To the poster that said said Hitchcock and Tippett would of done way better due to x's and o's then Nolan did with this roster is an absolute LAUGH. Hitchcock has one of the best offensive teams in the league with the players he has Oshie, Backus, Steen, Stastny, Tarasenko, Schwartz. Buffalo's top player Ennis would most likely be on the third there, thats comparing apples to oranges. As far as Tippet goes they finished with 9 more goals total.
The problem with Sabres power play to me is simple. Look around the NHL, even the teams out of the playoffs TOR, LA, BOS, EDM, FLA and so I won't go through every team but if you take their 5 top players (most teams 4 forwards and 1 D) on the power play obviously they create goals on pure talent and systems. The sabres top power player was Moulson (13 goals) Ennis (20 goals) Girgensons (15 goals) Ristolainin (8 goals) Bogosian (0 goals). If you look at team lets say Carolina at least the have the Staal brothers Semin, Skinner, Faulk. When you have junk players to work with your power play is going to be junk.
The PK is the same, Foligno/Gionta/Delsauirs/Kaleta/Ellis all used on PK none are even solid PKers. Their two best PK's Flynn and Mitchell were traded at the deadline. That coupled with having to play Mezaros/Strachan/Weber/Bogosian/Benoit holy **** no system would shut down other teams top 5 players.
The NHL has the best players in the world plain and simple, when there is such gap in overall players on both teams coaching isn't going to make a big difference. Scotty Bowman or Mike Babcock couldn't of made this a playoff team. I would laugh if GMTM fired the staff and saw a team like Toronto for instance hire Nolan and company due to the fact he gets the most out of his teams.
