, what, a hundred years old?

Hutton is who he's always been: a goalie that can pull starter duty on and off, but not full time. He's streaky. Ullmark should have been better this year, but I think his lack of development is on the coaching staff. Bring in a better goalie coach and maybe he improves. The *team* defense being a mess didn't help things any.

Have any coaches on the prospect list won with average goaltending? I don't think we can simply reduce this to the Hasek/Nolan comparable. Took the words outta my mouth.

I don't know if that's really even a thing to worry about. The principles of the game don't really change, just the way the league enforces rules. The Sabres are a finesse scoring team similar to the Canucks back then. They used mobile defensemen to move the play. I think AV might find the situation familiar.

I'm not sure what your point is then. Are you saying AV is good because he was able to coach to his team's strengths?

When was Vancouver ever big and strong?

I'm more in favor of AV than T-mac.

I think it's the idea put forth above: that they don't get much from being in the A. He might not have been happy with their development on the Sabres, but he probably felt it was still the better spot for them.

I think this is part of the reason Housley got fired. I think Botterill expected more work on individual player development but between Tage, Casey, and Pilut it's clear that Housley and his staff weren't getting it done.

McLellan is probably fine.

Our local media people are just the worst at asking questions.

And I'm not advocating for him to actually coach this team. I'm simply pointing out that he has a quality about him that perhaps the last few coaches haven't and that it shouldn't be taken for granted. If you can't get the players to play for you, it doesn't matter what your system is.

I was referring more to Lafontaine hiring Nolan.

Pat Lafontaine doesn't count eh?

I'm a little tired of the Nolan hate. I know most of us who liked him only suggest him jokingly, but there's no denying that players like him and work really hard for him. It might not be a sustainable way to coach a hockey team, but it works in the short term and that shouldn't be discounted. He's a motivator if nothing else.

Terry definitely knew Botts was considering firing Phil. It's why he made that dumb comment about Phil "growing as a coach". It was probably something Botterill said to him in a previous conversation on the subject.

My takeaways from the Botterill presser: -He wasn't satisfied with player development. I think he expected more growth from guys like Mitts, Thompson, Ullmark, Pilut. Also expected guys like Eichel and Reinhart to continue developing. -Not happy with repeated mistakes from younger players and vets. Sounds like he didn't think the coaching staff was doing enough corrective work. -Acknowledged that the roster wasn't good enough. But I don't think he sees that as an excuse for the failures that weren't roster related. -Really happy with Rochester and Cincinnati. Edit: I want to add that it seems like he felt the coaches didn't have the experience to solve the problems they were facing. So take that as a hint for what might be coming: a coach who has seen a lot and done a lot, and who might be more focused on individual players than team systems.

I don't even care

I feel like the last 4 seasons have been an exercise in extremes. We went from Bylsma who was absolutely choking this team to death with a play to not lose system, to Housley who somehow opened up every single hole in this team so much that all they could do was lose. Maybe we can get something in the middle this time.

Rayzor made a lot of comments this season that led me to believe that as far as the alumni around the team were concerned Housley was blowing it. Very similar to things he said when Bylsma was here too.

I agree entirely. I don't think this roster is great by any means. But they probably shouldn't have been *this* bad. I look at the power play as something of a metric for measuring a coach. You can have a team that isn't great and have a good power play. Housley, with mostly the same players Bylsma had, totally tanked the power play.

Well, there it is. Clearly Botterill thinks the roster is better than the results.

My feeling is that, given Pegula's comments recently, I suspect that Botterill has already kneeled before Terry and accepted responsibility for this situation, even if it's not entirely his fault. He's likely a better communicator than GMTM was and that will allow him more leash with ownership than GMTM had.

I suspect that, if you put it to Botterill, he would tell you that this team's failures this season were a combination of his trades not working out as hoped, his younger players not being as ready as they needed to be, and his veteran players struggling to find consistency. I think he would place the blame on himself and the players, exempting Housley. If he fires Housley then we can infer that he doesn't blame himself or the players as much. Choose your own adventure as to where the blame lies.