What we can learn about the Bills from the Sabres

[Kelly the Dog]

Feel free to add yours, or debate mine.

 

1. Players mature at different times in their careers. It's impossible to know how long is too long to wait on a guy. Most people, including myself, would have run Tim Connolly out of town. Brian Campbell comes to mind.

 

2. Certain players can suck if your team is a loser, and add very little individually, but put around better players, that same player suddenly becomes an invaluable cog to the machine.

 

3. Confidence, pure and stupid luck, momentum, and timing are as important as pure talent.

 

4. Great talent with bad attitudes, sometimes known as Miro Satan, often takes away as much as it adds.

 

5. Coaches and GMs and management that were clueless in other seasons sometimes put it all together in subsequent or different seasons. They are hardly ever solely good or solely bad, always smart or always stupid.

 

6. Teams usually need a confluence of events to succeed over the course of a season, including the success and proper stewardship of the ownership, the management, the scouts, the head coach, the staff, the old players, the new veterans and the young guys all at the same time.

 

7. Back-ups and depth are almost as important as starters. However great Ryan Miller is, and he is IMO light years ahead of Marty Biron, Biron's play was almost as valuable as Miller's. The confidence that was built in the team during Biron's streak IMO still is having an enduring affect. Pomminville has been one of the team's best players.

 

8. Chemistry is essential, but it can be built pretty quickly if the right ingredients are put together. It's impossible to know what those ingredients are, or whether it will work until it works, but chemistry doesn't have to take a couple years to develop. It can happen almost overnight.

 

9. Stars are essential to a team to win at all. But you do not need an entire team of them. Ryan Miller is a star. Vanek is likely to become one, perhaps this season. But clearly this team is a bunch of no names.

 

This is really not as much a Sabres post as it likely appears. I am trying to apply all of those things mentioned above to the Bills. If people think this thread should be moved to OT, so be it. But I think it should remain on the Bills side, because it's meant to put the future of the Bills into the context of what happened to the Sabres. Surely, the rules changes have helped the team tremendously. Probably the biggest reason for the team's success. But all of those things mentioned above have little to do with the rule changes and exist independently of them.

[Alaska Darin]

I'd add to that: Not doing anything is sometimes better than panic induced trigger pulling. I remember when FA started after the new CBA was announced and Darcy did nothing, watching Satan and Zhitnik get great deals. When he finally signed Teppo (easily our best defenseman), Sabre "nation" pretty much groaned with the typical "who" or "he's old".

 

Alot of people wanted to run Lindy and Darcy out of town on a rail for the last few years but they had a plan and based on the changes in the game they were dead nutz correct. There aren't many teams in better shape for the next few seasons than the Buffalo Sabres.

[PromoTheRobot]

You have pretty much described the New England Patriots, at least early in their run.

 

PTR

[Chef Jim]

You have pretty much described the New England Patriots, at least early in their run.

 

PTR

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Now why did you have to ruin a good thread with that comparison?

[Mile High]

Patience is the key to all of this.. Lindy and Darcy have done a phenominal job with waiting for the younger kids to develop.

[Mile High]

I'd add to that:  Not doing anything is sometimes better than panic induced trigger pulling.  I remember when FA started after the new CBA was announced and Darcy did nothing, watching Satan and Zhitnik get great deals.  When he finally signed Teppo (easily our best defenseman), Sabre "nation" pretty much groaned with the typical "who" or "he's old".

 

Alot of people wanted to run Lindy and Darcy out of town on a rail for the last few years but they had a plan and based on the changes in the game they were dead nutz correct.  There aren't many teams in better shape for the next few seasons than the Buffalo Sabres.

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I remember watching Cambell play a couple of years ago thinking to myself who is this kid? Why is he getting so much ice time? Now I know why.

 

Oh and by the way if Darcy keeps this current team together we will win a cup. There I said it.

[PromoTheRobot]

I think Bills Nation was VERY patient with Tom Donahoe. He had 5 years to develop his program. It wasn't a bad break that made us 5-11, it was the cumulative result of poor personnel/hiring decisions by TD.

 

Maybe we were hasty on Gregg Williams, but not Mike Mularkey. Altough if we kept Gregg around, we'd still suck because of our lack of O-line.

 

So far, I like what Dick Jauron is doing. I'm hoping that Levy/Modrak/etc. are compiling lists of free agents and draftees to right this ship.

 

PTR

[SDS]

speed kills...

[KRT88]

How about the other way around.

 

Salary caps help smaller market teams compete on a more evn playing field.

 

If 2007 goes down the way it look like it might, then BAM, the Bills are dead meat!

[Kelly the Dog]

I think Bills Nation was VERY patient with Tom Donahoe.  He had 5 years to develop his program.  It wasn't a bad break that made us 5-11, it was the cumulative result of poor personnel/hiring decisions by TD.

 

Maybe we were hasty on Gregg Williams, but not Mike Mularkey.  Altough if we kept Gregg around, we'd still suck because of our lack of O-line.

 

So far, I like what Dick Jauron is doing.  I'm hoping that Levy/Modrak/etc. are compiling lists of free agents and draftees to right this ship.

 

PTR

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The Sabres went to the finals in 1998-1999. It has been four full years since we were in the playoffs (and it's possible we would have made them last year, but just as possible as the Bills making it in 2004). And that was from a team that was at the top of its game , and not needing a complete overhaul like the TD inherited Bills. I am not saying that TD didn't deserve to be fired, although it is debatable. The point is only that the patience required with Darcy paid off, but the team hadn't gotten significantly better in four straight seasons until now. It's pretty laughable how a lot of posters here and Sabre fans everywhere are thrilled with Regier (rightfully) and applauding his patience when they have very little themselves.

 

http://www.couchpotatohockey.com/Teams/All...ings_Result.asp

[X. Benedict]

speed kills...

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That almost went unsaid.

[Bob Lamb]

Feel free to add yours, or debate mine.

 

 

 

"4. Great talent with bad attitudes, sometimes known as Miro Satan, often takes away as much as it adds."

 

 

 

This was a recent Miroslav Satan quote that Rob Ray gave at the Sabres game tonight..."I'm finally happy to have a coach that understands me and knows how to play me and use me in different situations"

 

To which Rob Ray said "We're sorry Miro for putting up with you for so many years and we're glad you're happy now"

 

And then his co-commentator Kevin Sylvester "Perhaps you ought to check the standings"

 

Sabres - 5th place w/69 points (and that's only 9 points behind team #1)

Islanders - 13th place w/48 points.

 

I know it's not the playoffs yet but we'd have to lose a lot of games and they'd have to win a lot of games for Miro's great new coach to catch up to us. And we've got our two best players injured and we're playing this well. So Miro can go stuff it. *Besides, football's over tomorrow so you get to care about hockey soon*

[MarkyMannn]

I think Bills Nation was VERY patient with Tom Donahoe.  He had 5 years to develop his program.  It wasn't a bad break that made us 5-11, it was the cumulative result of poor personnel/hiring decisions by TD.

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It's interesting how decisions play out in the long run. How at the time they look great or bad, and turn out the opposite. I remember being in the Jim Kelly club party on draft day (2002?) when they took that stud OL guy Mike Williams, anchor for a decade. Then minutes later followed up with the QB to take us to the SB in Drew. Guess not on both moves

 

Conversely, D Regier lets arguably our 2 best players in Satan & Zhitnik go, and look where we are. Probably no cup this year (too young), but in 1-2 years they should be a force to take it all

[GG]

This is definitely a chicken & egg discussion, and while the glaring comparable is that the Sabres were patient with Regier, and Bills pulled the cord on Donahoe, I choose to look at the differences.

 

First, it's bull to say that Donahoe changed his personnel strategy when he got here. What had changed, was that he was vastly more successful (lucky?) in his personnel moves in Pitt than here. Instead of Kevin Greene, we got Posey. Instead of Jason Gildon, we got Dominique Stevenson. You get the picture.

 

Thus, if you were the boss of the respective organizations, and you saw Regier anchoring the young roster with Ryan Miller, with Biron & Noronen already on the squad, and the budding depth in Rochester, you had to feel a lot more comfortable in the future of the organization. You also know that given talent, Lindy can take a team far in the playoffs. So, putting myself inside Golisano's head, I don't pull the plug.

 

Now, if you transplant me inside Wilson (dear God, what am I doing swimming in a sea of Prozac) then the outlook is a tad different. I look at a roster that will probably need a big overhaul after going through a major overhaul 4 years ago. There isn't a single marquee player on the roster. I know that my GM is a very talented guy, but he's managed to piss off the entire fandom, media and my football organization. I now hear stories that perhaps the last coach he fired, probably will be a very good coach for an owner that I despise. And, btw, one of the reasons the GM fired that coach was because he wanted to take a flyer on a guy who wouldn't contribute during his rookie year for a team devoid of talent.

 

So, I'm thinking let's make some changes at the top and restore the communication lines and the family feeling of this organization. But we need to keep continuity with the coaches and retain the head coach to give him a better shot than his predecessor. Of course, in the week all this transpired, the coach looked at the situation and decided he wanted no part of this.

 

So, here we are. And the Sabres are the surprise story (and nowhere to be found on OLN )

[BillnutinHouston]

So far, I like what Dick Jauron is doing. 

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What is he doing?

[JDG]

I think Bills Nation was VERY patient with Tom Donahoe.  He had 5 years to develop his program.  It wasn't a bad break that made us 5-11, it was the cumulative result of poor personnel/hiring decisions by TD.

 

Maybe we were hasty on Gregg Williams, but not Mike Mularkey.  Altough if we kept Gregg around, we'd still suck because of our lack of O-line.

 

I agree with your second point. I think that Mularkey managed to prove his incompetence in just two years. I think that we were possibly a little hasty on Gregg Williams - although Donahoe completely set him up to fail by not acknowledging the nature of the rebuilding project in the first year, undermining his authority by cutting Larry Centers, pressuring him to fire his asisstants, and then giving him a lame duck year on his contract and using the 1st Round draft pick that year for a player who would have to redshirt his first year. I have a deep fear of Gregg Williams being very succesful when (note, not "if") he gets his next HC job.

 

I think it is arguable, however, that Bills Nation was not patient enough with Donahoe. Donahoe came into a rebuilding project and in three years he built a new team centered around Bledsoe - Henry - Moulds and Reed with Gregg Williams as the coach, and Donahoe saw that it was not good. Thus, Donahoe made the decision, and I concede that it was probably the correct decision, to rip all of that up and rebuild over around Losman - McGahee - (Moulds?) - Evans - Parrish (and Everett?) with Mike Mularkey as coach. We then fired Donahoe before this second project could be fairly evaluated.... so the ironic thing is that the next two years of the Bills franchise are largely going to be dependent upon the players built by Tom Donahoe.

 

On the other hand, given the way in which Tom Donahoe undermined Gregg Williams and then hired Mike Mularkey over Charlie Weis, it probably was better to fire him sooner rather than later - i.e. after a fair evaluation of his second project.

 

JDG

 

P.S. To Kelly the Fox News Dog - Great post to lead off this thread. I think that "patience" is something that far too many fans don't understand, and in particular, that players can be better or worse over time, and better or worse depending on the right situation.

[nodnarb]

Good post.

 

Watching the Sabres this season has been a lot of fun. I watched 3 years ago when things were at their worst. I give a lot of credit to Darcy and Lindy for having crafted a plan to re-build a team for the new rules; not every team prepared themselves for the new open style, which in my opinion has saved the game.

 

We have a TEAM. These guys really like each other - you can see it. Getting rid of Miro was the best thing they could have done.

 

What impresses me is that they've overcome as many injuries as any team. We're winning despite having lost Briere, Dumont (glad he's back), Connolly, and now Kalinin. These are all some of the very best guys on the team, and the team didn't allow a let down.

 

It was GREAT to see Ryan Miller (figuratively) best Dom Hasek last night. It was like a baton was passed. I really think Miller is going to be one of the best goalies for a long time. He's not as unique and clever as Dom, but no goalie is. But Ryan isn't an eccentric loner, either. The team really likes the kid and know what they have in him.

 

The future is bright for Buffalo hockey because the team was well built, and will continue to be. That fact is even better music to the ears than the fact that they're a top 5 team at the moment.

 

There was so much impatience and regret the past few years over player trades like Connolly and Briere - I remember listening to fan call in shows and everyone seemed to think that Connolly was a total bust and Darcy got snookered in the deal. We're only BEGINNING to see how good that kid can be. His hands are every bit as fast and clever as Ilya Kovalchuk's. He might not be as good right now, but his ceiling is higher than any forward on the team.

 

It did take patience to get the team to the point it's at right now. Which is also why, despite my disappointment with Mularkey, I do think that Ralph overreacted, behaved in a way that scared away many good coaching prospects, and probably set back his own team another 3 years. Jauron is a good coach, but he needs a lotta help, and I"m not sure we have a team that's stacked with enough good strategists. We'll see.

 

 

Pittsburgh 30

Seahawks 23

 

But I'd like to see

 

Seahawks 30

Pittsburgh 23

[Lurker]

The Sabres are built for the new NHL. Under the old rules, they probably would be battling to make the playoffs.

 

That said, Darcy knew the rule changes were coming and kept guys like Connolly, Campbell and Afinogenov who are thriving in a more wide open style of play. And Miller gives them the big edge in mental toughness that Biron has lacked over the years. They sure are fun to watch.

[Typical TBD Guy]

Two problems with comparing Regier and Donahoe:

 

1. Regier has had to work within the confines of a very limited budget under very difficult ownership circumstances. Donahoe, on the other hand, had an owner who let him sign any free agents he wanted (signing coaches is another matter ).

 

2. It's naturally a bit harder to get good quickly in the NHL since drafted hockey players usually take much longer to develop (farm club system) than drafted football players.

 

My opinion? Patience with Regier was warranted, and Donahoe being run out of town was entirely appropriate. With more job constraints, this century Regier still did more with the Sabres than Tom did with the Bills (31-49, 4th worst NFL record in that span, yada yada).

[stuckincincy]

Feel free to add yours, or debate mine.

 

 

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Raise ticket prices no matter what?