mjd1001

If you can explain to me how a new coach is going to fix the PP, Fix tage and Cozens scoring, and get the forwards to play better in their own zone, then sure. Otherwise, no..no change for the sake of change.

I understand not wanting Power to get paid early....but Power got paid early and his play isn't that great this year....Dahlin DIDN'T get paid early and his play is worse this year, especially lately. How are those related and what point are you trying to make, I don't get the correlation you are trying to make between those 2 things?

Right now the difference between this years team (and expectations for the most part) and last years team is Thompson, Cozens, and Tuch. Its not D and Goaltending. They are BETTER this year, on pace to allow 15-16 less goals this year than last. Can it and should it be better? Sure, but that is not the problem compared to last year. Offense. 3rd in the league last year, bottom 10 this year. 296 goals last, year, on pace for 239 this year. So, if the goals allowed is BETTER...well, they are 26 goals off their pace from last year. They are scoring almost 7/10s of a goal game less this year than last. So where are those 26 goals missing? -Cozens had 12 goals last year on Jan 1...this year..6 There are 6 of your goals. (1 less on the PP) -Tuch had 17 this time last year, this year he as 9 There are 8 more. (4 less on the PP) -Tage had 27 this time last year, this year 10. 17 more (10 less on the PP) There are 31 goals you are missing from last year. Skinner is right on pace from last year. Peterka is giving you more than last year, basically picking up VO's goal production from last year. Mitts is on target too. Dahlin is on pace for less points for for more goals. Almost everyone is on pace for, or doing better than last year in terms of scoring (swapping Peterk and VO), AND the team is allowing less goals per game...with the exception of those 3 guys (Cozens, Tuch, and Thompson) Can coaching be better? Sure. Do you want more from Power? Yep. Do the forward not know how to play defense in their own zone? uh huh. Do the goaltender have bad nights? Sure do.....BUT, if you had Cozens, Tage and Tuch giving you what they did last year (or even CLOSE to it) most would look good with this team. 31 goals less from those 3 guys. Change nothing esle and you are now a +10 on goal differential for the year so far. That makes you the 5th best team in the conference. Thompson. Tuch. Cozens. Fix them and this is a playoff team. They don't need to do BETTER than last year....probably not even the same...but close 60-70% of the gap between what they did last year and what they are doing this year...and you are likely in a playoffs spot now...or at least competing very closely for one. Its not just missing Grit, its not coaching (although maybe coaching the PP is a large part for the downfall in those guys). Its those guys taking a big step back in production.

I overall think Dahlin is the best player on this team. I think last year he should have gotten more Norris consideration and might have been a top 20 player in the entire league last year. HOWEVER, I agree with you as far as this year. He started out 'good' but not as good as last year. The past 2 weeks his play has taken a considerably drop. Frustration? and Injury? Who knows, but all year he has been a step behind last year's play,and the last 2 weeks he's taken another 2 steps back.

Last night is the first time this entire season that as soon as they got done a goal, I was done. I had time to watch the game, I started to watch it, but once they were losing, oh well time to find something else. No one else in the house is up yet this morning except for me so I just might watch the highlights now or the condensed game.

The more I think about it, the more I think its not JUST the HC, or JUST the scouting dept, or the Minor league staff in Rochester, or JUST the GM...but it is top to bottom, everything in this organization is bad. And if you just make one change, the leftovers from the previous regime infect everything else. If a change is going to be made, EVERYTHING needs to change. I'm not sure there is enough evidence for my next point, but I'll throw it out there anyway. When players leave Buffalo and are good enough to stick with another team (Eichel, Reinhart, even Sheary and Rodriguez), it seems that it takes them almost a full season to excel with their team. Its almost like, if they spent TOO much time in Buffalo, they learned bad habits, were taught to play the full game the wrong way...and it takes some time when they get to a new organization to actually start playing the way a well rounded player actually plays.

I'm thinking more like a conditional 7th or 'future considerations'. He isn't bringing anything to the Sabres now, and any move would be a favor to him to get him someplace different where he might play.

Its hard for most people to do that, look at this forum. When things don't go the way we want, we all come up with ideas of the moves we would make, some of them pretty drastic. Until many/most owners see proof they are making it worse, they are going to want to 'fix their own toy that they paid for'.

Edited your list slightly, that my version of it. 1 and 2 lead to the PP woes.

I have. done it probably close to 100 times over the past year where I posted during the gameday threads. Point by point, while watching the replays AND sometimes I even added screenshots to the thread. Its been done. Your welcome. Your argument is the opposite. I'll be waiting for threads where you post and comment on replays where they make stellar plays that take away chance after chance in their own end. I've done my part to prove my point.

I never thought of this but yeah, makes sense. The PK doesn't practice against a good PP so its not that good, and the PP doesn't practice against a discipline PK so its not that good, and as you said they feed on each other.

So I agree that the PP needs to be coached differently, and I certainly am not an NHL coach. But how hard should it be to not be THIS bad. Look at the teams that are successful, watch video, break it down. What do they do that you aren't doing? What do they do to 'set up' goals consistently that you aren't doing? Copy it, emulate it. Its not as if half of the league has talent that you simply don't. Dahlin has to be near the top of the league in pure talent of D-men entering the zone and controlling the back end. Skinner has to be one of the better players with footwork and hands near the net. VO and Thompson have got to both be in the top 30 in terms of one timers from the sides, and Thompson is deadly in the slot with his hands and reach and shot. Mitts is very good at controlling the puck along the boards and making a good pass from there. Quinn, Peterka and Tuch are kinda a PP jack of all trades...they may not be as good as any of the above players at one thing, but all are decent at any of them. Its not a lack of pure talent on this team, as you said it has to be coaching. Fix it.

You along with a few others get it. Are the D-men great? No they aren't great, but when you watch the goals allowed, look 5-10 seconds before the goals are allowed, and watch the play develop, the D-men on this team aren't as bad as they look, the forwards, many times the younger guys, are AWFUL. They chase the puck when they shouldn't, leaving opposing players uncovered or areas of the ice wide open for opposing players to step into (Cozens, looking at you mostly here). They hang around the blue line instead of taking guys in the slot or the faceoff circles, and do the 'stick wave' at them when simply a LITTLE physical contact might disrupt them (Krebs, Peterka, and Benson, YES the Benson that many THINK is a great 2 way player....looking at you pretty hard here). Its the vets also, but the young guys should be learning this now and they aren't. I'm arguing with a few people on this board who want to just slam their narrative down everyone's throat or use their 'fancy stats' to prove a point, but the proof is there. LOOK at the goals or major opportunities this team allows...NHL.com has all the replays. Watch the bad choices the forwards make, even the young guys that are the current favorites, they are bad. They need to get better. When the D-men look bad it is because they have to often cover their own area of the ice and areas of the ice that the forwards should be taking but they aren't. Many of the vets up front aren't better. Mitts, Tage, and Tuch have good moments and bad moments. Skinner seems alergic to going deep into his own zone to help out and instead prefers to slam on the breaks at the blue line before entering his own zone. Okposo for all his 'experience' apparently doesn't have much experience playing well in his own zone, and Cozens often time causes more problems in his own end than someone who 'just exists' there like VO. But the young guys, they should be/should have gotten better instruction in Roch, or shouldn't be on the big club taking in just how bad everyone else is in their own end. I don't know if its a directive from above or the Development coaches/Rochester coaches are just clueless, but that needs to change.

Peterka might be the best of the bunch, but I have posted NUMEROUS times on Sabres goals allowed how he kinda floats in his own end and several times where he does the stick wave at a defender. Benson? Let me use your own logic on Benson...just because saying over and over he is one of the best 2 way players on the team does NOT make it true, despite it fitting your argument. Is he better than some rookies, yes, but again, go back and look at goals scored against this team, in his own end he has a LOT to learn, lots of times I posted about replays of goals allowed where he floated, where he had a chance to pick up the goal scorer or the guy with the primary assist that he didn't. Again, hes not the BEST example, but he certainly could be/would be a lot better with more experience and, like a LOT Of guys, if they received proper defensive zone training in their own end, would be a lot more of an asset to this team. The replays are there. Go watch about 20 goals the Sabres allow...you will see mistakes made all over the place that many other teams don't make as much, and a lot of that could/would be fixed with better coaching/more experience with better coaching.

Dahlin was FANTASTIC his rookie year? Hard, super hard disagree on that. We must have a different definition of the word Fantastic. Of course he was going to play here, but that doesn't mean he was a major asset to the team at that time. Just as you say, the Sabres aren't rushing players to the NHL, No matter how much we want that narrative to be true... I say they HAVE played other players in the NHL when they're not fully ready.... No matter how much you don't want that narrative to be true. Part of the problem with this team though is that young guys are playing and not responsible Defensively. Power is not good enough to be playing 25 minutes some nights, neither Sameulson. As I mentioned, Krebs was not ready at all to be playing in the NHL. Some of the other young guys are decent, what's not kid ourselves into thinking they are "good". Quinn, Peterka, Benson, might be good enough to play in the NHL if needed, but if this team had some above average veterans that will be willing to sign here, they might be better off than playing all three of them last year or this year. They're not 30 goal scorers yet, and there are plenty of times in their own end where they're out of position or waving their sticks at the eventual goal scorers. It's not a coincidence that this team makes a lot of mistakes, is unbelievably inconsistent night to night, allows goals where the opposing team walks into wide open spots in the slot or primary scoring positions , and they're the youngest team in the NHL. With more development, good coaching while developed at a lower level... Or probably both, that doesn't happen as much. Personally, I'm forgiving young players a shot and not bringing in veterans. But I also understand when you do that it might take years of development for those young guys. Maybe the Sabres do it out of necessity, they can't get prime free agents to sign here or even agree to trades here. So they're forced to play the young guys. But sometimes bringing in a veteran or two who is average-to-above average might be better than being the youngest team in the league seemingly year after year.

I don't know what can change that will make this team good right now. I like what Granatohas done, and I really like him as a coach and I'm sick of changing coaches. I don't want him gone, but at some point.... When are the forwards going to learn to play a full game? They obviously don't. And by the way that starts down in Rochester. If you make a coaching change you got to clean house everywhere. I don't want the top 3-4 guys on defense to change. Dahlin, Power, and Samuelson I think are going to be a great... Not a good, but a great top three that will be able to control games from the back end. BUT... With a couple exceptions defenseman don't hit their prime until their middle till late 20s. Those three might form an elite defensive unit, but it's not going to happen for a few more years. The forwards? For this team to go tage Thompson has to score 40 to 50. He's great, but is he that great where you can rely on him for that? Cozens is likable, he's full of energy, he has talent, but honestly he has been pretty bad this year, he's a train wreck in his own end, he needs to be a lot better. Tuch and Skinner are what they are.... When Tage is going they are good enough wingers to form a great first line, but you need Tage healthy and he has to be on the top of his game. Last year kids line... Maybe when they are back together and fully healthy that gets Cozens going? Mitts... Is he good? Is he going to be here next year? Is he good when he is facing bottom paired defenseman but can you rely on him for more than that? It's frustrating. I really do believe the top three guys on defense can be the core of a very good to great team. But I believe that Power is not playing good right now and I think those three guys need a couple more years to reach their peak. The forwards have to carry this team in the meantime, but there's just too many questions, too many things you can't rely on with them, and they either have to learn or before us to learn how to play in their own end. The main difference between this team this year and last year...it comes down to three things: Tage, Cozens, and the power play. If those two players and the power play in general were performing at the rate that they were last year.... Most of the problems of this team would be gone. Statistically they account for seemingly 90% of the shortcomings. But was last year an anomaly? The power place certainly needs to be better.

Agreed. Power shows flashes of ability so when we see that we put that together with his pedigree and say... "That's it. He's here!" With a couple noticeable exceptions, most defensemen can take three to five years... To their mid-20s sometime, before they turn into the player who they're going to be. Patience. Nobody wants patience but with Power, it's going to take a few more years.

Yes, it is. Cozens his second year here Getting minutes against top lines. Dahlin and Power (before Dahlin started playing good) getting 20 to 25 minutes per game. When they pick a guy....Krebs certainly had no right to be on any NHL roster this early as opposed to a minor league roster for the time that he's been here.... Would have been much better served with a journeyman 28-year-old veteran in his place cuz he simply wasn't ready either .They certainly do throw them in the deep end. You can pick players in Rochester that they haven't done this with... But certainly there are young guys that they play much earlier than other organizations would. Maybe it's bad coaching in Rochester, but most of the young guys, at least the forwards, show up in Buffalo and have no clue. Clue positionally where they should be anywhere outside of the offensive zone. That's what they should be learning in Rochester, playing two times a week and watching film. Not up here Learning on the fly while the big club is trying to win games.

I mentioned this in another thread, but since this one's about him, I'll go into a little more detail of my opinion... Power played well for a rookie last year. But he wasn't as good as many on this board thought. Power is playing worse this year than last year. He's more tentative, he's making more mistakes, and last night I saw a couple of major mistakes he made where he kind of didn't hustle or put the effort into make up for them. It was just like... Oh well! I still think he's going to be good, very good, but it's going to take a couple of years. It usually does with many defensemen. Dahlin, well not playing quite as well as last year is probably still this team's best player but it took him a few years to get to that point and I honestly think Darlene has slightly more talent than Power so it might take power even longer. The way that this team wants to develop their players is to throw them into the deep end of the pool. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Hindsight, it may have been better to bring in that veteran 29-year-old guy to take 20 minutes a game, and have power play 15 to 16 minutes That's not what they decided though..

As far as the top four defenseman... I don't know how you were going to improve them substantially because these are the guys that you want going forward but there's a problem still. Dahlin since the beginning of the year, looks like he's playing a half step behind what he did last year, and the past week or two it's getting worse. It's not that he's not trying, but I think he's so frustrated that he just is.... Again. I don't want to say he doesn't care, but his play has taken another step back in the past couple weeks. Power? I thought he was good last year although overrated by a few people, and I still believe he's going to be very good and it's going to take a couple of years. But this year, there have been some games where I've watched him where he doesn't even look average. He looks bad. You don't want to get rid of him and you want him to develop but a veteran 29-year-old defenseman probably makes this team better taking his spot. At this point I just don't know what you do. You can make change for the sake of change, but is that actually going to make this team considerably better? It's a tough spot.

I don't totally agree with that. He's a 4th liner. He scores decently for a 4th liner. Goals per 60 over the last 2 seasons, he is only .08 behind Mitts, and better than his linemates (Okposo, Krebs, and Jost). Is he putting in 20 a season? No, but when he plays he does score as much as many other 4th liners...but you get the added benefit of him being really the ONLY defensively responsible guy among the forwards on the entire team. He is at .57 goals per 60 this season, and he consistently is near .6 - .65. Thats about what you can expect from a decent 4th liner. And yes, to account for limited ice time and lack of PP usage, goals per 60 is probably the best way to figure out contribution from a 4th liner. Look at the best teams in the league...Boston's 10th-12th forwards average .57 goals per 60. Rangers? .31 goals per 60. Kings? .87 Vancouver? .59. Vegas? .56 Colorado? .34 Toronto? .50 For a 4th line, he is in line...maybe SLIGHTLY better in terms of production than most. Its not his job on that line to put up points..its keep the puck in the offensive zone, bang on the boards, and yes, when you can throw the puck to the net. Even if you look at other Metrics...shooting percentage...in a limited basis he is matching Cozens this season..and over a longer time frame, he is at 9.4% which is equal to or slightly better than most other teams are getting out of their 10th-12th forward. He skates hard, still has speed, is one of your better penalty killers (he isn't out of position much), and he DOES score at an equal to slightly better rate than a typical 4th liner around the league. I'm not sure why so many are in a rush to get rid of him.

I think it isn't just one or two players, its a team wide/organization wide thing: -Okposo...hes a 'vet' but he makes plenty of mistakes in his own zone. Leaves open areas, doesn't know where to go. He never has played for a team in his career that excelled defensively. -Peterka, Benson and Krebs do a lot of 'stick waving' They could engage people more than they do. -Cozens. Probably the worst player at abandoning his man and leaving wide open areas of the ice for opposing players to walk in, just so he chases the puck. I know others love him, but He might be in the bottom 10% of players who know how to play in the defensive zone. -Mitts has gotten better, but he still does a lot of stick waving. Skinner likes to hang around the blue line and not go in too deep to help. Tuch and Thompson have good games and bad games. The only person I rarely see out of position, rarely leaving his side of the ice wide open to chase a puck is Girgensons. But a lot of people want him off this team for whatever reason, even though he might be the single one, the only sound forward on this team in his own end.

Yeah, I put it as much on the players as I do coaching. Actually, the part that is coaching, I don't put so much on Granato (maybe he is a part of it) but on the staff in Rochester. Those guys down there play less games, they have more time to practice and watch film. It should be drilled into their heads over and over and over defensive zone positioning....who to pick up when the puck cycles, to never leave the slot wide open..etc. Coaching, that is an organizational thing that needs to happen in Buffalo but should have been done in Rochester because from what I can tell, the Amerks are pretty bad at it also. And as far as the style, I am 100% happy with them giving up more odd-man rushes in order to get more. This team needs to improve defensively when they are playing 'half court' defense, not worry so much about the fast breaks.

I don't think so... But if they do that, how about the the northern city-based teams never having to play in Miami... Or Tampa... Or Jacksonville... In September or the first two weeks of October?

I'm responding to the fact that you said he was a lot worse after the injury than before...he wans't all that great before the injury. I NEVER said dropping his gloves was beneficial. Again, I just said he was playing bad both before AND after his injury. Its not like he was playing even close to how he was the year before. And how would I respond to that? I really wouldn't, i'm not disagreeing with you on most of your points,