msw2112
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Posts posted by msw2112
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1 minute ago, Doohickie said:
Isn't that what we just kicked to the side of the road?
I think the hope is that with a couple of years beside Lindy, combined with his relatively successful run as a professional hockey coach in Rochester, that Appert will be ready. It's anybody's guess whether it will work. Many/most successful NHL coaches were either successful AHL coaches and/or NHL assistant coaches first.
Personally, I'm pretty shocked to see Ellis and Wilford still on the Sabres' coaching staff. When they were retained I expected them to be reassigned to other roles within the organization, but not as close to the day-to-day on-ice operations as they were this past season. I guess Appert coming in and being the top/primary assistant is a significant change, but I'm still scratching my head. Every time I think this organization has started to go down a better path, they do something that makes me question things. While I don't think hiring Lindy Ruff was a terrible choice, it certainly didn't look like they did much diligence in the head coaching search, and the new coaching staff looks like they put even less diligence into the assistant coaching search.
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It's great to see such excitement and enthusiasm for professional hockey in Western New York and for (a part of) the Sabres organization. Hope they can bring some of that excitement about 60 miles to the west next season.
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I don't follow Matthews that much. Obviously, the guy is a premier goal scorer. My concern about him is that he lacks the qualities that the Sabres roster is so badly in need of - grit and toughness. The Sabres already have guys who can score (although none who have scored as much as Matthews) and play a finesse game, so I don't think that the assets required to acquire a guy like Matthews would be worth it. If the Sabres were to send out a lot of assets for at top NHL player, they'd be much better served acquiring a guy with the skillset of a Matthew Tkachuk. He's not going to put up as many goals or points as Matthews, but he brings all of the intangibles that the Sabres need - grit, toughness, leadership, etc. I fully understand that Tkachuk is not available and isn't going to be. I think the Sabres were/are hoping that Dylan Cozens will be that type of player and he still might.
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I'm not passionate about the Leafs losing, but given how their fans like to come into Buffalo and take over with a degree of arrogance, I can't lie and say I don't enjoy it a little bit. Of course, the Leafs losing means that Boston is advancing, and it's hard to take a lot of pleasure in that....I'd like to see Boston go out this round. I'm also not a fan of the Dallas sports scene, but I still was happy to see them oust Vegas. Vegas has had a great run the last few years, so I enjoy seeing new/different teams in the mix.
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This is the regime that drafted Peterka by, as mentioned, a smart trade to move up the draft board. This regime also drafted Quinn, who outside of injuries, has been a very good offensive player (he did have a horrible outing in Detroit....) They also drafted Benson and a number of other guys who appear to have bright futures. I don't see the Adams administration as the total fail that many on this board do. They've put together a talented team that's in the middle of the pack and should, with the right coach (Lindy?) make the leap to the upper half of the league. I think that they will pick up some grit in the offseason by acquiring a couple of new players and I think that Lindy will help inject some grit into some of the existing players. I don't think a complete overhaul is needed. They are moving in the right direction and with good NHL coaching (Lindy?) and a few roster tweaks, I think that we Sabres fans will be happy next year when the team ends the playoff drought. And that's probably without significant contributions from future players such as Savoie, Kulich, Rosen, Neuchev, Wahlberg, Östlund, etc. who are further down the line.
I will fully admit that I said the same thing last year, but I really believed in Granato, and as much as I like him and supported him, he lost me with the 2 late Detroit losses and the Ottawa embarrassment. I just don't see those types of performances in critical games happening with Lindy behind the bench. The team will, at a minimum, be ready to play both in a) the October-November-December portion of the season; and b) the first period of games. I've made these same comments in other threads.
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Very simply, I believe that Lindy will most impact the team by them being READY. Ready to start the season in October (and not January) and ready to start games when the puck drops to start the 1st period (and not after they've given up 2-4 goals). Guys who are not ready will not play and there will be bag skates if necessary. As someone said above, if Lindy does his job well, there won't need to be a lot of benchings or bag skates. This alone would easily elevate the current roster to a playoff team from one that just misses it by a little bit, plus there will be roster changes (improvements) too.
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20 hours ago, SabreFinn said:
I think the pp is too easy to read, it's like an open book. Tage need to find some new tools as a complement to the slapshot. Maybe unfair example, but looking att Kutcherov you never know where the puck will go until it leaves the blade. And there is no player that is really good in the "Hyman-area".
Hasn't Ovechkin played in that same spot his entire career, and nobody has every been able to stop it? I'm fine with the Tage one-timer threat from the left wall, but the other guys can move around more and create some activity. I'm in agreement that more activity in the "Hyman-area" is always a good thing.
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16 hours ago, TageMVP said:
This hire stinks
I'm a huge fan of Ruff and always have been since his playing days, but he wasn't my first choice for this hire. That said, it's not a terrible hire. Maybe a bit uninspired, but Lindy is likely on any team's short list that would be looking at veteran coaches (Gallant, Berube, Boudreau, etc.). He's been successful at every stop and helped turn around young, struggling teams in Dallas and NJ. He hasn't been able to sustain it beyond about 3 years, but if he can get the Sabres over the hump in a couple of years, change the culture, make the playoffs, etc., he'll have done his job and they can then move on to someone else. The shelf life of a NHL coach is not very long and Lindy is getting up there in years anyway.
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I love a 2-year deal. If things go well, they can always extend. If they don't, the Sabres can get out without paying a king's ransom. Most coaches in the prime of their careers wouldn't agree to such a short deal, but Lindy is older, he's made plenty of money, he lives in Buffalo, and maybe he wants to be a "bridge" coach to a younger assistant and only wants to commit to 2 years and then maybe retire. Or, he's just betting on himself - he could do really well and command a big extension/payday to continue. If Lindy can change the culture and break the playoff drought in 2 years, then move upstairs into the front office, or retire, I'd be OK with that. I believe they'll make the playoffs next season. With Granato, they were not that far off and Lindy is not going to let this team sleepwalk through October, November, and December and the first period of every game. Even with no roster changes, I think Lindy gets them in as a wild card. Plus, there will be roster changes....
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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.
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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.
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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.
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15 hours ago, Pimlach said:
What you’re talking about happened. Roger Neilson took over for Scotty Bowman in 1980 as coach in the same manner you described.
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.
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18 minutes ago, triumph_communes said:
We’re actually a pretty big team. The emotional part is where coaching comes in to change
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.
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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.
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10 minutes ago, Mango said:
It is not about "the roof" that has been leaking on fans in the upper deck for YEARS. It is about the willingness to invest and solve in the most basic solutions facing the team and the fanbase.
The NHL is set up for bad teams to have great prospects and good teams to have bad prospects. It is because the worse you are the higher you draft and vica versa. Buffalo has been the worst franchise in the league by P% since Terry bought the team. They are supposed to have decent prospect. The only notably achievements are when teams like Ottawa have really bad prospects or last years NJ Devils were ranked super highly. These rankings also flip quickly. NJD went from a top prospect pool to a bottom prospect pool pretty quickly. If the Sabres don't get over the hump their prospect pool ranking will tank in short order.
You can claim think it is not about saving money all you want. But Pegula himself has said that the franchises goal is to be efficient, effective, and economic. It is really difficult to separate a failing building, minimal spending to the salary cap, and one of the smallest scouting departments in the league from that statement. That is a bridge too far for most people.
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.
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6 minutes ago, Mango said:
The biggest issue won't be the roster. It will be the unwillingness to fix a leaky roof for years, having half the scouting department other franchises do, and an unwillingness to spend much of the cap.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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2 hours ago, thewookie1 said:
Win out and we'll end up at DeLuca .500 which would certainly sum up this season. Mediocrity; highs and lows but we were never good enough to run or bad enough fall apart
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.
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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....
UFAs Sabres may want to sign
in The Aud Club
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Does anyone know if any of the guys on the list have previously played for Ruff in Dallas, NYR (where he was an assistant), or NJD and might want to play for him again? If a guy likes playing for Lindy or had a lot of success playing for Lindy, it might overcome the desire to avoid the Sabres organization. Also, we often fail to forget that, despite the extended playoff drought, the Sabres have been a reasonably competitive team in the last 2 seasons and do have a lot of young talent, so it may not be quite as unattractive as some may think. The team is not a cellar dweller fighting their way to the bottom (although there were not too long ago). Furthermore, a lot of guys are from Southern Ontario or the NE United States, so Buffalo is close to home, which can be a draw. Just trying to find some of the positives here....