Will the Sabres be better coached this year?

[dudacek]

From Rachel Lenzi in the Buffalo News:

 

As much as people say they’re ready for change, they’re also inherently resistant to it, or the possibility of being changed. That’s not a knock on the Sabres or their players, but something that has been studied on scientific, psychological and organizational levels.

Ruff didn’t have a good chunk of time to implement his own philosophies under the proverbial and physical roofs of training camp in Buffalo. The Sabres began training camp Sept. 18, then traveled to Europe in a matter of days, to prepare to open the 2024-25 season against New Jersey in Prague. That’s a lot of logistics to juggle, from Ruff’s standpoint, from a player’s standpoint and from an organizational standpoint. Now, in NFL parlance, throw in a four-inch-thick playbook of entirely new concepts to learn, and there’s a lot to manage and absorb.

I think the team looked poorly coached last year.

How much of that was due to what Lenzi mentions: transition from Granato and lack of prep time?

Will we see a more cohesive, together team this year as a result of those obstacles being removed?

[Pimlach]

At what point did the slow start and the travel to Europe become an excuse?  

They recovered and moved into a playoff position for a short time, and then they completely fell apart, lost 13 in a row (or something like that), and made no moves to stop the bleeding.  They were dead by US Thanksgiving Christmas once again.  

They had a strong finish when the backup goalie got hot and they were playing with no pressure on them.  

They have the exact same coaches so they are probably not any better coached. 

-  They might better understand what the coaches want. 

-  They might see more young players mature and get better.  

-  They might have a few players step up and lead better.  

 

edit:  fixed error

Edited 2 hours ago by Pimlach

[Archie Lee]

New Jersey was worse that the Sabres in 23-24, had a new coach last year and had the same short camp and travel issues. 

Edited 7 hours ago by Archie Lee

[LGR4GM]

44 minutes ago, dudacek said:

From Rachel Lenzi in the Buffalo News:

 

As much as people say they’re ready for change, they’re also inherently resistant to it, or the possibility of being changed. That’s not a knock on the Sabres or their players, but something that has been studied on scientific, psychological and organizational levels.

Ruff didn’t have a good chunk of time to implement his own philosophies under the proverbial and physical roofs of training camp in Buffalo. The Sabres began training camp Sept. 18, then traveled to Europe in a matter of days, to prepare to open the 2024-25 season against New Jersey in Prague. That’s a lot of logistics to juggle, from Ruff’s standpoint, from a player’s standpoint and from an organizational standpoint. Now, in NFL parlance, throw in a four-inch-thick playbook of entirely new concepts to learn, and there’s a lot to manage and absorb.

I think the team looked poorly coached last year.

How much of that was due to what Lenzi mentions: transition from Granato and lack of prep time?

Will we see a more cohesive, together team this year as a result of those obstacles being removed?

What horse hockey. I've heard this awful excuse on wgr as well and it's nonsense. If Lindy Ruff, one of the most veteran coaches in the league doesn't know how to handle the mentioned issues above then why the ***** is he here?

Sure, they could be better this year because there's less "new concepts" but also it's hockey, there's not some crazy magical new concept coming from Ruff. They have mediocre coaches and bad gt. They're probably talented enough but not experienced enough. 

Edited 7 hours ago by LGR4GM

[Archie Lee]

36 minutes ago, dudacek said:

From Rachel Lenzi in the Buffalo News:

 

As much as people say they’re ready for change, they’re also inherently resistant to it, or the possibility of being changed. That’s not a knock on the Sabres or their players, but something that has been studied on scientific, psychological and organizational levels.

Ruff didn’t have a good chunk of time to implement his own philosophies under the proverbial and physical roofs of training camp in Buffalo. The Sabres began training camp Sept. 18, then traveled to Europe in a matter of days, to prepare to open the 2024-25 season against New Jersey in Prague. That’s a lot of logistics to juggle, from Ruff’s standpoint, from a player’s standpoint and from an organizational standpoint. Now, in NFL parlance, throw in a four-inch-thick playbook of entirely new concepts to learn, and there’s a lot to manage and absorb.

I think the team looked poorly coached last year.

How much of that was due to what Lenzi mentions: transition from Granato and lack of prep time?

Will we see a more cohesive, together team this year as a result of those obstacles being removed?

I also want to add, in all my decades following major league sports in North America, I can’t recall another example where a coach who got more wins out of a team than his successor, was blamed for the failures of his successor. It is, frankly, a bizarro theory.

[DarthEbriate]

The coaches are the same. Are the players better able to execute? Will it matter if it’s Wilford? Or if Luukkonen can’t replicate his good half season?

Joker was coachable. He got into Quenneville’s lineup as a rookie kid. He did just fine in Boston. He did what he was told. Which comes back to the question, is the Sabres coaching staff any good? Can the staff improve itself?

[Taro T]

4 hours ago, Pimlach said:

At what point did the slow start and the travel to Europe become an excuse?  

They recovered and moved into a playoff position for a short time, and then they completely fell apart, lost 13 in a row (or something like that), and made no moves to stop the bleeding.  They were dead by US Thanksgiving once again.  

They had a strong finish when the backup goalie got hot and they were playing with no pressure on them.  

They have the exact same coaches so they are probably not any better coached. 

-  They might better understand what the coaches want. 

-  They might see more young players mature and get better.  

-  They might have a few players step up and lead better.  

Overall, agree with this.  BUT they were NOT dead by US Thanksgiving this past season.  While they were out of a playoff spot by points, they were in one by points percentage.

That the wheels fell off starting over that holiday break is also true.  That's when 0-10-3 began.

Which meant they were toast by Christmas.

[...]

9 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Overall, agree with this.  BUT they were NOT dead by US Thanksgiving this past season.  While they were out of a playoff spot by points, they were in one by points percentage.

That the wheels fell off starting over that holiday break is also true.  That's when 0-10-3 began.

Which meant they were toast by Christmas.

That holiday break is when their physical and mental stamina crashed and never recovered. That has been the excuse and somewhat believable.

[Taro T]

13 minutes ago, ... said:

That holiday break is when their physical and mental stamina crashed and never recovered. That has been the excuse and somewhat believable.

Well, they lost 1-0, one of the best games they'd played all season, at home against the Wild for either the 1st or 2nd loss of that stretch.  

And Dahlin broke in the 3rd period of the Avs game they were up 4-1 at the time he left the game and when he was lost for the next 9 games they flat out collapsed without him available.

 

BUT the statement had been they were dead BY Thanksgiving.  That was not true.  They were very much alive and had they not come up on a hot goalie and then had by far their best player miss 1/8th of the season (right on the back of having had their best F out for an extended stint as well), the wheels might've stayed on a while longer.

[Pimlach]

50 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Overall, agree with this.  BUT they were NOT dead by US Thanksgiving this past season.  While they were out of a playoff spot by points, they were in one by points percentage.

That the wheels fell off starting over that holiday break is also true.  That's when 0-10-3 began.

Which meant they were toast by Christmas.

Thanks for the correction, it was Christmas.  

[JohnC]

5 hours ago, Archie Lee said:

I also want to add, in all my decades following major league sports in North America, I can’t recall another example where a coach who got more wins out of a team than his successor, was blamed for the failures of his successor. It is, frankly, a bizarro theory.

After reading your intriguing observation, a question can be asked whether the Sabres would have had a better record with Granato than with Ruff taking over? With both Granato and Ruff, the bigger problem related to the composition of the roster than with the coaching. It just seems that there were roster and structural deficiencies that hindered each coach.  

[dudacek]

Granato had an openly stated development plan of teaching offence first defence second.

I think with the offence in place, he made clear progress on improving the defence in his 3rd full year  but took a modest step back overall in the process and was not given a chance to see his plan through.

I think there were a lot of players firmly on board with Granato who struggled transitioning to Ruff (Cozens, Power, Quinn, Peterka, Samuelsson, Clifton).

I’ve seen little to suggest that either coach is/was on the right track.

 

Edited 2 hours ago by dudacek

[Taro T]

2 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Granato had an openly stated development plan of teaching offence first defence second.

I think with the offence in place, he made clear progress on improving the defence in his 3rd full year  but took a modest step back overall in the process and was not given a chance to see his plan through.

I think there were a lot of players firmly on board with Granato who struggled transitioning to Ruff (Cozens, Power, Quinn, Peterka, Samuelsson, Clifton).

I’ve seen little to suggest that either coach is/was on the right track.

 

Based on how the team fared in its own end this past season with Granato's chosen D coach leading the efforts there, have no reason to believe the results would have been any better last season had Donny been retained.

And Cozens and Quinn would've still been making the same idiotic clearing passes from just above the opponent's goal line to neither point man in particular had Donny been running the show as well.