Sports are built on competition and entertainment. It would be ideal to have a team that will be entertaining on its way to a victory, but sometimes beauty is sacrificed for wins. In a sport like hockey that has non-stop action up and down the ice, it would seem nearly impossible to have a team that makes the sport boring. But the way the Sabres have played this year has them defying that logic.
It’s one thing to be bad and it’s another to be boring. Both together make the Sabres nearly impossible to watch. It’s only 14 games into the shortened NHL season, but watching the Sabres has already gotten to the point of being a chore.
Buffalo looks like they play at 80 percent of the speed as the NHL. If their plan is to wear teams down and win games, it’s not working. Buffalo has 11 points through a league high 14 games. If they are doing it to play a conservative, defensive, low-scoring game, that’s not working either. Buffalo is 27th in goals allowed per game (3.43).
In my opinion, Buffalo’s worst problem is the power play. I can’t remember a team that has so much trouble getting the puck across the blue line into the offensive zone with the man advantage. Buffalo’s power play ranks 26th at 13.5 percent, and has only one goal in eight road games.
Buffalo’s power-play struggles cost them a goal in Ottawa Tuesday night. Christian Ehrhoff had to retreat deep into the Buffalo zone, made a wild pass into the neutral zone and turned the puck over, which led to the Senators capitalizing on the opportunity.
The Sabres have turned into two different squads: with and without Thomas Vanek. Buffalo has 38 total goals this season and Vanek has a league-high 23 points. If Vanek has a game where he doesn’t have at least two if not three points, the Sabres don’t have a chance at winning.
Lindy Ruff did make a smart move cutting Jochen Hecht’s ice time. But if he lets off another backhanded shot beyond the faceoff circle, he should be cut altogether. I’m all for putting the puck onto the net, but sometimes a weak shot like that can end any offensive pressure.
Ruff sat Tyler Myers for two games and it looked like he responded well after a couple games off. Ruff should think about sitting Drew Stafford next. After 14 games, Stafford has yet to score a goal.
After years of waiting for Stafford to become a legitimate scoring threat, it’s time to pull the plug. Stafford is what he is: a player that will score in bunches and pad his stats in 15 games a year and disappear the other 67. Stafford and linemate Marcus Foligno are tied for the worst plus/minus among Sabres forwards at minus-6.
If Terry Pegula doesn’t realize his team needs a coaching change yet, he isn’t the owner Sabres fans wanted him to be. A change now would still give the team time to resurrect its season. As bad and boring as this team has been through 14 games, they are only three points out of a playoff spot.
There’s no question the players in Buffalo have tuned out Ruff. The rest of the season will be hard to watch if a coaching change doesn’t come soon.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
The Buffalo Sabres began this shortened season with a lot of promise. Yet, after only 10 games in, that promise has again become disappointment. So what are the biggest reasons this team already seems destined to miss the playoffs for a second consecutive year?
Simply put, their defense has been terrible so far and they only have one line scoring. Combine that with the continued struggles of their supposed franchise goalie, and that’s the blueprint to a 3-6-1 start.
But more than anything, this team is begging for change.
Why isn’t Lindy Ruff on the hot seat already? And is Darcy Regier going to, as he always does, idly sit by and watch this team plummet down the standings before he even considers making a move?
Let’s take a look at the four biggest reasons the Sabres look like they’re headed for a last-place finish, and what they need to do to change their fortunes.
Lindy Ruff has been behind the bench for the Buffalo Sabres since 1997. The way the Sabres have been playing so far this season has Buffalo wondering if 2013 will be his final season with the team.
For a coach that’s been with the team for 15 seasons, Ruff hasn’t had the success to warrant that long of a stint. Ruff only has eight playoff appearances in his first 14 seasons. When you consider four of those seasons were from 1998-2001, Ruff’s lack of success stands out even more.
He only has four playoff appearances in the last 10 years and only made it out of the first round twice. The Sabres haven’t won a playoff round since beating the New York Rangers in 2007, yet Ruff is still the head coach.
For a coach that gets criticized for not having enough offense, the Sabres’ problem this year has been on defense. Buffalo ranks 26th in goals per game allowed. With Thomas Vanek playing at an MVP level through nine games, Buffalo is ninth in goals per game offensively. The problem will be when Vanek comes back to earth; the defense will still be faltering.
The Sabres have been soft and undersized for years, but Ruff has been given new talent the last two offseasons and has not turned them into wins. Through free agency, trades, drafts and rookies breaking in, Ruff has been given Ville Leino, Robyn Regehr, Christian Ehrhoff, Cody Hodgson Steve Ott, John Scott, Marcus Foligno and Mikhail Grigorenko. More importantly, they got rid of Tim Connolly and Derek Roy in the process. Yet, Buffalo only has seven points in nine games through 2013.
By the way, Connolly is playing for Toronto’s AHL team.
In defense of Ruff, the longer tenured Sabres are the problems. Tyler Myers, Drew Stafford and Jordan Leopold have been the three main underachieving culprits. They have the three lowest plus/minus ratios on the team: Myers -6, Stafford -7, Leopold -8.
Watching these three play with a lack of enthusiasm isn’t a new concept though. Either Ruff can’t get through to these players or he has players in roles that give them too much responsibility.
Jochen Hecht hasn’t offered much either. He only has one assist and a plus/minus of -3.
I think Myers is just a confidence issue that will be resolved, especially as he plays with Regehr again. Stafford, Leopold and Hecht look like they need a seat on the bench for a while. Their replacements may not be much better, but they can’t be any worse.
As far as Ryan Miller is concerned, we’ve seen Miller play like the best goalie in the world before. He hasn’t been sharp this year, but I think the lack of defense in front of him has been the bigger problem. Miller has had the capability to cover up defensive problems in the past, but not to the point of the defensive problems the Sabres are having this season.
In my opinion, it’s a lot easier to change one coach than it is to swap or fix 10 players. Ruff has not changed his style of coaching and it’s made Sabres games boring and hard to watch. Judging by how quiet the First Niagara Center has been this season, it sounds like Buffalo hasn’t been given a reason to get excited about its hockey team.
General Manager Darcy Regier still has time to make a move to improve his hockey team this year, but it probably won’t be a coaching change.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
It’s no secret that the Buffalo Sabres‘ defense has struggled so far this season.
In the past three games, the team has allowed 14 goals, and very few, if any, can be attributed to Ryan Miller’s play.
So going into tonight’s tilt with the Ottawa Senators, the Sabres need to get their defensive corps straightened out to have a shot to compete in the offensively stout Northeast Division.
So what is the Sabres’ problem?
Realistically, a Lindy Ruff coached team is never expected to be defensively weak. Ruff’s system is defense-first, and teams with far less talent on the blue line than this one have been extremely tough to score on in the past. So what’s different now?
The long and the short of it is the passivity with which the Sabres’ are playing in the defensive, and especially the neutral zone.
For example, take the second and third goals from Sunday’s loss to the Florida Panthers, and break them down. The second goal was a cluster of issues, stemming from a shallow offensive zone turnover by Alex Sulzer. Marcus Foligno made the correct positional play, rotating in for Sulzer and covering the blue line for him, but Sulzer was stripped and the puck was easily chipped by a flat footed Foligno.
The rush was on with Stephen Weiss and Tomas Fleischmann leading and George Parros trailing. Sulzer skated back and engaged Weiss, but Christian Ehrhoff kept retreating back toward Miller, creating a lane for Parros who was free due to Tyler Ennis being low in the Florida zone when Sulzer turned it over. The result: Parros scores.
If Ehrhoff had been more active and had stayed on his feet, taking the passing lane away with positioning, he would have been able to step up on Parros, possibly causing a turnover, or at least forcing him to pass to Fleischmann who was in an innocuous position on the side of the net.
The third goal was extremely similar.
The puck started from just inside the Florida zone, with a pass to to Peter Mueller that he tapped to Drew Shore right around the Sabres-side faceoff dot in the neutral zone. Tyler Myers and Ehrhoff began retreating into the Sabres’ zone immediately upon the pass from Tomas Kopecky to Mueller, and did not engage in the slightest when Drew Shore received the Mueller pass and drove into the zone.
Myers took away the lane to the net, but Shore was able to play a bounce pass of the end boards back to himself, which turned Myers around, allowing Shore to dump a pass across the slot to Mueller who shoveled in the backhand for the goal.
Myers and Ehrhoff simply cannot give the Panthers‘ transition a free pass into the zone like they did. Despite the solid in-zone positioning from Myers, he gave Shore plenty of room to make a play for himself. Ehrhoff was soft on the break-in and then even softer on his coverage on Mueller as he drifted to the top of the crease without paying him any mind until Shore makes the pass, which is of course too late.
In short, Ruff needs to get his defensive corps attacking rather than reacting in the defensive zone. While the reactionary style allows for better positioning, it gives the other team more time to set up in the zone and create plays, especially on any kind of rush, be it odd-man or even numbers.
Myers and Jordan Leopold are struggling right now and that’s because they are not actively defending. They are letting the play come to them, and at the NHL level that is not a successful formula. Brad Marchand’s first goal against the Sabres last Thursday is a perfect example of Myers simply not closing a gap that needs to be closed and getting beat to the net.
Mike Weber has been the best Sabres defenseman the past few days because of his willingness to quickly close gaps and his tough play in the neutral zone. If the rest of the Sabres’ defenseman can start to do this, the defense will shore up in no time, but if they do not, look for Miller to be hung out to dry a lot.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
When Patrick Kaleta went down with a neck injury against Toronto on Tuesday night, he may have helped the Sabres in the long run. Buffalo will miss Kaleta’s physical presence until he returns from a neck injury, but losing a forward forced Lindy Ruff to mix up his lines.
Coming into the 2013 season, the line of Tyler Ennis, Drew Stafford and Marcus Foligno was put together because of the success that it had in 2012. In just 14 games, Foligno alone had 13 points playing with Ennis and Stafford.
The Sabres had been struggling for offense this season outside of Thomas Vanek, who leads the NHL with 15 points. Ruff moved Ott to center with Ennis and Stafford on the wings and put Foligno with Mikhail Grigorenko and Jochen Hecht on the third line.
It only took six minutes until the new Ott-Ennis-Stafford line found the net against Toronto, and Grigorenko scored his first NHL goal against Toronto as well. Luckily, Ruff saw the new lines clicking and decided to give it a shot again against the Bruins. The new third line was on the ice in Boston when Buffalo tied the game 4-4.
The styles of the new lines look like a better fit. Ott playing in the middle with Ennis and Stafford gives the two skill players a center who will crash the net and crash bodies. Ennis and Stafford also have some protection on their line now because opposing teams know that they will have to deal with Ott if they get too physical.
It’s possible that Ott’s physical play could rub off on his linemates, and he could be a positive influence on Stafford, who was shown actually finishing off a hit against the Bruins, of all teams. Maybe a new Drew Stafford can emerge in 2013.
The change also gave Grigorenko another player with more offensive skill to feed off of in Foligno. I would expect Ville Leino to be with Foligno and Grigorenko when he returns from his hip injury, but Hecht will provide veteran leadership for the two young players until then.
The next line shuffle that Ruff needs to make is to only have one defenseman on the ice at a time who doesn’t play any defense. In other words, don’t have Tyler Myers and Jordan Leopold together. Myers and Leopold were given the fewest minutes against Boston among the Buffalo defenders. Leopold let Matt Frattin get around him for the game-winner in overtime in Buffalo’s loss to the Maple Leafs instead of pulling him down to take, literally, a two-second penalty.
Unlike the forwards, there has not been any discovery of a new pairing due to Robyn Regehr’s injury. Buffalo can’t get him back fast enough. Myers has especially shown a lack of hustle so far this season. At this point of his career, he is becoming another soft, underachieving Sabre.
Ruff isn’t the most experimental coach in the NHL, but it looks like he made the right switch with Ott and Foligno. Buffalo can’t expect the kind of production that it has been getting from its first line all season, and there plenty of games where the other three lines need to score.
With the slow start that the Sabres got off to, there are some players who have some scoring to make up for.
Read more Buffalo Sabres news on BleacherReport.com
When the Buffalo Sabres acquired Steve Ott from Dallas last summer, it was the most important of several moves to make this team tougher to play against. Plain and simple, fans had to endure a squad that was spineless last season. But is the 30-year-old veteran going to be more than just a grinder for Buffalo?
Ott proved with the Stars that he could contribute offensively. He’s not a guy that’s going to ever net you 30 goals, but players who can give you 15 with 150 PIM are few and far between.
That’s especially true in Western New York, where the Sabres have rarely had someone capable of numbers like those.
Incumbent ultra-pest Patrick Kaleta has never had more than 15 points in a season. In essence, Ott is a better version of Kaleta.
Ahead, we’re going to look at three reasons why No. 9 will flourish in his first year with his new club.
The biggest question surrounding the Buffalo Sabres since they started this shortened season was whether or not Mikhail Grigorenko would stay with the team or be sent back to juniors. Blowing this decision would have had a huge impact on his future with this organization. So why was it the right move to keep him in Buffalo?
The Sabres’ game against the Washington Capitals was the rookie’s biggest litmus test so far.
He played over 17 minutes and was paired for most of the game with Marcus Foligno. Grigorenko also saw some time on the PP.
His performance in that game may not have been the overriding factor in the decision to keep him in Buffalo, but it certainly helped his case.
Even GM Darcy Regier admitted as much to WGR 550 when asked how much of a role the game versus the Caps played.
Let’s take a look at the four biggest reasons, ranked in order of importance, that the Sabres chose to keep the 18-year-old Russian up with the big club.
With the 2013 season starting to roll, the Buffalo Sabres are hoping to get over the hump they were unable to conquer last season: The playoffs.
The Eastern Conference is very tight and the Sabres will need to find scoring, not only from their top line, but their second, third and fourth lines as well.
The defense will need to be stout in front of Ryan Miller, and Miller himself will need to be strong. If all goes as well as it has for the Sabres in the early going, they should be easily in the playoff conversation.
Here are my predictions for the upcoming, truncated season for the Sabres.
Before they began their shortened season this past Sunday, the Buffalo Sabres announced that they had signed GM Darcy Regier to a contract extension. It was a surprise move for a team that badly underachieved last year under his watch. So why would they reward him for another disappointment?
2011-12 marked the third time in five years the Sabres have missed the playoffs.
The thinking in Western New York when new owner Terry Pegula took over the team in February 2011 was that he’d want to bring in his own GM and coach. That thought-process has been the furthest thing from the truth.
It’s no secret that Buffalo fans are not happy about this move. Check the comments on WGR550.com (the radio home of the Sabres) for a sample of the negative reaction this news brought.
Ahead, we’re going to examine three reasons why this extension was a mistake and the effect it could have on the Sabres in the future.
When the Buffalo Sabres picked Mikhail Grigorenko 12th overall in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, they knew they were getting an all-world talent. For the first time in years, GM Darcy Regier picked a kid who had a chance to make an immediate impact on the team.
So why do so many think Grigorenko is destined to be a star?
Read TSN’s assessment of him midway through last season and you’ll understand why:
Possesses the size, strength and skill teams covet in a first-line centre, protects the puck well and has great hands for a big man. Also has a smooth, powerful stride and drives to the net with force. Has a heavy shot, great vision and passing skills, elite offensive talent. Not afraid to get his nose dirty when so inclined.
Realize, too, that they had him ranked second among all prospects at that point last year.
Coming up, we’re going to take a look at three reasons this 18-year-old Russian will become a star in the NHL.
