Sick

[Bay Side]

Sick....Does anybody else have one word to describe this team?

[unklechucky]

Pathetic

[matthew94]

boooooooo

[pigpen65]

inevitable

[bduff54]

ruff needs to go, a change is needed

[TheBillsDog]

Ruff does need to go, and about 6 other players as well. This team is in shambles. In fact Regier needs to go as well.

[unklechucky]

Ive been yelling to clean house for quite some time now.

[two4trippn]

What good is a coach if the players are sub-par? What coach available can turn around this group? They need a GM who can address the team's weaknesses and a scouting staff intelligent enough to fill the needs. Since maybe 2 draft picks a year actually make a team, why not package picks and players to get what we need. Darcy's taken more flack about inability to sign picks so why not trade the pick's value to improve team character instead of team's potential. Fans arent paying for tickets nightly to see NEXT seasons' potential. Deal these losers immediately, find a true franchise player and get some on ice accountability instead of blaming the teacher. How many of us hated certain teachers in school or even our own parents, yet afterwards realized they werent as stupid as we portrayed them.
Satan, Zhitnik, McKee, Brown, Afinogenov, Biron could all be moved and our payroll would be clean enough to add $15mil of talent instead of softness.
What truly is sickening is the fact that this team doesnt have depth! Lindy's options are 1 goon or 2 and Chris Taylor. Find me a coach that can win with that difference making line and there's YOUR solution.
Until last night, NJ only outscored the Sabres by 4 goals, yet their goaltending (a Franchis player) had how many shutouts? Wins? Cups?

[Thumper]

Regier has added more offense since last season. Drury and Delmore should be making more of an offensive difference, yet both come to Buffalo, and are on pace to have their least productive season in a few years. Ruff only has one line working (Dumont, Briere, Hecht) even though we have a 70+ point man in Satan, Kotalik who has the hands and the shot to score at least 20, Pyatt who should score 20 but hasn't developed at a very quick pace. Same with Afinogenov, who had the concussion set back, but was obviously back to form a month ago. Where do these guys go for stretches of weeks upon weeks? Or months even?

Ruff can't even pick a captain. Ruff didn't want Andreychuck dressed every game when he was here, yet he seems to be doing fine in Tampa Bay with the C on his jersey. He helps their powerplay too.

Sanderson couldn't get dressed every game either, yet if you look at his entire career stats, the only time he really had trouble scoring goals was when he was in Buffalo, under Ruff's wrath.

He's also butchered the goaltending situation, with Regier being as clueless as Ruff is when it comes down to it.

Ruff has to be held accountable for the lack of offensive production, Regier has to be held responsible for dealing away most of the grit and heart on the team, and never doing anything to help the team DURING the season when the team has never needed a spark more, he's always sitting on his hands. The players need to be held accountable for not showing up every night. The coach may be the reason for that, however.

[two4trippn]

Originally posted by Thumper
Regier has added more offense since last season.

Delmore has not fit with these players. He had issues in Philly and Nashville and would only aid in this current team giving up even MORE odd man rushes - a mistake. Sure there have been certain ex-Sabres that have moved on and played better or more to form than when here BUT there are other busts too.

Look back at Gilmour - his fire the tail end of the year and playoff push once what was expected and advertised on him UNTIL he realized what a bush league organization he was playing for and he sulked at the team's playoff bonuses. Next season, he began is softer play and return to regular season float, playing uninspired.

GMs are allowed to make mistakes...just not consistently. Its time to attempt a mistake.

[two4trippn]

Originally posted by Thumper


Ruff can't even pick a captain.

Tell me, in your opinion, who has played like a Captain and showed consistent leadership and accountabiility. If you can name someone (on this roster) then you might have an argument, until then, Barnes is in Dallas the last I checked.

[pigpen65]

Originally posted by two4trippn
What good is a coach if the players are sub-par? What coach available can turn around this group? They need a GM who can address the team's weaknesses and a scouting staff intelligent enough to fill the needs. Since maybe 2 draft picks a year actually make a team, why not package picks and players to get what we need. Darcy's taken more flack about inability to sign picks so why not trade the pick's value to improve team character instead of team's potential. Fans arent paying for tickets nightly to see NEXT seasons' potential. Deal these losers immediately, find a true franchise player and get some on ice accountability instead of blaming the teacher. How many of us hated certain teachers in school or even our own parents, yet afterwards realized they werent as stupid as we portrayed them.

Even if Ruff was coaching a team of AHL'ers, It's still inexcusable to lose seven in a row. And this isn't a team of AHL'ers.

[buffjoe]

Originally posted by two4trippn
What good is a coach if the players are sub-par? What coach available can turn around this group?
Since you can't turnover an entire team in the matter of a month the next best thing is to try a different coach with a different style and hope they respond differently. It works. If it didn't there would never be any turnover in coaching. I certainly don't think Lindy is a good tactician and his teaching skills are kind of weak. Ya, there probably are some guys out there that can do a better job with this group.

[TheBillsDog]

Originally posted by Thumper
Regier has added more offense since last season. Drury and Delmore should be making more of an offensive difference, yet both come to Buffalo, and are on pace to have their least productive season in a few years. Ruff only has one line working (Dumont, Briere, Hecht) even though we have a 70+ point man in Satan, Kotalik who has the hands and the shot to score at least 20, Pyatt who should score 20 but hasn't developed at a very quick pace. Same with Afinogenov, who had the concussion set back, but was obviously back to form a month ago. Where do these guys go for stretches of weeks upon weeks? Or months even?

Ruff can't even pick a captain. Ruff didn't want Andreychuck dressed every game when he was here, yet he seems to be doing fine in Tampa Bay with the C on his jersey. He helps their powerplay too.

Sanderson couldn't get dressed every game either, yet if you look at his entire career stats, the only time he really had trouble scoring goals was when he was in Buffalo, under Ruff's wrath.

He's also butchered the goaltending situation, with Regier being as clueless as Ruff is when it comes down to it.

Ruff has to be held accountable for the lack of offensive production, Regier has to be held responsible for dealing away most of the grit and heart on the team, and never doing anything to help the team DURING the season when the team has never needed a spark more, he's always sitting on his hands. The players need to be held accountable for not showing up every night. The coach may be the reason for that, however.

Excellent post, and that's only touching the tip of the iceberg. Ruff's time is over, it's really that simple, and both he and Regier should have been gone at the start of this year. I guarantee we would have had a better record than this with anyone.

[PUCKER]

Zombies.

[Thumper]

Originally posted by two4trippn
Tell me, in your opinion, who has played like a Captain and showed consistent leadership and accountabiility. If you can name someone (on this roster) then you might have an argument, until then, Barnes is in Dallas the last I checked.

Well, that's easy....Drury. He's our most consistant leader on the ice since he's been here. Points or not.

What exactly did Barnes do as a captain? I'm not taking anything away from the guy...I love him as a player, and would love to still have him on this team, but he's not an NHL captain. He's an "A" type of guy, plain and simple.

But in retrospect, over the last 3 months of NHL hockey, which month did the Sabres excel the most in? October, while Satan was captain.

6 wins. Unimpressive, but the best month this team has had.

I'm not saying Satan should be the captain, but while he WAS the captain, this team was above .500, and he wasn't having scoring problems. Since then, we had 5 wins in November, and now? A measley 1 win in December so far............Which came against the extremely injured Blackhawks.

I don't think the rotating captaincy thing is having any positive effects....

The team is regressing, two4trippin. There's absolutlely NO signs of improvement. We're on pace to have a worse record than even LAST year.

Tell me....Who do you want to hold accountable?

[two4trippn]

Originally posted by Thumper


Tell me....Who do you want to hold accountable?

Darcy.
He should be most accountable to date. Since training camp he's watched his team detriorate without adding one player. Its sad when we actually MISS Connolly, even as depth.
As current players, on ice accountability - Satan needs to become the next level player. He wanted the money for it, now deliver the complete player to deserve it. McKee has been injured yet so inconsistent, he makes me want Smehlik back. Pyatt is underachieving again, but has shown tremendous stretches under Lindy, sporatically. This team needs a 30+ old veteran character forward that will call out other players in the locker room and on the ice. We dont have an Yzerman, Shanahan, Guerin, Modano, Hull, Weight, Sakic, Forsberg, Brodeur, Lindros, Alfredsson, Roenick, Amonte, or even Sundin!
Maybe Vanek can be a Gaborik or Koyalchuk in a few seasons but...with our scouts, its tough to call.

Darcy needs to address this teams weakness - goalie. He needs to show the rest of the team he and the ownership is willing to improve the team beyond a band aid. If one or two new faces the rest of the season do not improve team play & morale, then clean house. Give him something to work with!

[Thumper]

Darcy Regier has been a GM that when he makes a deal, usually makes a good one. But his deals are so few and far between that I think he gets too much credit. He'll never sign a guy like Steve Thomas, who was available for a long time, and was probably exactly what this team needed in the grit, work ethic, and leadership factors. He'd rather have a 4th line with Taylor, Peters, and Boulton.

I agree that's a big problem.

But at the same time, the talent level on this roster is not anywhere near as bad as our record shows. There's a coach out there that might better suit the roster that Regier has formed. Although there are missing pieces. But you can't just trade everyone away. You find a coach that can take this group of guys, and make them competitive. Ruff can't. They're not competitive, they're not consistant, they don't show up half the time.

Something needs to be done like.....yesterday. Unless Golisano is planning on taking a run at Ovechkin on draft day.

[buffjoe]

Don't forget that Ruff stated in a pre-season interview that he was very happy with the upgrade in talent and felt the team was much better than last year. So....Don't let Ruff completely off the hook. If he wasn't happy with the offseason moves he shouldn't have come out and said so. At this point Ruff has two options.
1) Continue to be a good soldier and hope that the team comes out of the funk in time enough to save his job. If he does get fired he probably has a good chance of being picked up elsewhere.
or....
2) He can go public with his dis-satisfaction and use the media to pressure Darcy into making moves. However, in doing that he will be undermining his boss much the way Ted Nolan did and you see what that did to his career.

[BironsGirl43]

Heartless. Lifeless. Winless. Heartbreaking.

[two4trippn]

Originally posted by Thumper
He'd rather have a 4th line with Taylor, Peters, and Boulton.


Unfortunately its all he has to dress - there's not one coach, especially of an offensively challenged team, that would prefer one, let alone all 3 of those mentioned players dressed nightly. Botterill would be an improvement, what does that tell you. The goons sell tickets to the South Buffalo Rastlin fans that attend, otherwise they serve little to no purpose.

I'm not saying Lindy is without fault. His handling of the goaltenders has been brutal BUT if he had one clear cut better player prove hisself, it would have been resolved.

[BironsGirl43]

Well.. I've missed these last few games and I can't say I'm too upset over that. It's unbelievable how this team always finds a way to lose. The season started off so promising. The Sabres were up and down.. a couple games over 500 and sometimes right at 500 but they always manage to find away to slip away to make life difficult on themselves. Now, they are so behind that even stringing a couple wins together wouldn't do much in the overall scheme of things. This gets to be really frustrating after a while. You just know that they will have a great second half of the season and come oh so close to making the playoffs but these games here is what will hurt them. In the end we'll probably miss the playoffs and we won't get into a good position for the draft. This team needs to realize that these games early in the season are just as important as those in the second half. A solid 60 minute effort is all it takes. These 1 goal losses sure do suck. Somebody needs to score a goal in those tight games and a goalie needs to step up and steal a win or two to get this team back on track. This is going to get really ugly really fast if they don't change their ways. Come on Buffalo.. don't ruin Christmas.. get a winning streak going!!!!!

[Bay Side]

All of the above sounds right.....:barf:

[Bufsabresnu]

I think that we should just say the heck with having a C. I mean really who on this team deserves to wear it. Make it publically known that there is NO leadership on the ice and maybe it will force someone...anyone to step up and be a leader.

Satan needs to pull his head out of his crack and start earning the 5M that he is getting. Face it with his salary compared to his level of play thus far...he is going NOWHERE.

[Thumper]

Well, when your key players suck for long stretches, this is what kind of record you have. And it's not like we have enough depth like a Redwings or Av's do to overcome the cold streaks from their top players. Satan sucks, Biron can't get back to his form of 2001-02, Drury's hurt and hasn't been scoring, Kotalik hasn't played as well as last year, and why does it seem EVERYONE on the roster is on a cold streak, setting aside Briere and Dumont?

Have they given up on Ruff?

[unklechucky]

Yes I think theyve completely lost faith in Lindy. He has a history of sucking the life/good play out of players. Like you said thumper, you cant constantly trade players and think youll create the chemistry to fix things. A new coach, any coach....heck Ill even go behind the bench(kidding) has the ability to "jumpstart" a lifeless team.

[two4trippn]

Originally posted by unklechucky
Yes I think theyve completely lost faith in Lindy. He has a history of sucking the life/good play out of players. Like you said thumper, you cant constantly trade players and think youll create the chemistry to fix things. A new coach, any coach....heck Ill even go behind the bench(kidding) has the ability to "jumpstart" a lifeless team.

A few player tweaks BEFORE the trade deadline, immediately after this "trade freeze", then see what improves. If the deals do not improve the club - dump Darcy & Lindy. The CBA has GMs of small market teams being pillaged. Thats tough *****, make a deal, save face now that Bills season is done and more eyes are on you, and entertain.

A new coach for the next game isnt going to teach these goalies not to turtle and the rest of the team not to hang their heads.

[Thumper]

Originally posted by two4trippn
A new coach for the next game isnt going to teach these goalies not to turtle and the rest of the team not to hang their heads.

You don't know that for sure at all. The goalies could be more effected by a new coach than some of the players on this team, after the way Ruff has handled them. Whoever the new coach might be wouldn't make them better goalies, but he'd probably give a lot more confidence to the 3 of them. Or he'd at least make a decision on who he believes is the best of the 3 right now, and stick with him.

A new coach could also make the team play better IN FRONT of who is ever in net. A new message, and new motivational tactics, and new offensive and defensive schemes would help these guys to not hang thier heads.

Ruff said in the offseason that he was going to make a system that best suited the goalies, specifically Marty Biron. Well it ain't working. Biron is playing worse than ever. Ruff's tried to change schemes, but none of his schemes work anymore.

A new coach would be a breath of fresh air for everyone on the roster, goalies included.

[two4trippn]

Thumper we agree to disagree - I respect that. To me, the difference of our playoff teams and this roster = goaltending (franchise player)
We're talking 5-6 games a season difference, thats about it. That can be made up with some stellar goaltending. Compare this team with NJ - the main difference is Brodeur. If the Sabres had 8+ shutouts to date, we'd be all praising this organization. Granted, Brodeur has lug nuts in front with KD, SS, and even White but he steals game without them too. Those aforementioned defencemen also play within their system, without speed.

[LALAFONTAINE]

Jim Kelley mentioned that of the 8 coaches firings last year, only one resulted in that team making the playoffs. And anyone could have gotten Colorado to the playoffs, except for Hartley, apparently.

We are 4-1-2 in our last 7, so obviously Ruff has not "lost" the team. But every time that becomes the rallying cry of those that want to fire Ruff, we go on a tear, so keep saying it.