What Happened to the Sabres' North/South Game

[JoeSchmoe]

That's what made us so successful last year. Had we anything close to serviceable goaltending (i.e. Anderson level), we're in the playoffs... Maybe winning a round if get the right matchup (i.e. against a slower team).

Why isn't the team doing this this year. I could count on one hand the number of times Cozens has sped the puck through the neutral zone. Tuch maybe a bit more, but every game last year he was so dynamic.

You think Granato has coached this out of them in favour of a more defensive focus, or do you think they just want it less this year?

Edited December 4, 2023 by JoeSchmoe

[North Buffalo]

It went West???

[JoeSchmoe]

A pet peeve of mine is you play north-south you get a bunch of 2 on 2 opportunities. Sure, 2 on 2 is tough to score on... and the typical move this year is to wait for more teammates to also gain the zone to improve chances. Problem is, the other team also comes back, and now you're trying to score 5 on 5.

When are you putting more pucks in nets... 2 on 2 or 5 on 5?!?!

Play North - South... create what you can... take some chances... and the goals will eventually come.

[K-9]

Reading the title, I thought you were referring to the old North South Shrine game in college football. 

[SwampD]

This is a great question.

There is no way it’s coaching.

I think it’s youth that has lost its swagger and is second guessing every play. 

[JoeSchmoe]

10 minutes ago, K-9 said:

Reading the title, I thought you were referring to the old North South Shrine game in college football. 

Fixed the title

[Claude Balls]

It went East/West.....hence all the cross ice passes. 

[TheAud]

1 hour ago, SwampD said:

This is a great question.

There is no way it’s coaching.

I think it’s youth that has lost its swagger and is second guessing every play. 

I believe that one aspect of coaching is to re-instill this in the players. 

[Berg]

GM, coaching, goaltending, lazy people 

[GoPuckYourself]

A head coach that holds nobody accountable should never be a head coach, it just never works imo. How can you get the best out of someone when they know there will be no reprecussions afterwards? Dylan Cozens stated in an interview that the locker room doesn't get mad and that to me says it all, when your coach coddles you every step of the way this is the kind of product you put on the ice. 

[xzy89c1]

Some thoughts:

We are mostly a perimeter team. Thompson is one of the guys that goes hard to net with and without puck.

Dylan has taken a huge step back this year. Let him play center with consistent wingers.

Tuch has taken a step back. He is now a floater like Skinner.

One big issue right now is our defense zone. Our forwards take off far too early leaving the dman in bad spots. puck is thrown up boards and wings are already gone or are in bad position. 

We are constantly caught on the wrong side of players positionally in our zone leading to goals. That is coaching and accountability

Dressing 7 dman shows the bad coaching. Other teams do this so a PP specialist can dress and not have to take regular shift. Then they double shift the best forwards to give extra ice time. We do not have PP specialist and the only forward worth extra ice time is Thompson. Playing mittlestad, Skinner and Tuch over 20 minutes a game is crazy. none of them are good enough to warrant that. 

We are a soft team. Easy to play against. No snarl. No pushback. For what Vancouver gave up getting zadorov, i wish we would have. He is not the sharpest knife in drawer, but he plays hard and is difficult to play against.

Any team that plays Okposo 15 minutes a night including on PP, will not make the playoffs.

I wish we had a coach like Torterella....

[PromoTheRobot]

My guess is they haven't figured out how to play defense while still scoring. So now they can't do either.

[mjd1001]

12 hours ago, SwampD said:

This is a great question.

There is no way it’s coaching.

I think it’s youth that has lost its swagger and is second guessing every play. 

I can see that. But the question is is it really gone or different?

They're scoring is down. Their quality chances are down also, but remember this is a team that was getting outshot and out chanced in many games last year also.

The difference this year? Thompson. He had 13 goals in December last year and I think he was in the teens going into December. So by the end of December he was closing in on 30 goals. He's hurt right now sure but he has six. That's a big difference.

Cousin's also. Over 30 goals last year and many were expecting him to repeat it or maybe improve on it but he's at what? 4?

Skinner and Tuch are producing like they were last year. VO and Peterka have basically exchanged production levels but they're about the same also only slightly behind. 

So really, it's not the whole team to me, most of the drop in production, and the drop in quality chances, is due to Thompson's slow start and now injury, and Cozens... Whatever is wrong with him.

To me, that's not a change in coaching or coaching's problem. That is mostly Thompson and Cozens.

[Marvin]

32 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

My guess is they haven't figured out how to play defense while still scoring. So now they can't do either.

This is what I think.

[triumph_communes]

They are apprehensive and get feasted on for it. Coaching is confusing players, exactly what they didn’t do last season. But now that defense needs to improve they don’t know how. 
 

plus all the assistant coaching is terrible and isn’t helping. 
 

run them all out 

[pi2000]

They're trying to play a more defensively responsible game..... it backfires in the first 10-min, then they say ***** it and go back to high risk fire wagon hockey.

The up tempo north/south style is entertaining, but it's not sustainable for an entire season.... it's too demanding physically to maintain over 82 games.

The NHL season is a marathon, not a series of 40 yard sprints.

Granata is failing miserably at integrating a defensively responsible system which doesn't suffocate their goal scorers.

[Jorcus]

On 12/4/2023 at 10:31 AM, mjd1001 said:

I can see that. But the question is is it really gone or different?

They're scoring is down. Their quality chances are down also, but remember this is a team that was getting outshot and out chanced in many games last year also.

The difference this year? Thompson. He had 13 goals in December last year and I think he was in the teens going into December. So by the end of December he was closing in on 30 goals. He's hurt right now sure but he has six. That's a big difference.

Cousin's also. Over 30 goals last year and many were expecting him to repeat it or maybe improve on it but he's at what? 4?

Skinner and Tuch are producing like they were last year. VO and Peterka have basically exchanged production levels but they're about the same also only slightly behind. 

So really, it's not the whole team to me, most of the drop in production, and the drop in quality chances, is due to Thompson's slow start and now injury, and Cozens... Whatever is wrong with him.

To me, that's not a change in coaching or coaching's problem. That is mostly Thompson and Cozens.

I agree but part of what caused the problem with the scoring was how the lines were set up to start the season. I generally like Granato but I think he made some errors to start the season and then the injuries piled onto the other issues. The problem to start the year was what to do with Benson? What could he handle and should he even be here. Instead of just having him replace Quinn on the left wing of Cozens and Peterka, they tried to protect him buy having him play with Tuch and Thompson Or Casey. in various combinations. It left Cozens on the wing and that is just not working out. I like that line the way it is right now and once Cozens starts finding his shot things should get better. 

The other issue that contributed to this problem was having Thompson play the penalty kill to start the season. Sure he helped it but I don't see a lot of other number 1 centers around the NHL on the 1st line PK. It sucks up time you could be used 5 on 5 or the power play and you often get hit with pucks. I hope that experiment died with Thompsons injury. 

I do eventually see the scoring coming back around for this team. I do think barring further injuries I assume the lines would start to resemble what they did last year. Depending on how things work out. Tuch-Thompson-Skinner, Benson-Cozens-Peterka, Quinn-Mittelstadt-Olofsson. Take your pick for line 4. Benson and Quinn could be interchangeable depending on things are going. I know people are going to freak out seeing Olofsson play with Mittlestadt again but he has played at lot more defense then ever before this year. The upside is you would be back to 3 lines if playing well that can score. 

 

[WhenWillItEnd66]

It just went deep south and kept on going..... and going and going....