The Reality of our Head Coaching Situation

[Archie Lee]

On 12/17/2024 at 10:29 AM, jad1 said:

After the Calgary game, The Athletic posted a stat that I think is one of the KPIs that will indicate how successful Ruff will be as Sabres coach.

The stat was that the Sabres had the highest shooting percentage on rebounds in the League.  However they were 23rd in the league in rebound shots taken.

Listening to Ruff's press conferences, I think he is aware of this and is working on motivating the team to go to the net more.

It's proving to be a task with the current group of players, who are Leino-esque in their love for playing on the perimeter. 

Changing this mindset will help the team improve, but it's a stubborn problem that will probably take 40-60 games to fix.

This is more a reflection of overall roster construction than it is of the shortcomings of individual players. No team has 14 forwards and 8 d-man who eagerly go to the opposition crease or enthusiastically clear their own. We have too few such players. 

[jad1]

10 minutes ago, Archie Lee said:

This is more a reflection of overall roster construction than it is of the shortcomings of individual players. No team has 14 forwards and 8 d-man who eagerly go to the opposition crease or enthusiastically clear their own. We have too few such players. 

Agree that you either aquire players like that, or you take on the difficult, uphill task of coaching them to play that way.

Ruff is taking on that task now, aided by assistants who spent the last four years doing nothing to instill the mindset in the players to go to the net.  

The odds are low that Ruff can reset the instinct and ingrained behavior of this current roster, but if he can do it, it will take much more than just 30 games.

[PerreaultForever]

7 hours ago, jad1 said:

Agree that you either aquire players like that, or you take on the difficult, uphill task of coaching them to play that way.

Ruff is taking on that task now, aided by assistants who spent the last four years doing nothing to instill the mindset in the players to go to the net.  

The odds are low that Ruff can reset the instinct and ingrained behavior of this current roster, but if he can do it, it will take much more than just 30 games.

I disagree. 30 games should be more than enough. Fact is they were doing it better 20 games ago and have regressed. I like Ruff, I think he knows what needs to be done, but it's clear the message isn't getting through (again) and he isn't getting the job done. 

Can anyone get the job done with this situation? Unlikely. Certainly not Appert, who would just be Granato V2. 

[JP51]

On 12/16/2024 at 12:05 PM, Pimlach said:

Now provide the Reality of our General Manager.  

Well, walking around my back yard today I stepped in it... had to hose off my sneakers... dam treads... gets all stuck in there... best reality I can give you. 

[Archie Lee]

17 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I disagree. 30 games should be more than enough. Fact is they were doing it better 20 games ago and have regressed. I like Ruff, I think he knows what needs to be done, but it's clear the message isn't getting through (again) and he isn't getting the job done. 

Can anyone get the job done with this situation? Unlikely. Certainly not Appert, who would just be Granato V2. 

I'm not saying Granato did the most amazing job or anything.  But he definitely got the team to over-achieve slightly in 21-22 and by quite a bit in 22-23.  Last year, the Sabres finished about where the models projected them to finish (83-56 points) based on talent and experience.  This year we are grossly underachieving.  We don't have a playoff roster, but we should not be a sub-70 point team and a legit contender for the 1st O/A pick, either. There is more to this than Ruff to be sure. I really do think that it has now fully sunk in for the core players on this team that they are not good enough on their own and they are not getting any help from ownership or management. 

Ruff isn't a great coach though, in my view.  There are reasons for why he has never been high on the list as an option for contending teams.  We would not have been worse off with Granato, in hindsight.  I would prefer Todd Nelson; there is recent precedent for poaching another organization's AHL coach mid-season.

Edited Friday at 06:35 PM by Archie Lee

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, Archie Lee said:

I'm not saying Granato did the most amazing job or anything.  But he definitely got the team to over-achieve slightly in 21-22 and by quite a bit in 22-23.  Last year, the Sabres finished about where the models projected them to finish (83-56 points) based on talent and experience.  This year we are grossly underachieving.  We don't have a playoff roster, but we should not be a sub-70 point team and a legit contender for the 1st O/A pick, either. There is more to this than Ruff to be sure. I really do think that it has now fully sunk in for the core players on this team that they are not good enough on their own and they are not getting any help from ownership or management. 

Ruff isn't a great coach though, in my view.  There are reasons for why he has never been high on the list as an option for contending teams.  We would not have been worse off with Granato, in hindsight.  I would prefer Todd Nelson; there is recent precedent for poaching another organization's AHL coach mid-season.

Can't agree with your Granato assessment. The one point out season is a bit of a myth. We went under the radar, faced a myriad of back up goalies and caught a lot of teams napping. A lot of luck and things went right for a bit. Granato had them playing loose and free offensively and they enjoyed that, but they learned a lot of bad habits in that and he might just have ruined a few of them as a result. 

There's a long list of reasons why we suck. No point in going over it again here. Ruff's structure and system is correct, but for whatever reason these players are either not willing to do it or are incapable of doing it and so it's just not going to work, period. 

The old adage is changing the coach is easier than changing the roster but in this case we need to change everything. 

[steveoat87]

They have been drafting too many offensively minded defensemen -- no-one who could strike fear into an opponent.  They have been drafting the equivalent of nice pass rushers, who don't sense blood when they get near the quarterback.  The Sabres are the type of team that would have drafted Sam Darnaud over Josh Allen.  Until this mindset changes, I don't see much hope from our draft picks.

[LGR4GM]

7 minutes ago, steveoat87 said:

They have been drafting too many offensively minded defensemen -- no-one who could strike fear into an opponent.  They have been drafting the equivalent of nice pass rushers, who don't sense blood when they get near the quarterback.  The Sabres are the type of team that would have drafted Sam Darnaud over Josh Allen.  Until this mindset changes, I don't see much hope from our draft picks.

Want you to go look at every defender drafted since we got Power and then get back to me. 

[MISabresFan]

On 12/16/2024 at 12:02 PM, 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.  

If that is the case - why would he take the job?  No coach that is worth a poop, would be such a push over to allow the above to happen before you even sit behind the bench.

[Pimlach]

On 12/19/2024 at 11:18 AM, Porous Five Hole said:

https://buffalonews.com/sports/professional/nhl/sabres/lindy-ruff-buffalo-sabres-slump-nhl/article_0bbdf6b6-bd62-11ef-b4d4-b706877a278f.html
 

“Lindy Ruff bears some responsibility for Sabres sinking to bottom”

O course he does, but might I remind you that I was told by a current NHL coach with real insight, to "feel sorry" for whatever coach replaces Granato. 

My take is that he meant the Sabre-kids have not had NHL coaching.   The fact that most all of the Sabre-kids are struggling, and the vets are not, could indicate that there is a problem with the way they are being developed.  

 

 

[zow2]

I didn’t love the Lindy re-hire but was definitely ready to give him a chance.  It feels over though.  He’s clearly not doing a good job getting these under-achievers prepared to play and he’s not making the right in game strategic changes. Maybe the guys are just tuning him out by now. I don’t know.  Feels like the team should make a coaching change. it’s not working.

[JohninMinn.]

Tage and UPL are coach killers.

[Archie Lee]

5 hours ago, Pimlach said:

O course he does, but might I remind you that I was told by a current NHL coach with real insight, to "feel sorry" for whatever coach replaces Granato. 

My take is that he meant the Sabre-kids have not had NHL coaching.   The fact that most all of the Sabre-kids are struggling, and the vets are not, could indicate that there is a problem with the way they are being developed.  

 

 

I don't know.  It could it be that our kids are struggling in large part because they are surrounded by too many other kids?  Pluck a random 23 and under kid from our roster and put him on Dallas or Florida or Vegas or Washington and I suspect they are not struggling to the same degree?  Maybe some, but not all.

I'm not about to argue that Granato should have been kept, but it hard for me to square the circle that he was so bad as a coach that over the last two years combined he got this team to within 1 win of DeLuca .500, while Ruff is so good but can't coach the bad habits out of them.

In defense of Ruff.  This year's team is actually constructed worse. 

Not directed at you at all, but somewhere between July and today, we went from Ruff's fingerprints being all over the roster changes to this being all on Adams. It is mostly on Adams (and Pegula) to be sure, but clearly Ruff is not the coach who is going to positively reshape our culture.

[zow2]

I wrote this on a different thread but it belongs here.

Any other franchise would’ve fired the coach by now. It’s like benching the goalie when you’re down 4-0 in the first. It may not be entirely the goalies fault, but you pull him anyway in the hopes of changing momentum.  That’s what the Sabres need to do with coach.  

[Skooby]

On 12/16/2024 at 12:07 PM, SDS said:

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

Name an uncoached talent that exceeds potential.