Chadd only sucks to people on here. Murray, Nolan et al gush about the guy, and it's hard for me not to trust them more. No, I think we're just overvaluing our prospects. Some people on here have McCabe penciled in as future captain material, for instance, when he might top out as a Weber-like role player when all is said and done.
Murray obviously approves of him enough to keep him but I haven't seen him gush -- not saying he hasn't, I just haven't seen it. I actually think those who followed Rochester closely the past two years are more qualified than Murray to make general assessments of Cassidy as a game coach. Murray's more qualified to make assessments of Cassidy as a player's coach and developer. His players clearly like him, not unlike Nolan, but criticisms of Chadd from the Rochester faithful are that the system he has the team play is poor and he is not good at handling line-ups, which is not unlike criticisms that get leveled at Nolan.
The results of this tournament vs. expectations have nothing to do with people overvaluing the prospects. Reinhart, for example, has not produced anything. Does that mean he's overvalued? Pronman highly praised Armia's performance in the tournament, and he's also produced nothing. This has little to do with the quality of our prospects or Chadd's ability as a coach. This team of largely 18-20 year olds simply hasn't played well in three exhibition games for which it was hastily thrown together after months of not playing hockey. Goaltending laid a big egg in two of the three games. The team has taken far too many penalties and got burned by it far too many times. In the first two games when the team dominated even strength action, it was completely unable to convert on its chances. None of this indicates that we are overrating our prospects, nor does it reflect much on the coaching staff. Do you think Dallas fans wouldn't trade the rights to their Traverse roster for ours just because they beat us?
Regarding McCabe, as has been mentioned in this thread his game has taken a somewhat unsettling turn towards that of a riverboat gambler the past year or so. Even if that doesn't change he will be better than Mike Weber, a guy who has only played like a competent NHLer for stretches of his career. Will McCabe be a strong top 4 guy? Perhaps not, though it's certainly in the cards, but I'd comfortably bet that he'll be a better bottom pairing guy than Weber at worst. This isn't Gragnani or TJ Brennan.
It's hard for me to actually analyze the job that Chadd has done with this tournament having not seen the games but my two biggest complaints would be that I wanted Carrier-Reinhart-Armia from the start and that Makarov should have started today. I doubt either of those things would have really mattered.
Keep in mind that the organization's primary focus in these tournaments is not winning 1st place. It's mostly about evaluating players -- particularly those who will not be in the NHL this year -- and giving those who will compete for spots a leg up heading into camp. It's also about team bonding, getting these kids from disparate teams and leagues together with the sense that they're all part of the Buffalo Sabres, forming personal bonds that will be there when some are actual Buffalo Sabres. We didn't do this but if you look around guys like Gaudreau, Draisaitl, Ehlers, and Nylander were held out of some of the games just to keep them fresh going into their training camp competitions, which no team in their right mind would do if they were at all concerned with winning out.
Don't take the above as me scoffing at the idea of winning in light of losing, because this tournament has SUCKED and I'm not happy about it. In evaluating the coaching or the talent though, people have to keep in mind that they aren't "coaching to win". They're not doing match-ups, they're putting underwhelming defensive players on the PK, lines are rolled, etc. These games are far less indicative than NHL preseason games and I don't think anyone would argue that the scoreboard indicates anything about the quality of the teams in those.
Ok, phone.
