Archie Lee

I understand this sentiment. But Bowman and Ruff had many stretches as coaches of the Sabres where their anger and outrage and efforts to light fires got them nothing. It's just not that simple.

It's hard to know what the issues are. - Do we have enough talent and experience to realistically compete for a playoff spot? If not, then it would be shameful to fire Granato. He has done a great job developing some of our young players. Last year's run wasn't nothing. It would be short-sighted to fire him if there is no reasonable hope for his replacement to do substantively better with current roster construction. He is, by all accounts, as good a man as you could have coaching young men. Or - Is the coaching just not good enough? I think of how often Eichel would race back on the back-check only to end-up over-pursuing or taking the wrong man, allowing the opposition an easy goal. Cozens, right now, reminds me of this. Eichel, I understand, is pretty good at defending. Coaching unquestionably plays a role. Are we icing a team that has too many players who are incapable of functioning on the roster of a playoff calibre team? Or are the coaches just not capable of putting the players in position to get themselves to the next level? Is it one of those things, or is it both? Maybe we are last year's Canucks? They had 92 points in 21-22, thought they were something they weren't, and Tochett was brought in and seems to have fixed the culture. It's a small sample, but the players there seem fine with the ornery Tochett as their coach. Winning will do that. Dean Evason says he's ready to go. The next 5 games are critical. We have 4 at home against Nash, Det, Mtl and Arizona with a trip to Boston sandwiched in between. I'm a believer that the long season means that a team's identity and performance can significantly change mid-campaign. A team can have 40 points at the 40 game mark and rattle of an 8-1-1 stretch and go from being on an 82 point pace to a 93 point pace in a hurry (93 currently gets you in). But we can't fall further behind than we currently are. Cozens is right. This team needs a little FU in it's game. We need to see that starting tonight. I have no idea what my point is.

OHL? Here’s 10: Ryan Ellis, Dougie Hamilton, Mark Scheifle, Ryan Strome, Slater Koekerk, Darnell Nurse, Michael Dal Colle, Dylan Strome, Tyler Boucher, Brandt Clarke. That’s just the OHL. Savoie will be fine. If he turns out to be the Slater Koekerk or Micheal Dal Colle of the 2022 draft, it won’t be because he played his 19 yr old season in the WHL.

I agree with this. Nothing against Kulich or Rosen, but this team could use a couple of Hinostoza and Lazar equivalents at the moment.

A statement/phrase that I read often related to the Sabres is: "If they don't dress (insert player name), the Sabres are not a serious franchise" or "If (insert player name) doesn't play, the Sabres are not a serious franchise". Typically this phrase is used when there is question about whether a young player (Benson, R. Johnson) might sit for a veteran who is not playing as well. Last night was the first time I teetered a bit in the direction of at least asking: are we a serious franchise? Though it was because of all the young players we dressed. If you take the five rookies that dressed and replace them with healthy versions of Thompson, Quinn, Greenway, Jokiharju and UPL, the Sabres still might be the youngest team in the league. I am not blaming our rookies, as individuals or as a group, for what happened last night. In hindsight, though, it was a far from surprising outcome when you consider we took the youngest line-up in the league and made it younger and less experienced. I can't get myself to blame the coach for this. Granato has clearly made this team far better than they were when he took over. He deserves credit for moving us to a point where we can actually be disappointed in the start to the season. I think if he does not get this season turned around, then it is very possible that he will be replaced in the off-season and the next step in the process will be hiring an experienced head coach with a playoff track-record. It's unfortunate though, that we don't have the experience or depth that is needed to say with a straight-face, this should be a playoff team. Last night's line-up was not the line-up of an NHL playoff team. Again, I can't blame the coach for that.

Re: goaltending, I think it is time to send Levi down. If UPL and Comrie can maintain their levels of play with an increased workload, we are a better team just from removing Levi from the equation (for now; I’m not down on Levi’s future). The one point I don’t really agree with is the notion that our 3 goalies can’t be expected to stay sharp in this rotation. Most of us would have agreed at the start of the season that any of our 3 goalies (and particularly Comrie and UPL) would at this point in their NHL careers, be best suited to being a back-up to a true 1A. That would mean playing about every 3rd game. NHL back-up goalies are expected to be sharp and play well, relative to their talent level, when they are called upon. I don’t think we should expect any of our 3 goalies to suffer from their current playing time. Indeed, my bigger worry is that we don’t have one who is ready to sustain a larger workload.

I understand how you feel. It is not likely there are anything more than minor roster moves coming. The season is long.

Ok. Thursday morning. Sun came up (or, I assume it will). Beat Pittsburgh Friday and we have 20points in 20 games. Improve a bit and get 22-23 points in games 21-40. Get Thompson and Quinn back, sort out the goaltending and get 24-25 points in games 41-60. Make a meaningful deadline trade (dare to dream) and get 26-27 points in games 61-80. Go into the final 2 games with 93-95 points and grab a wildcard. The negative is we are not where we want to be. The positive is that we just had a decent road trip after a bad two games against Pit/Bos. In the light of day there are positives to build on.

I feel a little bit like this tonight. It was close to being a near perfect road game. But, they just couldn't get the one last play they needed to seal the win, whether that be a 4th goal, a big defensive play or a save. So much of that does seem to relate to experience. I'm not making excuses. It seems the best we can hope for is that they hang in there until New Year's, don't fall too far behind, get Thompson and Quinn back, maybe sort out who the #1 goalie is by then, and then get on a role in the 2nd half. 😬

The average over the past 8 full seasons is 3.75, which is 23%. Those still seem like long odds, but keep in mind that every year there are a number of teams that are pretty much considered locks to make the playoffs before the season starts. The Sabres, if they are going to be in the race, are going to be in competition with Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, NYI, Ottawa and Detroit for a WC spot. Regardless, we will need to get on a run at some point.

There were 3 teams that did it last year: Florida, Minnesota and Edmonton. I have not looked it up beyond last year, but just saw a post elsewhere that there have been 30 teams that did it in the last 8 full NHL seasons.

It was an unintentional omission on my part, but I don’t see how the word “fully” changes the context. Are you saying he can partially develop in Junior but not “fully”? My view is that he can fully develop going back to junior for another year (I’m not predicting he will or won’t, I’m only stating that he can). The evidence for this is a long list of NHL stars who played their 19 yr old season in Junior. There is not a single player you can point to who went back to junior for their 19 year old season who then failed to develop, “fully” or otherwise, specifically because they went back to junior.

You did say that “he can only develop playing stronger competition which he won’t in the WHL”. This is just wrong. If your opinion is that the best place for his development at this time is the AHL then that is fair, though subjective. There is zero evidence that a player like Savoie will have his development stunted by another year of Junior hockey.

I respect your view. It would be more supportable if you provided a list of players who failed to fully develop specifically because they returned to junior for their 19 year old season. Savoie can, and most likely will, spend significant time in Rochester after this season.

Did I miss something on this? Was this mentioned in an article or commentary somewhere?

Not every game will be like that. Remember, Savoie had such a slow start last year that he did not get an invite to Team Canada’s World Jr tryout in Dec. Also, in the WHL final last year his team lost 4-1 and he had only 2 assists in the 5 games. He will play at the World Juniors this year. He will get another year going through the grind of a long season with lots of travel. He will get a chance to learn how to sustain production through a long playoff run. He will get another year of being a team’s top player and leader, getting top PP and PK time. There is so much that he can learn playing Jr hockey. Bedard wasn’t too good for the WHL last year. Savoie is not too good for Jr. hockey.

We will get a glimpse of this team's psyche on Sunday. The Blackhawks are not a good team. They play today in Nashville. The Sabres should be well-rested. MoneyPuck's simulator has the Sabres winning last night's game nearly 70% of the time. They did play a good road game against a good team. They had a couple defensive lapses, one terrible goal against (a once a season kind of goal), and they were at times too fancy on offence. In a lot of ways, last night was an encouraging game. In the context of a good team having a good season, last night would be the sort of game where you conclude you just need to clean up a couple things and keep doing what you are doing. Unfortunately, we are not currently a good team having a good season. In the context of a disappointing start for a team with high expectations, overlaid on a record-long playoff drought, last night just seems like another sign that they are never going to get it right. The Sabres should take positives from last night. They should fix a few problem areas, go into Chicago and win going away, and then build on these two games.

I wouldn’t go this far. It’s hard for me to understand though how the penalty for what Benson did should be both a 2 min penalty and getting punched in the head 2-3 times. Either police these with the refs calling a penalty or with frontier justice. But if Benson gets a penalty for a love tap on their goalie then there had to be a penalty to someone on the Jets for the group retribution.

It’s a valid concern. If it were easy to coach up a D-structure the way coaches such as Montgomery and Cassidy do, then every coach would do it. When Bylsma was our coach, they tried to play a sound defensive game. They always seemed to look passive though. Yet, there is nothing passive about playing good defence.

There is nothing about structurally sound defensive hockey that equates to playing without pace or intensity. Perhaps these are growing pains as we learn we can do both.

Ha, ha.

There is a narrative that Olofsson scores 3rd period goals in 5-1 games. I have no evidence to support this isn't true, but I've yet to see a post from anyone that includes supporting evidence either. Olofsson can be streaky player. He had 9 points in the first 8 games of 21-22, before getting injured. Last year there was a 12 game stretch in January where he scored 10 goals and added an assist. The record shows that there were many close games in those stretches. We are offensively challenged at the present. Olofsson looks like he might be getting into gear. We might be wise to lean in to him rather than away from him, over the next couple of weeks.

The good news is that UPL and Comrie have been objectively good so far this year. I'm not down on Levi at all, but lost in the less than exciting start for him and the team is that our other goalies have been good. Hopefully Comrie is healthy soon and he and UPL continue to play well.

We are going to find out what Granato and this group of players are made of. I realize that something that happened almost exactly 30 years ago has questionable relevance. But, the current scenario reminds me of November 1993. The Sabres were coming off of a year where they were a high-scoring and exciting team. In 92-93 they finished 2 games above .500. As exciting as that team was and as much as we fans generally adore many of the players from that era, they finished 15th out of 24 teams; they likely miss the playoffs in a modern day 32 team league and MayDay never happens. Lafontaine and Fuhr are injured early in the 93-94 season. Mogilny, also due to injury, is not quite the same as the prior year. In late November 1993, two things happen. 1.) Overnight the Sabres change their style of play to a more conservative defensive game. 2.). Hasek I’m near certain we don’t have a Hasek. But Granato has said for two years that defence is easier to coach than offence. Here we are. Our best offensive player is injured (maybe our two best if Tuch is also out long-term). The goalie we were relying on is maybe not quite ready. We are headed out on the road. Time to see if we can adjust how we play and if a player or two will step up and play at an all star level.

I just don't recall it happening in-season. I understand that if you have an assistant coach or AHL coach under contract and they get an opportunity in the off-season to interview for a job that represents a promotion, that it is bad form to block them from that opportunity. I've just never seen a guy leave a position with one organization for such an opportunity in the middle of the season. Usually when an NHL head coach is on the hot seat and people are talking about who might replace him if he is fired, the discussion swirls around the veteran guys who currently aren't working (Gallant, Boudreau, etc.), or the assistants on the NHL team, or the head coach of the NHL team's minor league affiliate. I have no issue with it; it kind of opens up the options for mid-season head coaching changes.