Lemaire Calls it Quits

[SwampD]

Actually I don't really agree....

 

The Devils are really what is wrong with the league IMO.

They are one of the only teams left that still play to tie.

They trap.

They average maybe 20-25 overtime games a year, content with the point.

 

They could have Malkin and Ovechkin on that team, and Lamierello would have them playing for the tie.

 

I actually have long suspected that Lamierello would love to get Drew Stafford. (add another North Dakota player)

 

Roy, Stafford, Pomminstein, Gaustad, Moore, Hecht, Connolly could all play NJ's neutral zone trap......yawn.....just stop forechecking.

 

If anything, it is kind of like a 2-3 zone in basketball.....you can hide people in the zone that have some middling skills.

Zergie Brylin probably couldn't have played anywhere esle all those years. Just my take.

It's a good one.

[...]

This is crap. Any player in the NHL has the skills to play whatever system his coach tells him to play, if he's properly motivated. I find it really funny that you think the Sabres are on this island in terms of the type of players they have. Every player on every team has been playing since they were 2 and they all came through the same system to get there. The players on the Sabres are exactly like every other player on every other team in the NHL. The difference between winning and losing is so slight that it only takes a tiny change to turn things around(like a new coach or one or two players).

 

 

You mean to say a professional athelete needs to be motivated by someone else to play the game?

 

That's bullcocky. Even Miller said that if "we can't motivate ourselves then we should be out of here..."

 

The problem is that the team, as a whole, is not constituted properly to play the "new" defensive-oriented system. In other words, the chemistry is all shot to hell. Putting a team together is alchemy - in 06-07 Reiger lucked out and nearly struck gold; that team had a lot of good chemistry. Well, you remove a few key members, other members "change" (as in their attitude changes from getting the big contract, or their will to compete changes), then you no longer have a team with powerful chemistry.

 

This team, with all of the money thrown around since last summer as "motivation", could not play the NJ style, or ANY style for that matter, because they lack the heart and will to do it. This collection of individuals is not a "Team" - in fact they CLEARLY work against and to the detriment of one-another.

 

The roster needs to be deconstructed and re-constituted with a purpose and identity in mind. Not just thrown together willy-nilly and pushed out onto the ice with the obtuse directive to "get into the playoffs".