Kristian

It's the coaches job to bring things together, isn't it? And if Ruff is as much in on personnel decisions as he's rumoured to be, again his responsibility only becomes greater. Of course the players should be held accountable, god knows I've been no fan of the roster in recent years, but let's be honest - Buffalo, the past 5-6 years, has been a place of NO accountability. Coasting regulars getting the same amount of ice time as always, Connolly being given a 50% raise for not playing, and a front office more bent on making excuses for their team than improving on it. I doubt most of the people involved with the Sabres franchise know the meaning of the word, "accountability". Top to bottom.

I'll be honest with you, I have no idea whether Dineen is better than Ruff or not. My beef with Ruff, is that I don't feel he's good enough to go all the way, and that's he's worn out his welcome with the roster, however it may have changed, long ago. I am particularly frustrated with his seeming inability to adapt to strategy changes in games, and how he resorts to line juggling if the opposition seems to get the better of his approach to the game. We're always asked the question "who else could do a better job?". It's a standard phrase in sports, I know, but I do feel it's being used excessively when it comes to the Buffalo Sabres, People seem scared to take a shot at someone else, and see where it may bring them. Why? It's not like Buffalo have been anywhere near contention, barring perhaps 2-4 seasons under Ruff, and these were either due to an all-world goaltender in his prime, or rule changes that benefitted the Sabres in particular. Why does there have to be someone proven out there? Was ruff proven when he took over? No. What changed?

Exactly. More often than not, the Hasek-era Sabres were outshot 2 to 1 in games, and would win 1-0 or 2-1.

It was his 2nd year. He made the ECF the 1st year, lost to the Caps. I liked how Ted Nolan always seemed to pull a lot of fight out of his teams. Other than that, he was riding the best goaltender to ever play the game, and Ruff's two first years was the exact same thing - Dom was out of this world in the 97-98 and 98-99 seasons.

The way I'm reading it, he's happy it made Darcy abondon his all-finesse roster, and finally clear out some of the dead wood for good. For me personally, I was obviously NOT happy watching Miller get run, but I also think there's a silver lining to all of this. Namely that the infamous "core" is all but broken up now, and the bodies coming in instead are NOT smallish finesse players, but brawn and grit all the way. And yes, the fact that Lucic gets away with it is total BS, You can clearly see him lining up Miller for the hit before he even enters the faceoff circle.

One-dimensional teams are never a good idea. Just like 18 figure-skaters can't win a cup, neither can 18 knuckle-draggers. The secret is in the recipe - Get the right mix of grit, toughness and skill and you have a shot at it. Easier said than done though, although I think Regier's MO the past 7-9 years has pretty much demonstrated how NOT to do it.

Danish born and bred here, family in Marietta Georgia, Rochester, Palm Springs and at least 8 or 9 other places that I keep forgetting. The Rochester connection led to the Sabres in the mid 80's, and I've suffered with the native fans ever since :P

NHL 13 coming out next month, that'll take out some of the sting :lol:

It's late august - I've been without hockey for too long :P

Unless you get asked directly, I don't think there's much point in calling your team a contender, unless you're desperately trying to look like a complete jackass in 8 months time? If you're asked about it directly, it's a nasty question that you have no way of spinning your way out of. Which was it? I have no idea, and I don't care either. This club has bigger problems than what's said in the press.

Just goes to show how much trouble this team is in, if he actually believed that. I doubt he did, though.

Even under Golisano, the Sabres were way bigger spenders than under Rigas. So to use you're own words, I love how people use pre-Pegula days as a basis for an argument that Ruff has no blame in this. You can't give the coach/GM a free pass when the funds where there, but they chose to overspend on the wrong players, and play a system apparently not suited for said players.

Actually, you could trace all the way back to when Gomez took out Miller's ankle. Intentional on Gomez part or not, every Sabre on the ice just stood around watching their goaltender crawl back in the crease. Don't tell me other teams didn't notice that pitiful, pathetic display. I'm sure you could trace it back even further if you wanted to, but the point remains the same - It's common knowledge around the league that you can cheapshot the Sabres star players without fear of any sort of retribution. Hell, you don't even get suspended for it, apparently. It's going to take a lot more than John Scott or Steve Ott to change that.

Phhhfffff..... Thanks for reminding me, I had happily forgotten all about it :P

I seem to remember the Sabres also blowing several two-goal leads in that series? Or am I getting old?

I remember that very differently - The way I remember it, Boston dominated the Sabres physically. Don't forget, Buffalo was the higher seed in that series. They seemed to learn from that, and played the Flyers very hard. However, you could also see how the Sabres ran out of gas in the end, so maybe they didn't dominate Philly as much as I thought they did, or the physical play took such a heavy toll on them, there was nothing left in the tank for game 7. Also, let's keep in mind that Philly forechecked the living crapola out of the Sabres all series long, and it would never have gone to 7 games had the Flyers had a goaltender capable of stopping a puck.

What do you expect? The same people are fed up with the current style of play from this team, and contrary to what you wrote earlier in this thread, lack of physical play has been a complaint since Ottawa man-handled us physically in the 07 playoffs. I'll agree, some posters (myself included from time to time) get their panties in a bunch when describing what they believe is lacking in the roster, among these shortcomings is the ability to play a physical game when called upon, but I don't believe for a second that these people are happy with losing, as long as they're leading in hits. I think the Sabres problem is that they're one-dimensional. Way too many players of the same mold. IMHO, that's never a good thing, not if it's 18 knuckle-draggers either.

Believe what you want. Refer to the second paragraph of my post if you want to know why I believe people are fed up with a team that is notorius for being contact-shy.

Nobody here believes that. Some, however, believe being able to play a pshysical game if the situation calls for it, or if you play an opponent who notoriously doesn't like playing a physcial game (like the Sabres), is a good thing.

On this we agree, bringing in one piece to change the make-up of an entire roster is never going to work, even if he was still the player he was 4 years ago. That said, I still think he can play a physical and intimidating game, if the remainder of the roster and overall strategy allows it. Neither is the case.

Talk about seeing what you want to see. Regehr is a heckuva lot better today than Rivet ever was in Buffalo. I'll admit I expected more from him, but to call him another Rivet at best? Come on.

Well, you have to admit that's how it looked on paper.

As soon as the team cures it's ailments when it comes to being on the receiving end of cheapshots, sure. Until then, this thread should stay very much alive.

It's not like the title thread shuldn't have scared you off, if you really, really didn't want to read such threads, you know :flirt:

No way!!!! Ruff won the Jack Adams twice!!! If Ruff weren't here, the Sabres would be dead last, rather than 9th!!!! Who the hell wants to draft in the top three when you can be 9th in the conference instead??!!??! Are you nuts???!!!!!! /Extreme sarcasm off