Monday, October 14, 2013

Four Reasons Why the Sabres are Winless



Image courtesy of www.diebytheblade.com
There are plenty of words I could use to describe the first two weeks of the Buffalo Sabres season but most of them would not be fit to print here. Suffice it to say the Sabres are off to an inauspicious start.

They’re 0-5-1 with only six goals scored to 16 allowed. The superb goaltending of Ryan Miller (and Jhonas Enroth) is the only reason the Sabres don’t lose by five every night. They’re last in the NHL with only one point and it doesn’t seem like they’ll be able to climb out of the basement anytime soon.

So, what has gone wrong so far for the Sabres? Four things in particular.

1.       Too many moving parts/new faces: General Manager Darcy Regier made a conscious decision to rebuild near the end of last season. That has led to plenty of young  players being inserted into the lineup. While many of these players are talented first-round picks with plenty of upside, not all of them are ready to contribute at the pro level. And, boy are there a lot of them. The Sabres have already used three teenagers this season (Mikhail Grigorenko, Zemgus Girgensons, Rasmus Ristolainen) and employ 12 players aged 24 or younger. A team this young is bound to struggle out of the gate.

2.      Stupid lineup decisions: What’s worse than using a player who’s not entirely ready for the NHL yet? Using that player improperly. Head Coach Ron Rolston has to be smarter regarding lineup decisions. There’s no reason for rookie Johan Larsson to be placed on a line with fighters John Scott and Cody McCormick. In fact, there’s no reason for Scott and McCormick to be in the lineup at all. And there’s no reason for Mikhail Grigorenko to be scratched in favor of Scott and McCormick. Play your young guys. Put them in a position to succeed. Or send them back to Rochester/juniors.

3.      A defense only a mother could love: Holy wow, this is easily the biggest issue. Ristolainen is painfully raw, Tyler Myers seems desperate for a sports psychologist and Mike Webber is Mike Webber. And it’s not just the defensemen that have been awful; Buffalo may have the worst collection of defensive centers in the NHL. Hell, they might have the worst defensive forwards in general. According to extraskater.com, Tyler Ennis and Cody Hodgson have been on the ice for a whopping 75 shots in the first six games. Vanek’s been on the ice for 40, Stafford for 35. This is a team-wide issue. The Sabres are last in the NHL in corsi-for percentage (measures a team’s ability to possess the puck) at 38.9%.

4.      A dearth of scoring talent: Somehow this cavalry of one-way, defense-first forwards can’t seem to score. Thomas Vanek is a creator and one of the most offensively-dangerous forwards in the league and Hodgson is pretty dangerous in the offensive zone as well. Beyond that? Yikes. Girgensons and Grigorenko have shown some skill but both are too young to consistently produce. Stafford has apparently lost whatever touch made him a 30-goal scorer three years ago. Ville Leino is…let’s not talk about that here. The bottom line is the Sabres trot out too many forwards that are useless on both ends every night. All the Ryan Miller magic in the world won’t change that. There are no quick, in-season fixes here. This team will be awful until something major changes.
Stay hungry, my friends

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