dudacek

Agreed. A lot of teams, I think most, will release an assistant from his contract to pursue a promotion. So if it’s Peca it would be for the “coach in waiting” role @Brawndo referenced them looking at and probably an associate coach title. Judging by Sabrespace he meets all the right qualifications: you know, warrior, former Sabre 😁 i have no problem with using my top players on the PK. I want the best PKers to play the PK. Marchand and Bergeron killed for years and the same is true for many other 1st-liners. Injuries happen in all facets of the game.

I think it’s kinda interesting that career winning percentage is being used as a mark against Lindy. Here are 10 of his peers: Darryl Sutter .498 Pat Burns .492 Pat Quinn .489 Jacques Lemaire .489 Lindy Ruff .487 Al Arbour .487 Mike Keenan .485 John Torterella .480 Dick Irvin .477 Paul Maurice .470 And for fun: Punch Imlach .452

I find the "Bring back the same roster" thing usually comes with arbitrary rules around what that means. Knowing what those ground rules helps me understand the conversation. It looks like you want to frame it around how many new players will we add this summer who aren't here today. Which is fine, but it doesn't reflect "bring back the entire failed roster" because that roster included Mittelstadt, Okposo, Johnson, Girgensons, Jost, Olofsson, Robinson and Comrie, who all spent at least half the season on that roster. Byram — who was not a significant part of the failed roster — effectively replaced Johnson, but the rest of them still need to be replaced. Rousek and other prospects may take some of their slots, but there are clearly more spots open to add bodies from outside the organization than your ??? would lead one to believe.

Not sure I'm going to enjoy everyone this hire is pulling out of the woodwork, but we sure missed your takes around here.

So longevity means nothing? Being good over a long haul means nothing? You’ll take Mogilny’s 1 70-goal season over Rico’s 8 30-goal seasons every time? Yep, you can accuse @lgr’s post profile as being intense or even black-and-white, but it is always informed. Unrelentingly negative ain’t his thing.

How should we define that? 25 players were on the roster for at least half the season. Mittelstadt, Johnson and Okposo were regulars from this year’s rosters who won’t be back. Girgensons, Jost, Olofsson, Robinson and Comrie are unsigned free agents who may not be. 8 of 25 constitutes roughly 1/3 of the failed roster. Is that a fair over/under? Does a player have to be high on the roster to count? A core player? Do prospects becoming regulars count? Do the deadline moves count?

To be clear fans judge coaches by two things: wins versus expectations; and demeanour. We know ***** about how they game plan or lead people because we rarely get to see them do either. At least this time we know we got someone who cares.

It may have been the part that confirmed it for me.

Go rewatch Adams’ presser and tell me that this wasn’t Plan A from before he fired Donnie. He knew who he wanted and he went out and got him. If there were other interviews they were of the courtesy kind. Yes, it was Lindy or @Doohickie. My god, this stuff is so tired and so tiring. Well, if we were looking for the kiss of death…

This isn't a hire for the hardcore fans like us. It's a hire for the next level on the pyramid of Buffalo hockey fans. Not the guy I would have picked, but if I'm honest with myself his resume probably ticks a lot of boxes if his name wasn't Lindy Ruff and this wasn't the Buffalo Sabres. I suspect he's going to flame out spectacularly. But I'm going to go with the way @Thorny is reacting because if I squint really hard I can kinda see it, and giving the latest move a chance is just the way I roll. Now where's my Scotch?

Better player than this year showed. Bad fit with this team. He's an NHL player in the right situation, incredible success story for his draft pedigree and he carried himself well his entire career. Time to move on was a year ago. Wishing him luck.

Even a broken clock....

I worry about Benson’s shot in the bumper. He’s got the rest of the package though. Quinn is very good at the right half wall. But he’s too good at too many things to bury on PP2. IMO he’s got the best PP tools on the team outside Dahlin and Tage. I think we’re in agreement that there is PP talent on the roster that deserves its shot given the failures of Granato’s chosen 5.

It’s clearly a one-note song: let Ras play catch until we get it to Tage for a shot. Its no wonder it stinks. Is that coaching, too much deference, or not enough ability/willingness to try other things? There is no doubt in my mind that Quinn would add someone who would both want the puck, and be able to do things with it. He was a PP monster in Rochester.

I think Quinn can play either low spot and I am with you 100% on this. JJP would be the guy at look at next on left high spot after Byram. He’s more dangerous from distance, but I think Byram might bring more of the distribution/playmaking.

The guy on the left half-wall needs to be able to pass to both sides, have a dangerous shot from distance, and have the ability to drive the net. I say that’s Byram. The guy in the bumper slot needs to be able to find cracks in traffic, be fearless and aggressive in tight, have quick hands and a fast accurate release, and some passing ability. Quinn? And I wonder if Benson has enough retrieval and entry skills to replace Tuch as the low man?

I’m going to go against the grain on the bold a bit. I’m not really disagreeing, just changing that to “develop another threat so it opens up Tage’s shot more often”. When teams started cheating to Tage, the response was to move him, or the puck, around in a way to get it to him in a different place. Which basically resulted in even more time wasted moving it around to set up his covered shot. The response should be to take advantage of the 4-on-3 the Tage cheat creates, and make them pay. That in turn will free up Tage again. I want him shooting. It’s a huge weapon. But locking in on him as your target is counter-productive to making that happen.

Agreed. Down low, and they also move the puck to and through the bumper to finish from the slot. Skinner can do neither of those things, and he is a huge risk when the rotation moves him up high. If the team does nothing else, please get him off the PP. I know he was second on the team with 8 PP goals. That’s not enough for a guy in that spot who comes up short in so many other areas.

If the object is to win next season, any dude we bring in has to be at least as good as Levi if we are pencilling in for 25-30 games. Winning, not Levi’s development takes precedence.

Team’s single biggest downfall last year in my opinion and we need a thread to talk about why and how to fix it. I’d like to start with something that doesn’t get talked about enough. And it really fits with the notion of accountability. Skinner, Tuch and Cozens had just 12, 11 and 10 points respectively on the power play. The latter 2 had just 2 PP goals each. Skinner and Cozens killed plays repeatedly by coughing up pucks or making poor passes. We bitched about getting to the net. Tuch and Skinner were the low guys Despite that, these 3 kept getting skated out there time and again despite their ineffectiveness, finishing 4th, 2nd and 5th on the team in PP ice time. Sure other guys got tastes, but they were brief, and usually one at a time. Maybe it wasn’t just the system at fault here? Im really looking forward to someone looking at how to set this unit up with some fresh eyes.

Canucks were a disorganized, low-morale team with a handful of high-end pieces who went from 83 points to 109. They did it by: adding a good puck-moving defenceman for their 2nd-line centre replacing their player-friendly coach with an old-school structure guy turning over the bottom half of their roster for harder-to-play-against types I mean their success has lot to do with their best guys having career years, but the Sabres have those kind of players too. Make it happen.

If he doesn’t get better he will be. 😁 So you’d be shopping one or more of Tuch, Power, Tage, Skinner or Cozensto the highest bidder as “part of the problem?”

Far, far closer isn’t how I would describe it. And one could suggest the difference was Kane himself. One good thing about this season is that I’ve grown to hate Detroit. Previously they’ve never even felt like a division rival.

I’m kinda like you, in that I don’t know for sure, but I always thought expected goals was similar to the high-danger concept and was largely based on where the chance was coming from. I appreciate the effort put into fancystats and respect their worth. My peeve would be the devaluation of actual goals for and against that accompanies some of their use. Because those are the stats that matter most.

Donnie remains classy to the end. https://theathletic.com/5430238/2024/04/19/don-granato-sabres-coach-fired/ “Nothing surprises you,” Granato told The Athletic by phone Friday. “The situation and the expectations rose to a level that something had to give. The media, the fan base, the pressure that is on that locker room, the team, the organization, something’s got to give. This is what happens. Obviously, there’s frustration, but I don’t have anything to complain about. I really don’t. I could have done things slightly different. You can change some things and can’t change others.” He added, “I have to ground my memory in that I was given this opportunity by Kevyn and the Pegulas. It’s an opportunity I had been waiting for for a long time. And honestly, I have no regrets and no blame for anyone else. There are always dynamics at work in situations and you cannot fight them all at once, let alone think you can win them all.” He talked about the difficulty in transitioning from the guy who built this group up and then turning the switch to a different message. It was not anything we haven't been speculating about on here since he took over. "“I can punish you all day long, which everybody says hold accountable. But the real question is, ‘Are you accountable?’ Do you need to be punished or are you an accountable person? … So if I made the next coach’s job easier, I’m happy for that. Because I love these guys as people and players and I want to see them be successful.” “Unfortunately I created a bit of my own mess because you had to get these guys to believe in their ability,” Granato said. Granato grappled with all of the questions you would expect. How hard do you push a guy before you’re demoralizing him? How do you keep players from tuning you out? How many guys can you make an example of before you run out of players to bump up the lineup? “When you have more experience and more skill, you’re going to have more accountability in your organization,” Granato said. “When people know someone else can replace them, you have automatic accountability. That’s why skill development is so important.” And finally: “This is a tough, tough business and this is an extremely tough time in Sabres history because you’re at a threshold of doing something and getting past a barrier that’s been there for years,” Granato said. “I’m grateful,” Granato said. “I leave this and know I’m better. To be in this pressure, to elevate in this pressure and develop all of these relationships. There’s no question I’m better by working through all of this and that excites me.” The next Sabres coach will inherit a 13-season playoff drought, the longest in league history. But these Sabres are also coming off 91 and 84-point seasons. Those are the two best seasons this franchise has had since Lindy Ruff got fired. That those seasons disappointed Sabres fans shows Granato how far they moved the expectations from when he took over. “It cost me my job, but I’m proud of that,” Granato said.