msw2112

Don't read too much into the post-season locker room interviews. These guys are hockey players and kids in their 20's. They're not polished public speakers. They're shooting from the hip, trying to answer difficult questions when they're a) embarrassed that they failed to make the playoffs and b) don't want to totally throw their former coach, who they like, under the bus.

They are both young goalies with high end potential. Right now, UPL is better. He's older and has a lot more NHL experience. He was also a starting goalie for 2/3 of a NHL season with excellent numbers. UPL also has size that Levi, unfortunately, will never have. One goal that Levi gave up occurred when the offensive player pushed his pad into the net and the puck along with it. With UPL's greater size (and presumably strength), I don't think his leg would have been pushed in and the goal would not have been scored. All this said, I think Levi is a very talented goalie with great quickness and reflexes and he seems to have the right mental makeup, which is critical for a goalie. He was great in college, great in international tournaments, and has shown flashes in the NHL on multiple occasions. He's played well in Rochester. He will graduate to full-time in the NHL soon and will be a very good goaltender and will be part of one of the better tandems in the league. While it's possible he becomes better than UPL, I think that his size may be a factor and as such, UPL may be the slightly more successful goalie in the long run. As a Sabres fan, I'm very happy to have them both. As I've stated elsewhere, I really believe that with the right coaching, this is a pretty good team and easily a playoff team. If this season's team played to their potential in 3/4 of their games, they would be in the playoffs. As I see it, they played to their potential in 50-60% of their games, tops, and that falls on coaching. I've been a Granato fan the last few seasons, but I had to get off the train sometime in mid-March. The two bad losses to Detroit when they were in striking distance of a playoff spot, plus an embarrassing loss to Ottawa on home ice during that stretch, did me in.

I don't think Pegula wants to sell. I also think that the team is going to achieve success in the upcoming seasons. Pegula endured the lean years (and may well have contributed to those years being lean), and he wants to enjoy the emergence from darkness. Thanks to Donnie Granato for developing many of the young guys and getting the team to the middle of the pack. Now the next coach can take them to the playoffs where they should be for a number of years. The current talent, with proper coaching (which was clearly lacking this season), is already (entry) playoff-level, and that talent will continue to mature and improve, with lots of young and upcoming talent in the pipeline. Meanwhile, some of the older teams will eventually fade, like Pittsburgh and others.

1980 was a long time ago, but I do remember this. Bowman was a great coach but wanted to show the hockey world he could be a great GM (which, unfortunately, he wasn't). His desire to become a GM is what allowed this to happen. I don't necessarily see a guy like Ruff interested in this type of arrangement, plus Adams is entrenched as GM (at least for now). But if Ruff was appointed head coach for 1-2 years with Peca as an assistant/heir-apparent/promise of the job when Ruff was done, with Ruff moving into some type of front office position when Peca took over, I could see it working. Ruff would change the culture in a hurry and get these guys moving, but I think his message might grow stale after a couple of years (as it did in Dallas and NJ) and Peca would be ready to take over. It's a nice concept, but I don't think it will happen.

Size alone doesn't matter. An 8-year NHL veteran whose body is fully grown and developed, has had years of NHL-level weight training and nutrition, and is fully accustomed to the rigors of a NHL season and a few playoff series is going to physically dominate a 22-year old kid, even if the kid is a little bit taller and maybe even if he's a little bit heavier. Of course there are exceptions (a tough younger player, a softer veteran player), but for the most part, the veteran player will be more physically dominant. Also, as stated elsewhere, even a lot of the Sabres' larger players (Thompson and Power come to mind right away) are more skilled types of players who don't play a big, physical game. I do think that with the proper coaching, the Sabres' players can learn to play a more physical style. There was a thread a couple of months ago after a loss to Florida how stark the contrast was with Florida finishing EVERY check during the game and the Sabres finishing next to none. Clifton and Eric Johnson were pretty close to the only Sabres who finished their checks in that game. No surprise that these are a) veteran players; and b) players who grew up in other organizations.

Adams should inquire, particularly given their relationship, but it's pretty obvious to everyone that the likelihood of Brind'Amour coming to coach the Sabres next season is slim-to-none. Carolina is not going to let him leave the facility.

I see where you are coming from, but I still differ in opinion on a couple of topics. First, I fully understand that with a draft system in professional sports that the worst teams draft higher than the better teams and that the top teams draft later. The Sabres have been drafting in the top 10 for a long time and have made a lot of bad picks. Good teams maximize their picks wherever they draft, and also find talent later in the first and second rounds and also hit on later picks from time to time. I believe that the Sabres have been better in the last couple of drafts than they had been a few years prior. They have also committed to a their AHL program after ignoring it for years. They have not traded away young talent like Tim Murray did. Solid middle-tier players like Compher, McNabb, and others were not given time to develop and were shipped off to other teams too early, whereas they've given the current prospects more time. So there are many factors that go into the pipeline. As to the poor quality of the building, I think that it goes hand in hand with the product on the ice. When Pegula was pumping a lot of money into the team and they kept losing year after year, he decided to change his approach. I don't think he wanted to pump a lot of money into an empty building. Even if he did, and the team kept losing, the seats would have remained empty. As the one-ice product improves and the fans start coming back, more money will be invested into the building. Now that the team is out of the basement and in the middle of the pack with a chance to be a playoff team soon with the right coach (again, my opinion), more money is being invested in the building (roof, scoreboard, etc.) In full disclosure, I don't live in Buffalo anymore and have only been to the building once in the last few years. I sat in the 100 level and my experience was fine. Things were a little dated, but otherwise fine. If I was a season ticket holder in the 300 level and having water drip on my head every game, my perspective might be completely different.

I don't see a passionate hockey coach caring that much about the roof. (Plus, didn't they announce a new roof, along with the scoreboard?) Also, the Sabres are said by the national experts to have the top pipeline in the NHL (and if not the top, one of the best), so what they have in place for scouting the last few years seems to be working. Also, not spending to the cap, in my opinion, is less about saving money than it is about letting the young core develop rather than displacing them with expensive veterans. When they have tried to spend (Leino, Ehrhoff, Taylor Hall, etc. and arguably Okposo and Skinner) it has not typically gone well. Given where the team is in the development cycle, I think they'll be willing to spend a little more this offseason to fill in some of the holes in the roster (RHD, veteran "power" forward types). I also think that the new coach will have a lot of input on how they shape the roster. That can certainly be discussed at the interview and/or laid out as terms for accepting the job.

I don't think the Sabres will have a difficult time finding candidates interested in the job. This is not the team that finished last in the league a few short years ago. The team is in the .500 range, with lots of young talent at all 3 levels. They are regarded for having one of the top pipelines of young talent in the league, if not the top. Their owner has deep pockets and has spent money before. The same owner has had a lot of success with the Bills. Adams seems like an easy guy to work for/with and the Mittelstadt trade and Granato firing show that he's willing to make some tough decisions (which has previously been a knock on him). Buffalo has a great fanbase in place. While Buffalo may not be the most desired destination for 20-something millionaire athletes (although it's usually fine for hockey players), coaches are older, established adults who are past they partying days and may well enjoy a great community like Buffalo. I don't think the new coach is coming into a mess. Rather, they would be coming into a great situation with a team that is on the cusp. With the right coaching and system, I believe this is easily a playoff team and with some roster tweaks to go along with that coaching, could be a contender within a couple of years. That's my glass half-full assessment. Fix the power play alone and this is a playoff team. Get a full season out of the current version of a UPL and this is a playoff team. Improve on first period play out of the gate and this is a playoff team. Fix any one of those things, and it's a playoff team. A new coach can fix all 3 of those things in short order.

Brind'Amour-Peca would be a great duo. I'm not sure I see it happening. I could live with a Ruff-Peca duo, with the idea that Ruff is an older guy who might put in a couple of years to change the culture, then pass the reins onto Peca. Or even something like Ruff-Appert. Maybe set it up where Ruff will coach 2 years, then turn over the reins to the younger guy and move into a front-office job. I don't know if something like that is realistic, but I do think it could work.

Quenneville would be great, but I'm not sure if it's worth the PR nightmare after what went down under his watch in Chicago. It makes me cringe just to think about it. Although he has no NHL experience, Appert is an interesting option. I honestly don't know that much about him, but he seems to be the best coach Rochester has had in years. Many successful NHL coaches have started at the AHL level. I love Lindy Ruff. He was my favorite Sabre player as a kid and he was one of my favorite coaches too. He had a lot of success in Buffalo. Based on his post-Buffalo track record, I see him as a short-term solution, but not a long-term one. He had good starts in both Dallas and New Jersey, but it eventually petered out and he got fired. I think he could get the current Sabres into the playoffs next season, but I don't know if he's the right guy for long-term, sustained success. I would not be opposed to having Lindy brought into the organization in some capacity. He's a great hockey man and great person overall. Brind'Amour would be the best option, but I just don't see it happening. From what I've read, he likes it in Carolina and they'll come up with the money. I think it would cost $5M+ to bring him to the Sabres. I'm not sold on the likes of Gallant and Boudreau. Like Ruff, they could be great short-term solutions and get this team into the playoffs, but I don't see them having long-term success. I think Peca will be a great coach (like Brind'Amour) and would do well, but it's a big risk to bring in a guy with no head coaching experience. I don't think he has any, at any level. So I don't have the answer, but these are my thoughts on some of the names that are circulating.

I guess I'd rather the team miss the playoffs and be highly ranked in prospects than miss the playoffs and be at the bottom of the prospect rankings. Glass half full type of thing....That's certainly not to say that this season has not been a complete disappointment. It certainly has.

I expect a great effort and a big win. That seems to be the MO for this team. Step up when it means the least!

Last season, they finished 1 game above DeLuca .500, so they finished with a winning record. I felt that was an accomplishment, given the recent history of the franchise. It's a big disappointment that they've regressed from there, particularly given that they seem to have solved the goaltending and penalty kill issues, which were their two biggest problems last season. Somewhere they lost their ability to score goals and to have a competent power play. And that's aside from their inability to show up in the opening minutes of games.

It's just such a strange phenomenon. This Sabres team, and last year's, are both in the .500 range. So we're not talking bottom of the barrel, last in the league teams like we've seen just a few short years ago. That said, how this group can consistently fall behind by so many goals, so early in games, so often, is mind-boggling. Particularly when UPL is playing so well. It's very common that, after the early goals (1,2,3, etc.) scored by the other team, he doesn't give up any goals for the remainder of the game. It's also just a terrible way to play hockey games. When the opponent takes a huge early lead, it can alter how they play the game. They can sit back in a defensive shell, as the likelihood of giving up 3-4 goals is low, or they can be more aggressive, knowing that they have a large cushion. It also impacts the Sabres' psyche the rest of the game. Maybe they squeeze the stick a little tighter, knowing they're behind and have little margin for error. Or maybe they run into a hot goalie, where the rest of the game is going to be low scoring, like last night's game where the score was 0-0 for the rest of the game after the first period. I attribute it mostly to coaching. The Sabres have talent, certainly equal to or better than teams like Ottawa and Detroit. There's no reason they can't be ready to go from the drop of the puck. If they play a hard-fought game, trade goals and lose 3-2 or 4-3, so be it. But to fall down 2,3,4, or even 5-0 (Ottawa game) in the first period is just inexcusable. Someone has to score the first goal, so sometimes it won't be the Sabres, and that's OK. But to give SO MANY, SO EARLY, SO OFTEN is just ridiculous. I realize that I said this twice, but it's so bad that it bears repeating. There is only one benefit, to me, as a fan watching on TV. I watch almost all of the games after they've been played, so I can use the fast-forward button liberally and it gives me time back in my life by not watching the entire game. If they are within 1 goal, I don't fast forward (other than commercials and intermission), but if the deficit is 2 or more, I start pressing that button....