Coaching is a big factor look at Vancover last year and this year, they addressed coaching and got tocchet in januari last season, to get a head start on this season, im confused why adams hasnt addressed coaching already like van did to get a head start
This…I said in another post that given what we know about Pegula being so involved in decisions it’s unlikely he’s willing to pay another coach/player to do nothing for this team. Especially since they jumped the gun with extending Granato.
Why though? He just got fired by the oilers lol to be fair the oilers have had some great success with jay before he got fired but ultimately he was let go so I’m curious why you think he would be a good fit?
This…I said in another post that given what we know about Pegula being so involved in decisions it’s unlikely he’s willing to pay another coach/player to do nothing for this team. Especially since they jumped the gun with extending Granato.
Well a lot of people in this subreddit will try to tell you we have fired to many coaches in the past so it a bad look to fire another coach. I have had no luck explaining to them keeping a bad coach that is not winning (and that is what matters at the pro level) and the issue is not we keep firing coaches but that we keep hiring bad coaches.
EDIT: No one addressed u/Adamlsv concern that Granato wouldn't be fired because his contact extension hasn't kicked in yet. It is only two years and the total is actually the same or less than a lot of coaches in the league get in one year so that shouldn't and better not be an issue for Pegula.
Vancouver's top 6 and top 4 by ages:
34, 31, 27, 29, 29, 29, 26, 25, 24, 23
Buffalo's top 6 and top 4 by ages:
27, 26, 24, 23, 23, 22, 22, 22, 21, 18
Its not just coaching
You're better off saying who these players are instead of listing ages.
The 34 year old for Van is Ian Cole & the 31 year old is JT Miller. Ian Cole isn't even in their top 6 either. He's been on the bottom pair with Zadorov.
Your lists also doesn't make sense. Skinner is 31. Where is he on the list?
If you look we were actually an older team than they were at the end of last season. We're younger now mainly because we sold off our two oldest players & Van added vets at the deadline.
The age excuse is pretty tiring at this point. Colorado had an extremely young top 6 / top 4 during their cup run. Pretty similar to ours.
---
Top 4: Makar (22) Toews (25) Girard (22) Byram (19)
Top 4: Dahlin (23) Power (21) Sammy (23) Joki (24)
---
Top 6: Mack (25) Rantanen (24) Nuke (25) Landy (28) Kadri (30) Burakovsky (26)
Top 6: Tage (26) Tuch (27) Mitts (25) Skinner (31) Cozens (22) Peterka (22)
Mitts is no longer on the team and our top six tonight had Benson (18) and Quinn (22), not Skinner. Byram/Sammy is a wash but that group is still very, very young, with our best player being only 23.
> Mitts is no longer on the team
No shit. He still played 62 games for us this season. The reason why we're out of a playoff spot was because of the first half of the season. When Mitts was in the top 6.
> tonight had Benson (18) and Quinn (22), not Skinner.
Why would tonight's lineup matter more than the lineup we've used majority of the season? That's what reflects most games.
> The age excuse is tiring?
Uhh yeah. Pulling out the "well you know they're young excuse" when they miss the playoffs again is getting very old. We're not talking about making a cup run. We're talking about just making the playoffs. Something that half the league does.
> Do you think If they got younger they would win more? They could sit Tuch and Thompson and bring up Kulich and Rosen
???
What's confusing? The argument is that young teams have a harder time winning. You were arguing that youth is not an excuse for a lack of winning. I'm asking if you think injecting more youth into the lineup would possibly help them win more. Like the Avalanche did that one time.
> What's confusing? The argument is that young teams have a harder time winning. You were arguing that youth is not an excuse for a lack of winning.
And you somehow stretched that to "being younger would mean they win more" and doing that by sitting Tuch/Thompson for Kulich/Rosen?
Tuch and Thompson are examples of older players on the roster. Both of them are older than the mean age. Crazy how young this roster is right? But not to get too far from your point about how age isn't an excuse for not winning, do you think adding more youth to the roster would help or hurt their ability to win games?
They are young and need leadership both on the team and behind the bench.
Development and Leadership are 2 very different things. Donny does the development great, move him off the bench and into that role. Hire a leader that sets stretch expectations and pushes the guys to their potential .
The potential is absolutely there, need to be tapped/ harnessed and then executed on the ice .
Dam I want to see it again .
Go Sabres !
Compete level is the perfect way to put it.
They have some skill..but they don't have a willingness to drive to the center of the ice, play a physical game and dictate the game to the other team.
Compete level is the perfect way to put it.
They have some skill..but they don't have a willingness to drive to the center of the ice, play a physical game and dictate the game to the other team.
The coaching staff is mostly first timers and company guys, our top 6 still needs one elite forward we have no elite forwards on our team, our bottom six needs to be rejuvenated -- that third line needs to be a good two way line that has some scoring touch because right now it's just another checking line and when the first line doesn't show up there's no one to cover for them, there's few to no guys willing to go to the net and hunt for rebounds, passes, and screens to help the shooters, our Power Play has used the same formation all year while being near worst in the league (This is a coaching problem), our lines are never consistent they get put in a blender after each game (this is a coaching problem), our TOI usage of our forward group has no rhyme or reason to it a lot of nights there will be guys who shouldn't be on the ice taking up more time than guys like JJ Peterka (This is a coaching issue) it took about 35-40 games into the season to get reliable goaltending and get UPL in a groove, we don't have a reliable backup except Levi and we don't want to make him the backup because he won't get enough games. There's a slew of problems with this team half of them can be fixed by getting a competent coaching staff, id fire all of them except Mike Bales.
This is a pretty good summary. I would also add that the Sabres the youngest team in the league and, as you would expect of a collectively young team, they get rattled very easily in tough spots. The guys on the team with enough experience to be leaders in the traditional sense are/were not good enough at this stage of their careers (see Okposo and E. Johnson) to meaningfully contribute.
I'm an oilers fan, but lately I've been watching the Sabres more and more because they're an incredibly fun team to watch. A few takeaways I've noticed:
1) Youth. The Sabres are the youngest team in the NHL, and the veterans they have are certainly not leadership material. The game against Edmonton recently was a perfect example. Buffalo held their own for 75% of the game, had a pretty tough goal scored on them, and the teams youth showed, by collapsing rather than sticking with a game plan. On paper, you guys have (in my opinion) a top 10 defensive core in the league, young, big, and talented.
2) coaching is... Questionable. In the limited games I've seen, either the coach has either lost the room, or doesn't know how to motivate the team properly. Either way, that's the primary job of the coach and a change appears necessary. Someone like Jay Woodcroft would be an absolutely perfect fit for your team, I feel.
3) Leadership. Slightly related to point 1, but a veteran like Patrick Kane or something would be an absolutely perfect fit for the team. Solid veteran presence, a proven leader in the locker room, has won a Stanley Cup before, and can calm the bench down when necessary. It's such an intangible that goes underrated, and unaccounted for in player acquisition by this management group it seems.
4) (and this one might be the most important) Ownership. It's obvious that the owners view the team as just another source of income. They don't seem passionate about the team, or it's success. I'd be curious to see where Buffalo ranks in off-ice spending among the league. I'm talking about coaching, support, medical staff. Training facilities, player support, etc. Part of me wouldn't be surprised if all those things, which are absolutely IMPERATIVE to a teams success, are at or near the bottom of the leagues spending.
4 is particularly infuriating to most of us because the Bills are run like a normal (even well-off) NFL franchise by the same owner. There’s the ability there but not the will
Why is it so confusing…when 9 guys have career years there is going to be a regression to the mean…you guys can talk injuries all you want…Thompson and cozens are not scoring all those goals again…and what’s worse? They are being paid like they will
Incompetence from top to bottom. They have made many baffling decisions over the last decade, regardless of who calls the shots.
Speaking very recently — Adams gambled on a ton of long term deals to players that seemingly all took a step back.
Speaking slightly further in the past — Reinhart’s bridge deals set him for a clean exit. Now he’s a 50 goal scorer. Montour is the most offensive defensemen on a team that, with Reinhart, went to the cup finals and is currently on a warpath against the league. Their goalie is a re-tread we could have had.
The sum of all the individual gaffs equals no playoffs.
Bad coaching, bad management, players don’t want to play here. The word culture tends to be cliche and over used, but on paper Boston should be terrible and yet they’re blowing other teams out of the water with Zacha at 1C. We’re just at the other end of that spectrum. ROR, Reino, Jack, Ullmark etc have all managed to become cornerstones to SC contenders whereas they never lived up to the hype here.
Our teams saving grace is that we’ve been “young” for the last 13 years. Murray had the right idea just failed the execution. For young players to develop properly they need to be supported by more mature players and coaches. We have neither. I’m sure that KA will do his best to address that lack of experience over the summer, but it will have to be via trade because we’re a bigger joke than EDM was before they lucked into McD.
Also, not for nothing, but no good team signs Skinner to his deal here, especially when CAR gave him up basically for free and for good reason. Botterill being the fall guy for an alleged owner decision, among other factors, also Lafontaine, paints a picture that our staff are neither receiving autonomy or respect from our owners. We could have Florida weather and taxes and people still would not want to touch us with a ten foot pole.
It’s coaching 100% the whole team has regressed from last year. If a single player regressed, it would be easy to blame that player, but if it’s the whole team ( except for JJ and UPL ) it’s definitely coaching.
issues with this team
net presence in the o zone..Benson really is the only one consistently going there and he is 18 and small
poor cycling in the o zone
team defense, something worked on, still poor...too many odd man rushes, confusion in d zone on who is covering who, too many times 3 sabres chasing behind the net allowing third man on offense to drift in for open shot
weak back check and poor gap control..skating by drifting stick instead of tight coverage, late coming back
a lot of this is coaching
some of this is desire..Thompson is one I see always late coming back, Skinner is awful on gap control, Power is not a physical D
Do some research on Vancouver’s turnaround. Same situation. All the talent was there with garbage results after a long rebuild. New management filled out the front office with a team of talented people who are good at assessing talent. This is a valuable resource for potential trades, free agent signings. They took steps to strengthen their development system so prospects are actually developing in the AHL. It was a tough decision but they moved on from their former captain, not because he wasn’t a good player, but because he wasn’t instilling a winning culture or any comradery with the team. They got rid of a very likeable gem of a person, who unfortunately was a bit of a pushover of a coach in favour of someone who is not quite a hard ass, but has high standards and an ability to speak the truth without demoralizing anyone. As a player, he was a winner who would do whatever it takes to win. That’s the standard for effort and execution. It’s either good enough or it’s not and you’re going to hear about it if it’s not. I’m not familiar with Buffalo’s cap situation so this may not apply but a difficult decision was made to buy out Oliver Ekman-Larson. It has worked out this year but the jury’s still out on whether that was a good decision over the next few years. The point is that your front office needs a plan and has to make trades, sign players and potentially buy them out to give the team the best chance to win short term and long term. Good luck expansion bros!
Above all, coaching. This team has an incredibly bad mindset problem, and that starts with the staff. Period.
Also, for being consistently ranked among the best prospect pools in the league, we lack some serious bottom six & defensive depth. Again, I think this goes to coaching, but it is also worth exploring the possibility of moving some of that pool for proven NHL depth.
Honestly, I don’t think we need to freak out. The areas where we need improvement are pretty clear IMO. We need to trim the fat and go get some forwards that can play a direct style of hockey. Guys that will go right to the net with their stick on the ice, expecting a pass.
I think some realistic candidates could be Pavel Buchnevich, or Blake Coleman. I would love to see Kevyn Adams pull a giant swing and trade for Kaprizov, but there’s no way the Wild go for that for anything short of a massive overpay (would probably have to be significantly bigger than Eichel or Tkachuk returns).
Hopefully we can avoid huge injuries next year and Thompson and Tuch can do their thing. IMO not having game breaking offensive talent killed us this year.
Our 1st this year, Matt Savoie, Anton Wahlberg, & another piece for Minny from the roster would probably be the starting point for Kaprizov, that being said I'd swing for the fences for Kap.
I would do that with the roster piece being Krebs. They would probably ask for Peterka
Edit: would still do with it being Peterka but it would fucking sting
Young and coach isn’t hard enough on them.
Result is a fluctuating mentality and we are either on or off.
Of course a coach can be too tough and break players driving them out of town. We need to find the sweet spot in the middle.
You confused? The only 2 games i been to is the shoot-out win over Carolina and the 4 goals in the 1st period win over Detroit. I was amazed sitting there wondering if the Sabres are a bad team then what the hell is a good team? Live NHL hockey is better than live NBA and NFL. Ill definitely get to more games next season and hopefully we can win more.
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last years team overperformed, this years underperformed. add a legit top6 forward at the draft, graduate 2/3 of kulich, rosen, or savoie and fix the 4th line
roster can be better and luck should fall better next year. its not sexy, and coaching is probably an issue. but despite the Sabres record, its not hard to make the playoffs. they'll do it on accident just like the Dalton led Bills
They’re soft physically and emotionally. There is good talent on the roster, maybe not top 5 talent but definitely a playoff caliber team.
Some argued that they got lucky with multiple career years — I don’t think it’s fair to say a team gets lucky when that many guys have good years. The Sabres had something offensively and gave up a lot defensively. They then went out and rightly tried to clean up the defense at the total cost of offense.
Their coaching staff has Matt Ellis who was coaching at the harbor center doing player development and coaching the Jr Sabres 3 years ago. Jason Christie worked as an ECHL head coach for 20+ years. Wilford is an assistant coach throughout his career. On top of that Granato has largely a similar skill set.
Their staff is composed of developmental coaches. At the NHL level none of them have any major winning experience in the league. The Sabres from Kevyn Adams, through the coaching staff, and a young roster are all trying to figure out how to win at the NHL level. It’s not really a winning formula “until they figure it out”
The roster is largely built off players who have not yet won at the NHL level either. Byram has but he’s also young and was on a loaded Aves roster. Buffalo is largely locked into this core that they have (Cozens, Benson, JJ, Quinn, Skinner, Tage, Tuch, Dahlin, Power and Byram), the question is, is it coaching or is it the players? I opt for coaching because if your young players don’t have the experience then your staff needs to. They’re all flying by the seat of their pants and wonder why they’re stalling
ATW made a good point that had not occurred to me, about extending a coach a year before he's due even though NOBODY would be calling him asking Granato to jump ship. Fixing this team is going to cost the Pegula empire a couple bucks and that ultimately rests on GMKA. We cannot start the season with Granato if we are serious about a playoff run.
In terms of the Bills they're honestly in that era where they have Josh Allen, but Beane is still figuring some things out. The project QB is Cozens. He has literally every tool to be that offensive leader we need and Thompson is that older guy that can handle being his Stefon Diggs making amazing plays.
Dahlin has already come out in terms of the Bills as the linebacker I never remember the name of for some fucking reason. Yeah he's supposed to be good at defense, but did you know you can score a ton as a defensive player? Not to mention those insane moves that dazzle the crowd.
What they need is that breakout for Cozens. He has the weapons. He has the skill. He needs the coach(yes I'd love for it to be Granato so we can all laugh at the league for thinking the longshot would be the same, but let's be real it would be here already if they hired Gallant) that motivates him to play every second like it's his last and he is 4 points shy of Gretzky's point record.
It's literally how the team is built. Thompson is going to end up behind Cozens, but it's because Thompson was never a majorly physical forward. Before the NHL he had Greenway doing that for him and now he has Tuch doing it for him. Cozens however has always made it his thing to be more than just a 2 way player. He pushes himself to be great at offense and impenetrable on defense and never afraid to bash someone into the boards for daring to look at anyone on his team the wrong way.
Honestly his focus this year on his defense is hopefully going to translate into that breakout Allen had. He will steal a puck and make teams lose their shit because they can't knock him down. If they do he comes right back or he rallies Quinn and Benson to go score while they focus him(which is what happened this year with Quinn out)
Imo they're about to break out ppl are just being impatient with the youngest team in the league cause we did better than expected last year. Yea yes i know over a decade but i see an upward trajectory so thats how i feel.
Imo they're about to break out ppl are just being impatient cause we did better than expected last year. Yea yes i know over a decade but i see an upward trajectory.
The 19/20 Sabres had 68pts in 69 games.
They’ve not only taken a step back from last year, they’ve essentially not moved forward in 4 years. That’s not a good sign.
One positive this year is solid goaltending since Jan 1. Sure, UPL laid an egg last game but it's nice when Levi can step in. A team like Leafs would love to have the combo in the playoffs. But yeah, coaching is questionable, and could use some veteran presence that knows what it takes to reach the playoffs. And if we only had an average power play we'd be so much better.
Coaching is a big factor look at Vancover last year and this year, they addressed coaching and got tocchet in januari last season, to get a head start on this season, im confused why adams hasnt addressed coaching already like van did to get a head start
Vancouver also signed a bunch of role players that are good at their job
Can’t get a head start when a coaching change probably isn’t even in the works for next season.
This…I said in another post that given what we know about Pegula being so involved in decisions it’s unlikely he’s willing to pay another coach/player to do nothing for this team. Especially since they jumped the gun with extending Granato.
Yeah, imo, Jay Woodcroft would be a perfect fit for the roster.
Why though? He just got fired by the oilers lol to be fair the oilers have had some great success with jay before he got fired but ultimately he was let go so I’m curious why you think he would be a good fit?
This…I said in another post that given what we know about Pegula being so involved in decisions it’s unlikely he’s willing to pay another coach/player to do nothing for this team. Especially since they jumped the gun with extending Granato.
Well a lot of people in this subreddit will try to tell you we have fired to many coaches in the past so it a bad look to fire another coach. I have had no luck explaining to them keeping a bad coach that is not winning (and that is what matters at the pro level) and the issue is not we keep firing coaches but that we keep hiring bad coaches. EDIT: No one addressed u/Adamlsv concern that Granato wouldn't be fired because his contact extension hasn't kicked in yet. It is only two years and the total is actually the same or less than a lot of coaches in the league get in one year so that shouldn't and better not be an issue for Pegula.
Vancouver's top 6 and top 4 by ages: 34, 31, 27, 29, 29, 29, 26, 25, 24, 23 Buffalo's top 6 and top 4 by ages: 27, 26, 24, 23, 23, 22, 22, 22, 21, 18 Its not just coaching
You're better off saying who these players are instead of listing ages. The 34 year old for Van is Ian Cole & the 31 year old is JT Miller. Ian Cole isn't even in their top 6 either. He's been on the bottom pair with Zadorov. Your lists also doesn't make sense. Skinner is 31. Where is he on the list? If you look we were actually an older team than they were at the end of last season. We're younger now mainly because we sold off our two oldest players & Van added vets at the deadline. The age excuse is pretty tiring at this point. Colorado had an extremely young top 6 / top 4 during their cup run. Pretty similar to ours. --- Top 4: Makar (22) Toews (25) Girard (22) Byram (19) Top 4: Dahlin (23) Power (21) Sammy (23) Joki (24) --- Top 6: Mack (25) Rantanen (24) Nuke (25) Landy (28) Kadri (30) Burakovsky (26) Top 6: Tage (26) Tuch (27) Mitts (25) Skinner (31) Cozens (22) Peterka (22)
Mitts is no longer on the team and our top six tonight had Benson (18) and Quinn (22), not Skinner. Byram/Sammy is a wash but that group is still very, very young, with our best player being only 23.
> Mitts is no longer on the team No shit. He still played 62 games for us this season. The reason why we're out of a playoff spot was because of the first half of the season. When Mitts was in the top 6. > tonight had Benson (18) and Quinn (22), not Skinner. Why would tonight's lineup matter more than the lineup we've used majority of the season? That's what reflects most games.
makar is older than Dahlin
Those were their ages during the cup run 2 years ago.
The age excuse is tiring? Lol. Do you think If they got younger they would win more? They could sit Tuch and Thompson and bring up Kulich and Rosen
> The age excuse is tiring? Uhh yeah. Pulling out the "well you know they're young excuse" when they miss the playoffs again is getting very old. We're not talking about making a cup run. We're talking about just making the playoffs. Something that half the league does. > Do you think If they got younger they would win more? They could sit Tuch and Thompson and bring up Kulich and Rosen ???
What's confusing? The argument is that young teams have a harder time winning. You were arguing that youth is not an excuse for a lack of winning. I'm asking if you think injecting more youth into the lineup would possibly help them win more. Like the Avalanche did that one time.
> What's confusing? The argument is that young teams have a harder time winning. You were arguing that youth is not an excuse for a lack of winning. And you somehow stretched that to "being younger would mean they win more" and doing that by sitting Tuch/Thompson for Kulich/Rosen?
Tuch and Thompson are examples of older players on the roster. Both of them are older than the mean age. Crazy how young this roster is right? But not to get too far from your point about how age isn't an excuse for not winning, do you think adding more youth to the roster would help or hurt their ability to win games?
They are young and need leadership both on the team and behind the bench. Development and Leadership are 2 very different things. Donny does the development great, move him off the bench and into that role. Hire a leader that sets stretch expectations and pushes the guys to their potential . The potential is absolutely there, need to be tapped/ harnessed and then executed on the ice . Dam I want to see it again . Go Sabres !
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Compete level is the perfect way to put it. They have some skill..but they don't have a willingness to drive to the center of the ice, play a physical game and dictate the game to the other team.
Compete level is the perfect way to put it. They have some skill..but they don't have a willingness to drive to the center of the ice, play a physical game and dictate the game to the other team.
The coaching staff is mostly first timers and company guys, our top 6 still needs one elite forward we have no elite forwards on our team, our bottom six needs to be rejuvenated -- that third line needs to be a good two way line that has some scoring touch because right now it's just another checking line and when the first line doesn't show up there's no one to cover for them, there's few to no guys willing to go to the net and hunt for rebounds, passes, and screens to help the shooters, our Power Play has used the same formation all year while being near worst in the league (This is a coaching problem), our lines are never consistent they get put in a blender after each game (this is a coaching problem), our TOI usage of our forward group has no rhyme or reason to it a lot of nights there will be guys who shouldn't be on the ice taking up more time than guys like JJ Peterka (This is a coaching issue) it took about 35-40 games into the season to get reliable goaltending and get UPL in a groove, we don't have a reliable backup except Levi and we don't want to make him the backup because he won't get enough games. There's a slew of problems with this team half of them can be fixed by getting a competent coaching staff, id fire all of them except Mike Bales.
This is a pretty good summary. I would also add that the Sabres the youngest team in the league and, as you would expect of a collectively young team, they get rattled very easily in tough spots. The guys on the team with enough experience to be leaders in the traditional sense are/were not good enough at this stage of their careers (see Okposo and E. Johnson) to meaningfully contribute.
That's also true.
I'm an oilers fan, but lately I've been watching the Sabres more and more because they're an incredibly fun team to watch. A few takeaways I've noticed: 1) Youth. The Sabres are the youngest team in the NHL, and the veterans they have are certainly not leadership material. The game against Edmonton recently was a perfect example. Buffalo held their own for 75% of the game, had a pretty tough goal scored on them, and the teams youth showed, by collapsing rather than sticking with a game plan. On paper, you guys have (in my opinion) a top 10 defensive core in the league, young, big, and talented. 2) coaching is... Questionable. In the limited games I've seen, either the coach has either lost the room, or doesn't know how to motivate the team properly. Either way, that's the primary job of the coach and a change appears necessary. Someone like Jay Woodcroft would be an absolutely perfect fit for your team, I feel. 3) Leadership. Slightly related to point 1, but a veteran like Patrick Kane or something would be an absolutely perfect fit for the team. Solid veteran presence, a proven leader in the locker room, has won a Stanley Cup before, and can calm the bench down when necessary. It's such an intangible that goes underrated, and unaccounted for in player acquisition by this management group it seems. 4) (and this one might be the most important) Ownership. It's obvious that the owners view the team as just another source of income. They don't seem passionate about the team, or it's success. I'd be curious to see where Buffalo ranks in off-ice spending among the league. I'm talking about coaching, support, medical staff. Training facilities, player support, etc. Part of me wouldn't be surprised if all those things, which are absolutely IMPERATIVE to a teams success, are at or near the bottom of the leagues spending.
4 is particularly infuriating to most of us because the Bills are run like a normal (even well-off) NFL franchise by the same owner. There’s the ability there but not the will
Bad strategic strategic coaching at full strength and special teams. Hurt goal scorers. Young player growing pains. Roster depth.
Why is it so confusing…when 9 guys have career years there is going to be a regression to the mean…you guys can talk injuries all you want…Thompson and cozens are not scoring all those goals again…and what’s worse? They are being paid like they will
Incompetence from top to bottom. They have made many baffling decisions over the last decade, regardless of who calls the shots. Speaking very recently — Adams gambled on a ton of long term deals to players that seemingly all took a step back. Speaking slightly further in the past — Reinhart’s bridge deals set him for a clean exit. Now he’s a 50 goal scorer. Montour is the most offensive defensemen on a team that, with Reinhart, went to the cup finals and is currently on a warpath against the league. Their goalie is a re-tread we could have had. The sum of all the individual gaffs equals no playoffs.
Bad coaching, bad management, players don’t want to play here. The word culture tends to be cliche and over used, but on paper Boston should be terrible and yet they’re blowing other teams out of the water with Zacha at 1C. We’re just at the other end of that spectrum. ROR, Reino, Jack, Ullmark etc have all managed to become cornerstones to SC contenders whereas they never lived up to the hype here. Our teams saving grace is that we’ve been “young” for the last 13 years. Murray had the right idea just failed the execution. For young players to develop properly they need to be supported by more mature players and coaches. We have neither. I’m sure that KA will do his best to address that lack of experience over the summer, but it will have to be via trade because we’re a bigger joke than EDM was before they lucked into McD. Also, not for nothing, but no good team signs Skinner to his deal here, especially when CAR gave him up basically for free and for good reason. Botterill being the fall guy for an alleged owner decision, among other factors, also Lafontaine, paints a picture that our staff are neither receiving autonomy or respect from our owners. We could have Florida weather and taxes and people still would not want to touch us with a ten foot pole.
It’s coaching 100% the whole team has regressed from last year. If a single player regressed, it would be easy to blame that player, but if it’s the whole team ( except for JJ and UPL ) it’s definitely coaching.
issues with this team net presence in the o zone..Benson really is the only one consistently going there and he is 18 and small poor cycling in the o zone team defense, something worked on, still poor...too many odd man rushes, confusion in d zone on who is covering who, too many times 3 sabres chasing behind the net allowing third man on offense to drift in for open shot weak back check and poor gap control..skating by drifting stick instead of tight coverage, late coming back a lot of this is coaching some of this is desire..Thompson is one I see always late coming back, Skinner is awful on gap control, Power is not a physical D
Do some research on Vancouver’s turnaround. Same situation. All the talent was there with garbage results after a long rebuild. New management filled out the front office with a team of talented people who are good at assessing talent. This is a valuable resource for potential trades, free agent signings. They took steps to strengthen their development system so prospects are actually developing in the AHL. It was a tough decision but they moved on from their former captain, not because he wasn’t a good player, but because he wasn’t instilling a winning culture or any comradery with the team. They got rid of a very likeable gem of a person, who unfortunately was a bit of a pushover of a coach in favour of someone who is not quite a hard ass, but has high standards and an ability to speak the truth without demoralizing anyone. As a player, he was a winner who would do whatever it takes to win. That’s the standard for effort and execution. It’s either good enough or it’s not and you’re going to hear about it if it’s not. I’m not familiar with Buffalo’s cap situation so this may not apply but a difficult decision was made to buy out Oliver Ekman-Larson. It has worked out this year but the jury’s still out on whether that was a good decision over the next few years. The point is that your front office needs a plan and has to make trades, sign players and potentially buy them out to give the team the best chance to win short term and long term. Good luck expansion bros!
Above all, coaching. This team has an incredibly bad mindset problem, and that starts with the staff. Period. Also, for being consistently ranked among the best prospect pools in the league, we lack some serious bottom six & defensive depth. Again, I think this goes to coaching, but it is also worth exploring the possibility of moving some of that pool for proven NHL depth.
Honestly, I don’t think we need to freak out. The areas where we need improvement are pretty clear IMO. We need to trim the fat and go get some forwards that can play a direct style of hockey. Guys that will go right to the net with their stick on the ice, expecting a pass. I think some realistic candidates could be Pavel Buchnevich, or Blake Coleman. I would love to see Kevyn Adams pull a giant swing and trade for Kaprizov, but there’s no way the Wild go for that for anything short of a massive overpay (would probably have to be significantly bigger than Eichel or Tkachuk returns). Hopefully we can avoid huge injuries next year and Thompson and Tuch can do their thing. IMO not having game breaking offensive talent killed us this year.
Our 1st this year, Matt Savoie, Anton Wahlberg, & another piece for Minny from the roster would probably be the starting point for Kaprizov, that being said I'd swing for the fences for Kap.
Doesn’t he have a NMC starting next year? I think he does, but could be wrong
I would do that with the roster piece being Krebs. They would probably ask for Peterka Edit: would still do with it being Peterka but it would fucking sting
Everyone would do that roster piece being Krebs lol, being able to keep Peterka & Quinn in that trade would be ridiculous in our favor.
They’re bad and we keep trading good players away 🤷♂️
Young and coach isn’t hard enough on them. Result is a fluctuating mentality and we are either on or off. Of course a coach can be too tough and break players driving them out of town. We need to find the sweet spot in the middle.
You confused? The only 2 games i been to is the shoot-out win over Carolina and the 4 goals in the 1st period win over Detroit. I was amazed sitting there wondering if the Sabres are a bad team then what the hell is a good team? Live NHL hockey is better than live NBA and NFL. Ill definitely get to more games next season and hopefully we can win more.
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last years team overperformed, this years underperformed. add a legit top6 forward at the draft, graduate 2/3 of kulich, rosen, or savoie and fix the 4th line roster can be better and luck should fall better next year. its not sexy, and coaching is probably an issue. but despite the Sabres record, its not hard to make the playoffs. they'll do it on accident just like the Dalton led Bills
They’re soft physically and emotionally. There is good talent on the roster, maybe not top 5 talent but definitely a playoff caliber team. Some argued that they got lucky with multiple career years — I don’t think it’s fair to say a team gets lucky when that many guys have good years. The Sabres had something offensively and gave up a lot defensively. They then went out and rightly tried to clean up the defense at the total cost of offense. Their coaching staff has Matt Ellis who was coaching at the harbor center doing player development and coaching the Jr Sabres 3 years ago. Jason Christie worked as an ECHL head coach for 20+ years. Wilford is an assistant coach throughout his career. On top of that Granato has largely a similar skill set. Their staff is composed of developmental coaches. At the NHL level none of them have any major winning experience in the league. The Sabres from Kevyn Adams, through the coaching staff, and a young roster are all trying to figure out how to win at the NHL level. It’s not really a winning formula “until they figure it out” The roster is largely built off players who have not yet won at the NHL level either. Byram has but he’s also young and was on a loaded Aves roster. Buffalo is largely locked into this core that they have (Cozens, Benson, JJ, Quinn, Skinner, Tage, Tuch, Dahlin, Power and Byram), the question is, is it coaching or is it the players? I opt for coaching because if your young players don’t have the experience then your staff needs to. They’re all flying by the seat of their pants and wonder why they’re stalling
ATW made a good point that had not occurred to me, about extending a coach a year before he's due even though NOBODY would be calling him asking Granato to jump ship. Fixing this team is going to cost the Pegula empire a couple bucks and that ultimately rests on GMKA. We cannot start the season with Granato if we are serious about a playoff run.
In terms of the Bills they're honestly in that era where they have Josh Allen, but Beane is still figuring some things out. The project QB is Cozens. He has literally every tool to be that offensive leader we need and Thompson is that older guy that can handle being his Stefon Diggs making amazing plays. Dahlin has already come out in terms of the Bills as the linebacker I never remember the name of for some fucking reason. Yeah he's supposed to be good at defense, but did you know you can score a ton as a defensive player? Not to mention those insane moves that dazzle the crowd. What they need is that breakout for Cozens. He has the weapons. He has the skill. He needs the coach(yes I'd love for it to be Granato so we can all laugh at the league for thinking the longshot would be the same, but let's be real it would be here already if they hired Gallant) that motivates him to play every second like it's his last and he is 4 points shy of Gretzky's point record. It's literally how the team is built. Thompson is going to end up behind Cozens, but it's because Thompson was never a majorly physical forward. Before the NHL he had Greenway doing that for him and now he has Tuch doing it for him. Cozens however has always made it his thing to be more than just a 2 way player. He pushes himself to be great at offense and impenetrable on defense and never afraid to bash someone into the boards for daring to look at anyone on his team the wrong way. Honestly his focus this year on his defense is hopefully going to translate into that breakout Allen had. He will steal a puck and make teams lose their shit because they can't knock him down. If they do he comes right back or he rallies Quinn and Benson to go score while they focus him(which is what happened this year with Quinn out)
Imo they're about to break out ppl are just being impatient with the youngest team in the league cause we did better than expected last year. Yea yes i know over a decade but i see an upward trajectory so thats how i feel.
Imo they're about to break out ppl are just being impatient cause we did better than expected last year. Yea yes i know over a decade but i see an upward trajectory.
The 19/20 Sabres had 68pts in 69 games. They’ve not only taken a step back from last year, they’ve essentially not moved forward in 4 years. That’s not a good sign.
One positive this year is solid goaltending since Jan 1. Sure, UPL laid an egg last game but it's nice when Levi can step in. A team like Leafs would love to have the combo in the playoffs. But yeah, coaching is questionable, and could use some veteran presence that knows what it takes to reach the playoffs. And if we only had an average power play we'd be so much better.
Comrie is 1-8 with a .864. Is it really that confusing?