How has this team completely reverted back to the worst team in the NHL again???

[matter2003]

I dont get it...this team has enough good players that is should not be the worst team in hockey since the end of November but here we are again...so we went from the best team in hockey over the first 2 months to the worst team in hockey over the last 4 months.

Basically after a good two month stretch to start the year, we are exactly the same team as the year before.

How has this happened? This shouldn't be....im not saying we are a top team in the NHL but certainly this isn't the worst team in hockey either. Something has got to be going on with them mentally like they just have zero confidence and are a mentally fragile team to allow things to get this bad from where they were...

Edited March 31, 2019 by matter2003

[Sabre1974]

Not sure where the answer lies. To start I hope certain players have seen or will be playing there last few games in sabres jerseys. I'm also not against trading any of our better players either. 

[carpandean]

3 hours ago, matter2003 said:

I dont get it...this team has enough good players that is should not be the worst team in hockey since the end of November but here we are again...so we went from the best team in hockey over the first 2 months to the worst team in hockey over the last 4 months.

They had the best record, but it was clear that they weren't actually the best team.

That said, they were playing significantly better.  Once it started to decline, it snowballed out of control.

Mostly, I think it's in the middle six forwards, where old players started showing their age (or walked away) and the young players weren't ready to take over, and the defense, which also has a mix of young (potential) talent and aging junk ... and Risto.

 

[Frieda]

I'd like to believe the goaltending took a dump and while they haven't been good, they have been getting slaughtered by the defense or lack thereof.

[Pimlach]

1 hour ago, Sabre1974 said:

Not sure where the answer lies. To start I hope certain players have seen or will be playing there last few games in sabres jerseys. I'm also not against trading any of our better players either. 

Seriously. Any player except Dahlin is tradable.  Just not sure I want JBot making such trades.  I don’t trust him to trade Risto, let alone Eichel or Reinhart.  

[Pimlach]

3 hours ago, Frieda said:

I'd like to believe the goaltending took a dump and while they haven't been good, they have been getting slaughtered by the defense or lack thereof.

It started with lack of secondary scoring.  Line 1 played well in December but we were just .500 that month.  Having a second line would have made a big difference.  The front office sat in their hands  January started the major erosion.   We fell out of the playoff position only by about 6 points and  we hung around for a little bit.  

Then there were several stretches of schedule where we lost to bad teams consistently. Those are times when the good teams string together wins.   Still the front office made no moves.  Several games we got pushed around in too and by mid-Feb our team defense was poor, then the goaltending eroded.   

Now all facets are poor.  They quit weeks ago.  

Edited March 31, 2019 by Pimlach

[etiennep99]

I'll take a stab at this:

1.Last Summer, JBott made enough changes to give the players some hope.

2. Housley made sure that everyone was going at 100% right out of the gate.  This cannot be understated. Since most teams were still slowly gearing up, the Sabres had the advantage.

3. The goaltending was very good at the beginning of the year.

4. Skinner was hotter than a fire-cracker.  These past 2-3 months, Skinner has been almost completely unable to score.

5. Once again, Pominville started the year well before age and injuries took over.

6. Although his play was anything but great, Berglund took some load off of Casey.

7. When Berglund quit on the team, and the Sabres didn't hesitate one second to void his contract, I think that it sent a bad message to the players.

That is: "The Sabres don't stick by their players", "Quitting on the Sabres is a valid escape route", and "Buffalo really sucks doesn't it?"

8. They had an incredible stretch of luck.

9. When the collapse started, the Sabres did still believe in themselves and did try to keep it going for a little while. But they've totally collapsed now.

10. They added three rookies/sometimes four, one just 18 years old, to a last place team.

11. I actually think that Beaulieu deserved to play more.  The collapse started around the same time that Housley benched Beaulieu.

[I'm still glad that he's gone just so that I don't have to hear/see so many people mangle his name anymore.]

 

Edited March 31, 2019 by etiennep99

[Scottysabres]

2 hours ago, carpandean said:

They had the best record, but it was clear that they weren't actually the best team.

That said, they were playing significantly better.  Once it started to decline, it snowballed out of control.

Mostly, I think it's in the middle six forwards, where old players started showing their age (or walked away) and the young players weren't ready to take over, and the defense, which also has a mix of young (potential) talent and aging junk ... and Risto.

 

I think this nails it right here.

[jad1]

They play poorly in their own zone, lacking fundamentals and positioning.  The goaltending is average to poor.  The top forward line could only carry the team so far.  The team could have used an infusion of talent mid-season, but received none.

Bad coaching, over-matched players, and a GM who decided to sacrifice a playoff run for a Calder Cup run.

[bunomatic]

You've got to be lucky to be good punk.

They never were good. They were lucky. Lucky only wins you so many games. We're farther away than that 10 game streak lead us to believe. The proof is in the puddin.

 

 

[dudacek]

It’s easy to forget how much resilience we showed early with all those dramatic wins and comebacks.

I think that the team has experienced so much losing that the players, along with pretty much everyone else in hockey, didn’t believe they were for real. And when adversity hit they stopped doing the things that were working.

People tend to think the bottom completely fell out after the streak. That’s not true at all. We had four one-goal losses in a row after the streak, 9 of our next 12 losses were by one goal. Another was by an empty netter. In the 6-8-4 run that followed the streak, we had just 2 stinkers, the 5-2 loss to the Panthers Vogl wrote about and an ugly 6-2 loss to the Flyers. We were playing more or less as well as we did to start the season, but the lucky bounces and timely goals started to disappear. In retrospect, this run probably best reflected what we are, but it started to play with our heads.  The supporting cast dried up completely, the goalies stopped stealing games, the first line was still flying, but couldn’t win games by itself. The doubt started to creep in.

We had a rough road trip sandwiched around the break in January where the Canes and the Oilers scored some of the luckiest goals imaginable against the flow of play and the Stars physically dominated us that I think was the tipping point. The kids had hit a wall and the goalies were sucking. And instead of rallying the troops the Eichel line kinda disappeared into its own struggles.

And the cohesion we had in the first half of the season never returned. The struggles fed more struggles, the season slipped away and we are left with what we have, a frustrated team without any answers.

I think the streak team was lightning in a bottle and the current team is lost. I think the real team should be what we saw in the middle of the season. The fact that it continued to crumble out of control is a result of leadership. Some of that is on the inexperience of our best players. Some of that is on the hangover created by the tank. Some of it is on goaltending. Some of it is on Botterill for roster construction and in-season inaction.

But leadership is ultimately on the coach and it is Housley who will take the fall.

Edited March 31, 2019 by dudacek

[BoomKoo]

What a mystery. A lot of good thoughts here. I like etiennep99 comments especially. 

I agree they are not the best team but have enough talent for at least a playoff run. To me it must be coaching, sadly. One point that underscores this is putting new players and rookies on 1st line. There is no sense that promotions are earned in this organization. 

We need a proven HEAD coach at any level. Else start hiring coaches in 20 game increments. At the end of each 20 games the coach can continue if they have a winning record. Crazy yes, but couldn't be worse than what we have seen. 

[PASabreFan]

3 hours ago, Frieda said:

I'd like to believe the goaltending took a dump and while they haven't been good, they have been getting slaughtered by the defense or lack thereof.

This is a lot of it. With confidence in their goaltenders, they could and did win a lot of games. Once the puck started leaking through, and there was no better example of that than the penalty shot goal Hutton allowed against Florida in December, a pretty young team got spooked.

[PASabreFan]

16 minutes ago, dudacek said:

It’s easy to forget how much resilience we showed early with all those dramatic wins and comebacks.

I think that the team has experienced so much losing that the players, along with pretty much everyone else in hockey, didn’t believe they were for real. And when adversity hit they stopped doing the things that were working.

People tend to think the bottom completely fell out after the streak. That’s not true at all. We had four one-goal losses in a row after the streak, 9 of our next 12 losses were by one goal. Another was by an empty netter. In the 6-8-4 run that followed the streak, we had just 2 stinkers, the 5-2 loss to the Panthers Vogl wrote about and an ugly 6-2 loss to the Flyers. We were playing more or less as well as we did to start the season, but the lucky bounces and timely goals started to disappear. In retrospect, this run probably best reflected what we are, but it started to play with our heads.  The supporting cast dried up completely, the goalies stopped stealing games, the first line was still flying, but couldn’t win games by itself. The doubt started to creep in.

We had a rough road trip sandwiched around the break in January where the Canes and the Oilers scored some of the luckiest goals imaginable against the flow of play and the Stars physically dominated us that I think was the tipping point. The kids had hit a wall and the goalies were sucking. And instead of rallying the troops the Eichel line kinda disappeared into its own struggles.

And the cohesion we had in the first half of the season never returned. The struggles fed more struggles, the season slipped away and we are left with what we have, a frustrated team without any answers.

I think the streak team was lightning in a bottle and the current team is lost. I think the real team should be what we saw in the middle of the season. The fact that it continued to crumble out of control is a result of leadership. Some of that is on the inexperience of our best players. Some of that is on the hangover created by the tank. Some of it is on goaltending. Some of it is on Botterill for roster construction and in-season inaction.

But leadership is ultimately on the coach and it is Housley who will take the fall.

If there's a better poster than dudacek, I'll like to know who it is.

6 minutes ago, BoomKoo said:

What a mystery. A lot of good thoughts here. I like etiennep99 comments especially. 

I agree they are not the best team but have enough talent for at least a playoff run. To me it must be coaching, sadly. One point that underscores this is putting new players and rookies on 1st line. There is no sense that promotions are earned in this organization. 

We need a proven HEAD coach at any level. Else start hiring coaches in 20 game increments. At the end of each 20 games the coach can continue if they have a winning record. Crazy yes, but couldn't be worse than what we have seen. 

And welcome to you. I like the outside the box thinking.

[dudacek]

18 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

This is a lot of it. With confidence in their goaltenders, they could and did win a lot of games. Once the puck started leaking through, and there was no better example of that than the penalty shot goal Hutton allowed against Florida in December, a pretty young team got spooked.

I don’t want to blame the goalies because they are as much the victims as the causes. But so much of a hockey team’s psyche rests on its faith in the goalie. They are leaders by default.

We started the season with a raw rookie and a career backup who had combined for just over 150 NHL starts. That was Botterill’s call.

Our chance of a rebound next year starts and finishes in the net; its one of our most underdiscussed issues. Can Botterill risk making the same mistake twice? What will he do? What should he do?

Edited March 31, 2019 by dudacek

[klos1963]

8 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I don’t want to blame the goalies because they are as much the victims as the causes. But so much of a hockey team’s psyche rests on its faith in the goalie. They are leaders by default.

We started the season with a raw rookie and a career backup who had combined for just over 150 NHL starts. That was Botterill’s call.

Our chances of a rebound next year starts and finishes in the net; its one of our most underdiscussed issues. Can Botterill risk making the same mistake twice? What will he do? What should he do?

I've been thinking about this a lot. How does he handle the goaltending situation? Can he go with the same 2 goalies? No help on the farm right now. I think he has to make a move.

[JohnRobertEichel]

Fundamentally, we are playing like the worst team in the league - despite a talent level closer to the middle of thte pack - because of a total lack of leadership. This lack of leadership is apparent in 3 forms:

1. Coaches aren't holding players accountable. Specifically: Housley.

2. Older veterans aren't creating a positive, resilient locker room atmosphere. Specifically: Okposo, Bogosian, Hutton, Sobotka.

3. Young core doesn't know how to properly work hard and maintain focus at the pro level. Specifically: Eichel, Reinhart, Ristolainen.

Fixing 1 is relatively easy and obvious. Fixing 2 will require some ingenuity on JBot's part, but still doable. Fixing 3 is very, very troubling indeed.

Edited March 31, 2019 by Marchand'sNose

[Zamboni]

Top three answers on the board. Here’s the question ...

How has this team completely reverted back to the worst team in the NHL again???

1. Housley 

2. System

3. No in season trades to stop the decline in December/January. JB’s fault.

 

IF Housley was better, IF his system was effective, IF JB did 2 or 3 in season trades in December/January, this team would be 20 points better. Minimum.

[Pimlach]

3 hours ago, etiennep99 said:

I'll take a stab at this:

1.Last Summer, JBott made enough changes to give the players some hope.

2. Housley made sure that everyone was going at 100% right out of the gate.  This cannot be understated. Since most teams were still slowly gearing up, the Sabres had the advantage.

3. The goaltending was very good at the beginning of the year.

4. Skinner was hotter than a fire-cracker.  These past 2-3 months, Skinner has been almost completely unable to score.

5. Once again, Pominville started the year well before age and injuries took over.

6. Although his play was anything but great, Berglund took some load off of Casey.

7. When Berglund quit on the team, and the Sabres didn't hesitate one second to void his contract, I think that it sent a bad message to the players.

That is: "The Sabres don't stick by their players", "Quitting on the Sabres is a valid escape route", and "Buffalo really sucks doesn't it?"

8. They had an incredible stretch of luck.

9. When the collapse started, the Sabres did still believe in themselves and did try to keep it going for a little while. But they've totally collapsed now.

10. They added three rookies/sometimes four, one just 18 years old, to a last place team.

11. I actually think that Beaulieu deserved to play more.  The collapse started around the same time that Housley benched Beaulieu.

[I'm still glad that he's gone just so that I don't have to hear/see so many people mangle his name anymore.]

 

6 and 7 -  no doubt Berglund could have helped this team a lot.  He started out enthusiastically as the senior Swede.  His loss was big because it enabled too much ice time for Sobotka and Mitts.  Berglund’s departure had little to do with him liking Buffalo.  He loved St Louis but he was an inconsistent head case there too.  He really wanted to be home in Sweden, money was not going to  make him happy.    I think the Sabres did the right thing.  

They let ROR go because he wanted to go.  His comments at locker clean out were calculated.  They let Lehner go because of his poor performance on the ice, when they found out about his condition they helped him.  Lehner has stated nothing but positive things about Botterill.  I think the Sabres stick with players, I question that they get the same back.  

11 - I liked Beaulieu.   He started out very poorly last year but this season I thought he played well and you could count on him to be there to support his teammates, something you cannot say about most if this team.  

The NHL is filling up with players that did not perform “good enough” in Buffalo but yet contribute to their new teams.  

 

Edited March 31, 2019 by Pimlach

[Pimlach]

19 minutes ago, Marchand'sNose said:

Fundamentally, we are playing like the worst team in the league - despite a talent level closer to the middle of thte pack - because of a total lack of leadership. This lack of leadership is apparent in 3 forms:

1. Coaches aren't holding players accountable. Specifically: Housley.

2. Older veterans aren't creating a positive, resilient locker room atmosphere. Specifically: Okposo, Bogosian, Hutton, Sobotka.

3. Young core doesn't know how to properly work hard and maintain focus at the pro level. Specifically: Eichel, Reinhart, Ristolainen.

Fixing 1 is relatively easy and obvious. Fixing 2 will require some ingenuity on JBot's part, but still doable. Fixing 3 is very, very troubling indeed.

Totally Agree.  

1.  You can replace the coach and we should.  

2.  I am only interested in keeping Bogo and Hutton from the list of vets, I would also delete Pommer and Girgs along with Sobie and Okposo.  

3.  The young core is now the common denominator between the two losing eras.  55, 23, and 9.   Are these players mentally tough, hockey smart, committed to excellence, willing and able to carry the team by their play and example?    

Add to this do you trust an unproven GM to handle this?  

At Pittsburgh Bots was mainly responsible for building the AHL team and developing players.  You can see he knows that end of the business, there are big improvements in Rochester.   How he handles free agency, trades, and the draft this next off season will say a lot about whether he can fix this team.  

 

[bunomatic]

35 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

Totally Agree.  

1.  You can replace the coach and we should.  

2.  I am only interested in keeping Bogo and Hutton from the list of vets, I would also delete Pommer and Girgs along with Sobie and Okposo.  

3.  The young core is now the common denominator between the two losing eras.  55, 23, and 9.   Are these players mentally tough, hockey smart, committed to excellence, willing and able to carry the team by their play and example?    

Add to this do you trust an unproven GM to handle this?  

At Pittsburgh Bots was mainly responsible for building the AHL team and developing players.  You can see he knows that end of the business, there are big improvements in Rochester.   How he handles free agency, trades, and the draft this next off season will say a lot about whether he can fix this team.  

 

I was happy with the Phil H hiring but I've subsequently altered my thoughts on that. The decision by a rookie G.M. to hire a rookie head coach who also hires rookie assistants may be one of JBots regrets when he looks back on his moves as G.M. The fact that Phil is a likeable guy and part of the alumni of this franchise kind of handcuffs him slightly. No matter the decision on coaching that is made there'll be people who aren't happy. 

[Kruppstahl]

Something to be considered as well is that the overall talent level of this team is rather low, and generally greatly overestimated by Sabres fans.  Fans always over-value their own talent.

Most of the stats during the win streak showed that the success would not be sustainable and the streak was largely a focus of luck.  We also got great goaltending during that time, and had a super hot goal scorer.

For at least 3 months now, our goaltending has been atrocious, not bad, but atrocious, and Skinner is now colder than a witch's t*t.

Time and again the organization has failed to put the best possible lineup on the ice for a given game, and then Housley has failed to have that lineup prepared and ready to go from the opening face-off.

We still have a lingering culture of failure.

We greatly overvalue Eichel in particular.  Almost every team in the league has an Eichel in their lineup, at least in terms of points. He is not a generational superstar talent.  He's just a very good hockey player.  

It's a combination of many things, but this organization is broken right now.

 

 

 

[R_Dudley]

4 hours ago, Pimlach said:

Seriously. Any player except Dahlin is tradable.  Just not sure I want JBot making such trades.  I don’t trust him to trade Risto, let alone Eichel or Reinhart.  

I've stayed away from this mess because I was disappointed awhile back about using that word trust here before. Whats trust got to do with it i was told. I know I could have said I'm skeptical Jbot is the right guy but for me that is a trust issue. I am confident PH right now is not a good coach and maybe with years of experience if ever. I don't personally want to wait to see if that pans out. 

I realize from years here there are a lot of fan types. The stats guys, the detailed player profile guys, the hometown first guys, etc.. i think you can break that down into 2 main categories, those fans that are more head,  x & o's and those that are more heart first with all sort of combinations in between. Being one or the other and what motivates your opinion and feelings are what has made us all Sabres / hockey fans.    

This is a message board where peoples opinions driven by facts, feelings or combinations of both i thought were welcome but then we get these polarizing threads where one side decries, belittles or calls one person or groups loyalty or hockey smarts because new hockey beats old hockey or stats/facts should drive their posts/understanding of the game or team they follow.

I guess a teams pattern of losing and not being together as team can even creep unto a fan message board. I agree with those who posit losing begets losing and creates divide.  

It's made me realize one thing I am hockey fan first, and Sabres are my favorite team. When they don't pass the eye test and aren't playing good hockey w/o me needing to provide a thesis based on stats or styles to choose from i know what good hockey looks like to me.

While there are area's of promise with this team it does not pass the eye test. This is and has not been all that entertaining over the last several months. I have been getting that watching the playoff seeding teams jockey for a better seed in some tight races.             

[matter2003]

19 minutes ago, Kruppstahl said:

Something to be considered as well is that the overall talent level of this team is rather low, and generally greatly overestimated by Sabres fans.  Fans always over-value their own talent.

Most of the stats during the win streak showed that the success would not be sustainable and the streak was largely a focus of luck.  We also got great goaltending during that time, and had a super hot goal scorer.

For at least 3 months now, our goaltending has been atrocious, not bad, but atrocious, and Skinner is now colder than a witch's t*t.

Time and again the organization has failed to put the best possible lineup on the ice for a given game, and then Housley has failed to have that lineup prepared and ready to go from the opening face-off.

We still have a lingering culture of failure.

We greatly overvalue Eichel in particular.  Almost every team in the league has an Eichel in their lineup, at least in terms of points. He is not a generational superstar talent.  He's just a very good hockey player.  

It's a combination of many things, but this organization is broken right now.

 

 

 

Sadly, this may be true about Eichel...

TB and Calgary have 3 players with more points. Colorado, Toronto, Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Winnipeg, Boston, Florida, and Chicago all have 2 players with as many points as Eichel(OK Toews only has 76 points but still...they also have DeBrincat with 3 fewer points than Eichel at 74)

And several other teams have players with more points than Eichel as well.

I mean look at McDavid and Dreisatl with 100+ points a piece(and still out of the playoffs).

77 points is a good season, but its tied for 27th in the league. Some of the players above him are good but not great players, and the 2 players he is tied with are Pastrnak and Bergeron who have played 11 fewer games, so realistically he is 29th.

Should we be expecting more from him? Would we have gotten more from him if Skinner was still on the top line?

Edited March 31, 2019 by matter2003

[Torpedo Forecheck]

Lots of issues obviously, these are some of my mine with the team.

1. The goaltending is not good enough. They have never when I've been watching (almost all games) shown the ability to lift the team. You must have that in the NHL. Being able to steal a game now and then and get out of a bad spell is essential. As a matter of fact, I would argue they aren't even solid in net. These guys are not reliable and consistent.

2. We aren't tough enough down low and in front of our net. We could seriously use some toughness, strength and defensive focus from especially the D-men. But, we don't have any big, tough centerman types who can help down low and in front. 

3. We lack scoring depth obviously. Some on here want to question the young guys playing and not producing. I'm disappointed mainly in the vets (old guys if you will) who have provided next to no production. The best thing about the young guys is they can and will get better. The old guys brought in-not so much.

4. It is a complete indictment of this coaching staff that they have not been able to stop or even slow down the bleeding. There is no coming back from that IMO.

Edited March 31, 2019 by Torpedo Forecheck