The Reality of our Head Coaching Situation

[Porous Five Hole]

We all love Lindy.  He’s a WNY treasure.  But it might be time to put down Old Yeller. He’s lost his fastball.

-His defensive structure is either too hard for a young team to play or just doesn’t work. 

-His special teams are bad. The PP was bad in his last stop as well.

-His high flying NJ offense has not shown up here.  

-Papa Ruff has had no visible advantage to the psyche of this hockey club. 

-When I say he lost his fastball, what I mean is no one is having a career year. Not one. You would expect to see SOMEBODY in a position to have more success relative to last year. It has been long enough and it is just not there for anybody.

 

Not everything is his fault.  

-He didn’t ask for the youngest team in hockey.

-He did not ask for one of the least physical teams in hockey.

-He was not given the opportunity to bring in his own set of assistants.

-His roster mix is still flawed and still fragile.

None of that is on Lindy. And no one survives Father Time…but he’s lost his fastball. 
 

He will not be fired, but he could decide/be coaxed that his heart isn’t on the bench any longer. His deal with Buffalo is only a two year deal (both years being paid by NJ). Perhaps he’s ushered upstairs or into retirement when GMKA gets fired on April 18th, 2025.

The playoff goal is out of reach for 24-25…But what is in reach is a full toilet flushing of coach and GM—and we need that to happen.  

[Ogelthorpe]

1 minute ago, Porous Five Hole said:

We all love Lindy.  He’s a WNY treasure.  But it might be time to put down Old Yeller. He’s lost his fastball.

-His defensive structure is either too hard for a young team to play or just doesn’t work. 

-His special teams are bad. The PP was bad in his last stop as well.

-His high flying NJ offense has not shown up here.  

-Papa Ruff has had no visible advantage to the psyche of this hockey club. 

-When I say he lost his fastball, what I mean is no one is having a career year. Not one. You would expect to see SOMEBODY in a position to have more success relative to last year. It has been long enough and it is just not there for anybody.

 

Not everything is his fault.  

-He didn’t ask for the youngest team in hockey.

-He did not ask for one of the least physical teams in hockey.

-He was not given the opportunity to bring in his own set of assistants.

-His roster mix is still flawed and still fragile.

None of that is on Lindy. And no one survives Father Time…but he’s lost his fastball. 
 

He will not be fired, but he could decide/be coaxed that his heart isn’t on the bench any longer. His deal with Buffalo is only a two year deal (both years being paid by NJ). Perhaps he’s ushered upstairs or into retirement when GMKA gets fired on April 18th, 2025.

The playoff goal is out of reach for 24-25…But what is in reach is a full toilet flushing of coach and GM—and we need that to happen.  

Appert runs the PP

[Porous Five Hole]

Just now, Ogelthorpe said:

Appert runs the PP

If you think the head coach doesn’t sign off on PP structure (or is ultimately responsible), I don’t know what to tell you. 

[Pimlach]

Now provide the Reality of our General Manager.  

[Porous Five Hole]

Just now, Pimlach said:

Now provide the Reality of our General Manager.  

Too much pain to put myself through it lol

He’s a dead man walking and everybody knows it. 

[SDS]

Just weird. Maybe this team is just highish on potential and low on actual talent. 

[Porous Five Hole]

Sample expected goals chart from last night.  Pretty ugly for a desperate team (who was also gifted a two goal lead). Like, come on we are in game 30 with nearly a rookie goalie.  

[Ogelthorpe]

3 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:

If you think the head coach doesn’t sign off on PP structure (or is ultimately responsible), I don’t know what to tell you. 

And if you think assistant coaches don't matter I don't know what to tell. This entire staff could be fired and not one will be rehired by any NHL team

[Porous Five Hole]

1 minute ago, SDS said:

Just weird. Maybe this team is just highish on potential and low on actual talent. 

Yes. Marek said the other day that every forward is playing one line higher than they should be. 
I would edit that to say every forward is playing one line higher than they deserve to play.  

Just now, Ogelthorpe said:

And if you think assistant coaches don't matter I don't know what to tell. This entire staff could be fired and not one will be rehired by any NHL team

We agree here. 

[LabattBlue]

I really don’t know what the answer is anymore…and as the years go by, I care less and less. 

[Dreams Burn Down]

Just now, SDS said:

Just weird. Maybe this team is just highish on potential and low on actual talent. 

As the season has progressed, this has slowly (too slowly I admit) dawned on me.  That said, a ten game losing streak in the middle of a likely 14-year playoff drought should leave noone safe in the eyes of the owner.  Going to MTL, TP should not be simply delivering tea and crumpets.

[JoeSchmoe]

Where are we if Cozens and Quinn play like everyone expected them to? 

[EM88]

8 hours ago, Pimlach said:

Now provide the Reality of our General Manager.  

The owner is top of my list.

Edited Monday at 05:17 PM by EM88

[EM88]

8 hours ago, Porous Five Hole said:

We all love Lindy.  He’s a WNY treasure.  But it might be time to put down Old Yeller. He’s lost his fastball.

-His defensive structure is either too hard for a young team to play or just doesn’t work. 

-His special teams are bad. The PP was bad in his last stop as well.

-His high flying NJ offense has not shown up here.  

-Papa Ruff has had no visible advantage to the psyche of this hockey club. 

-When I say he lost his fastball, what I mean is no one is having a career year. Not one.

Tage is playing at a 50+ goal, +13 plus/minus pace. Shooting 18.8%.  I'm pretty sure that not only matches his 'career' year, but beats it in those metrics. Beats last year, beats 3 years ago, beats 4 years ago, etc.

Edited Monday at 05:25 PM by EM88

[Thorner]

They are ALWAYS high on potential and low on overall talent. And the potential doesn’t “arrive” into the prioritized future as well as planned, ever, because we too thoroughly neglect the present. You can’t *have* future success without establishing success first, now. If that is true of any franchise ever it’s this one: we are totally poisoned from the top, down by being enveloped by painfully low-to-non-existent expectations for too many years.

Winning isn’t part of the culture here: players don’t buy into it. We necessarily need vets baptized in other, winning based cultures. It literally doesn’t matter how much hypothetical winning we can envision for the future by projecting out our young talent, the “let there be light” moment is realizing the literal only thing that matters is making the playoffs right away. Sell-out to do it. 

Edited Monday at 05:25 PM by Thorner

[EM88]

8 hours ago, JoeSchmoe said:

Where are we if Cozens and Quinn play like everyone expected them to? 

Cozens is now playing close to like I expected him to.

He is on pace for 15 goal, 35-40 points with being terrible on the powerplay and Penalty killing and bad defensively.

I expected him to score about 20 goals and have 45-50 points, as well as being terrible on the powerplay and penalty killing and bad defensively.

That is not too much of a difference. The issue with Dylan Cozens is most people, apparently the Sabres organization itself, seems to overlook him being bad on the Powerplay, bad on the penalty kill, and being bad defensively. Those things are not new, that is who he is and that is why, despite his draft pedigree, he is just not a good player overall.

At this point I do not think there is any 'saving him'.  Even if he scores 25-30 it will not help the team all that much if he doesn't improve his all around game. He has shown few signs of that happening, or a willingness or effort to do so in my eyes.

 

 

Edited Monday at 05:27 PM by EM88

[tom webster]

People keep bringing up the power play. It’s a thing throughout the league. Toronto is loaded with offensive talent and half their talk shows center around their terrible power play.

[EM88]

8 hours ago, tom webster said:

People keep bringing up the power play. It’s a thing throughout the league. Toronto is loaded with offensive talent and half their talk shows center around their terrible power play.

I tend to agree.

The power play is a function of a few things. One of them is random chance.  Take a look on a busy night in the NHL at all the powerplay goals. Sometime nearly half of them are on funny bounces of the boards, unplanned deflections, or getting knocked in around a scrum.

The rest of the powerplay lies more in how the defending team plays defense than your own offensive structure.  The key to that may be do you do enough, or do you have the players on the ice, that will encourage the defending unit to break structure?  To do that I think you need accurate passers who have a good hockey awareness, who can pass and move the puck quickly at times without losing control of it. The Sabres do not seem to have those type of players, or at least they are not playing that way right now.

Other than that, have accurate shooters on the net and guys with hockey sense.  Don't shoot the puck into the shinpads of the defender just because the crowd is yelling SHOOT!  Or do not cut to the center of the ice and take a shot without regard to where your teammates are just because you have that 0.5 second to get off the shot yourself.   This one is the reason they need to get Cozens off the Powerplay. There are some powerplays where if you isolate on him, he does things that seemingly single-handedly sink the Sabres powerplay.

[SDS]

23 minutes ago, Thorner said:

They are ALWAYS high on potential and low on overall talent. And the potential doesn’t “arrive” into the prioritized future as well as planned, ever, because we too thoroughly neglect the present. You can’t *have* future success without establishing success first, now. If that is true of any franchise ever it’s this one: we are totally poisoned from the top, down by being enveloped by painfully low-to-non-existent expectations for too many years.

Winning isn’t part of the culture here: players don’t buy into it. We necessarily need vets baptized in other, winning based cultures. It literally doesn’t matter how much hypothetical winning we can envision for the future by projecting out our young talent, the “let there be light” moment is realizing the literal only thing that matters is making the playoffs right away. Sell-out to do it. 

That’s why saying the coach doesn’t have it anymore because he can’t get low talent players to play way above their talent level is just not good.

The players on the ice right now are most likely not good enough. After everything we’ve done for the past how many years, we would have hoped a first line would have emerged. It has, but those players play for other teams now. 

[Porous Five Hole]

29 minutes ago, EM88 said:

Tage is playing at a 50+ goal, +13 plus/minus pace. Shooting 18.8%.  I'm pretty sure that not only matches his 'career' year, but beats it in those metrics. Beats last year, beats 3 years ago, beats 4 years ago, etc.

You’re right production wise. Tage is an offensive unicorn.  I just don’t think Ruff has unlocked a better Tage than we’ve seen before.  I should have set Tage aside when I made my post.  

[Thorner]

7 minutes ago, SDS said:

That’s why saying the coach doesn’t have it anymore because he can’t get low talent players to play way above their talent level is just not good.

The players on the ice right now are most likely not good enough. After everything we’ve done for the past how many years, we would have hoped a first line would have emerged. It has, but those players play for other teams now. 

They are too young and not representative of enough $ being spent. These are extremely documented negatives to winning 

it’s not on Indy at all 

heck it’s not even on Lindy 

Edited Monday at 05:56 PM by Thorner

[Porous Five Hole]

5 minutes ago, SDS said:

That’s why saying the coach doesn’t have it anymore because he can’t get low talent players to play way above their talent level is just not good.

The players on the ice right now are most likely not good enough. After everything we’ve done for the past how many years, we would have hoped a first line would have emerged. It has, but those players play for other teams now. 

Isn’t it incumbent on the coach to play a system that his team can be as successful as possible? The Sabres are 29th overall in the league.  I cannot quantify where they should be, but I do not believe they’re the 29th most talented team.  They’ve got top ten picks all over the place. 

Just now, Thorner said:

They are too young and not representative of enough $ being spent. These are extremely documented negatives to winning 

it’s not on Indy at all 

Not on him at all? We agree the team is flawed and not good enough. That’s on the GM. But what positive difference has Lindy made on these guys? We should be able to see something by now.  

[bob_sauve28]

59 minutes ago, Ogelthorpe said:

Appert runs the PP

Who is the genius that decided Krebs is a good idea on the pp? I mean, in what universe does that make any sense? 

That's on Ruff, and it just really defies logic

[GASabresIUFAN]

It’s not the coach, it’s the roster.   No coach could win with this defense group.  

Edited Monday at 06:15 PM by GASabresIUFAN

[HumanSlinky39]

Interim head coach Matty Ellis.