Leaf boards are ticked with Babcock. Hawks fired Q for not delivering. Meanwhile we have a 50% turnover in players and have played games with 1/3 of the team with less than a year nhl experience. Even dyed in the wool Sabres fans have to have a little perspective here.
Are we really showing progress?
- Thread starter wshahbaz
- Start date
Moncton man
Registered User
One thing that I think is improved (even if recent outcomes don't feel that way), is that the Sabres don't always seem to be down a goal early and when they are there is confidence they can come back and win the game. How many times over the last couple of years did they seem to get scored on in the first five minutes of a game because they didn't come out prepared. The players stated that many times in post game interviews. Sure they're still going to get scored on in early stages of a game, but they don't seem inept like they have in the past. That alone to me is progress.
- Mar 10, 2012
- 4,835
- 2,595
Housley managed to finish dead last with a better roster last year.
(I dont care if he is a rookie, this is not a HC training league)
If we continue playing like this he probably finishes worse again.
Considering he has a better Eichel and actually something like a competent top4 ( even he seems incompetent to teach team to defend properly)
- Mar 10, 2012
- 4,835
- 2,595
Look how the Habs and Isles are doing with lesser rosters
I have seen this brought up a few times.
Would you say there is a big difference between fans complaining about coaching, when the coach in question has years of success coaching, say even championships with said team, and a coach with no experience other than taking a team down to last place and this year?
It seems to me a poor comparison.
Fans here managed to ride Ruff out of town. That he should have gone or stayed is a different discussion.
I’m not sure I see your point? Fans drove ruff out? Or Ruff didn’t have success for several years, at the same time ownership decided to tank.
I don’t think fans had diddly to do with him being fired.
And I don’t mean to be too specific, but the post I responded to brought up Babcock and Q, as examples that fans over react. I think it’s pretty obvious that Housley and even Ruff have nowhere near the track records to make that point fit.
OkimLom
Registered User
- May 3, 2010
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Leaf fans are their own worst enemies. Hawks firing Q was similar to Buffalo finally firing Ruff, because of his message wasn't getting across anymore. Tough to say bringing 3 championships in 10 years is not delivering.
brian_griffin
"Eric Cartman?"
The bolded is at best debatable at worst flat out wrong.
Goal:
Lehner / Johnson
vs.
Hutton / Ullmark - I think it's clear which tandem is net better (pun intended).
Defense:
+Dahlin
+Pilut
this year's version of Bogo & Beaulieu & to a lesser extent McCabe
Just the stability of the unit far outweighs Scandella's decline and the musical chairs d-corps which was iced most of last season.
Forward:
-ROR
-Pouliot
-3/4 season of Kane
-3/4 season of Griffith/Josefson combined
-4/5 season of Nolan
vs.
the holdovers and,
+Skinner
this year's improved versions of Larson, Girgs
+Mittelstadt
+Thompson
+Sheary
+Sobotka
Other than really feeling the loss of ROR in the #2C position (i.e., minutes, role, and what that meant for shielding other players), I don't think you can say the net talent on the 2018-19 list is demonstrably worse than the 2017-18 talent.
It's at worst a push, IMO.
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truthbluth
Registered User
- Feb 2, 2011
- 7,263
- 6,525
sabremike
Friend To All Giraffes
When people talk of progress this season all I can think of was a great cartoon in the Cincinnati Enquirer from several years back regarding my Bengals with the coach telling his team "Now go out there and lose by less than we usually lose by!"
1point21Gigawatts
hell's a gigawatt?
Jim Bob
RIP RJ
Icicle
Think big
- Oct 16, 2005
- 6,055
- 1,007
It’s night and day. Last year we were hemmed in our own end all game and only scored on breakaways. This year we rarely struggle in our own end (thank you Dahlin, Pilut, and to a lesser extent Bogosian). We still struggle to score, but we maintain possession. We just don’t have the depth up front right now to sustain offense across all the lines, which gives opposing defense time to rest.
Only games that seemed hopeless this year were prior to Piluts callup and injuries had us playing Tennyson. Those were bad sets of games.
We’ve had some bad games since the lines got stacked and middle-6 is struggling, but they were just playing neck and neck with Tampa and that’s no small feat. They finally changed the PP regroup and it’s not so embarrassing anymore either. If they can start scoring PP goals, and persist through this bad luck, they will start winning more games and make wildcard.
They won’t be competitors until they get offensive depth, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Three 1sts and acquisitions like Skinner go a long way towards getting us that.
Only games that seemed hopeless this year were prior to Piluts callup and injuries had us playing Tennyson. Those were bad sets of games.
We’ve had some bad games since the lines got stacked and middle-6 is struggling, but they were just playing neck and neck with Tampa and that’s no small feat. They finally changed the PP regroup and it’s not so embarrassing anymore either. If they can start scoring PP goals, and persist through this bad luck, they will start winning more games and make wildcard.
They won’t be competitors until they get offensive depth, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Three 1sts and acquisitions like Skinner go a long way towards getting us that.
brian_griffin
"Eric Cartman?"
That may indeed be our fate.
>Lake Erie mercury...
>Lackawanna/Bethlehem & Republic Steel slag vapors...
>Uranium and related heavy metal and radioactive elements at Linde Town of >Tonawanda and at various & numerous facilities along Buffalo Ave in Nia. Falls...
>Durez / Hooker Chemical dioxin, and dioxin-like PCBs/PBBs...
>Fibrous and powdered silica, magnesia, and calcium-based wollastonites and other asbestos compounds...
>Un-guarded rotating machinery in massive lathes, end mills, grinders, drills...
>High-tonnage single and double-action presses and stamping machines...
Ain't nothin' good left to die from anymore where you can actually said you made life better for others!!!
Heck, this global warming stuff is gonna take away our blizzards too.
Who the heck brags they survived two straight weeks of mild frost and having to scrape half the windshield????
OkimLom
Registered User
- May 3, 2010
- 15,213
- 6,687
My scraper broke in half, so I had to start using a credit card to scrape the ice. It got the job done, but you have no idea how painful it is knowing I'm not getting those 15 mins of my life back.
1point21Gigawatts
hell's a gigawatt?
Great, succinct summary of where we are and where we were. Ten thumbs up.
Panthaz89
Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Panthers fan
overall progress not really...lately we've arguably been playing just as bad as last season and finishing anywhere in the bottom 10 is not progress to note and the team hasn't showed any signs of change. I don't get the notion that last year's team didn't exactly played up to good competition considered last year we had a good record against Boston, Leafs, and Lightning even though they were the top 3 teams in the division.
OkimLom
Registered User
- May 3, 2010
- 15,213
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Botts needs to be asked this again, and if he responds yes, then the media needs to get their head out of their @$$es and ask what exactly is he seeing, what his timeline an we he expects to be actively competitive.
Buffaloed
webmaster
Progress implies improvement. So that remains a "no".
They are consistent however.
Consistently bad.
They are consistent however.
Consistently bad.
It's kinda like "I fell off the bandwagon and hit my head. Where the heck am I and what happened in the rest of the parade?" Then someone hands me a pail and shovel and tells me follow the clues the elephants left.
