2005-2006 Post-Season Super Spectacular
Some of you are going to disagree with some of what is written in this blog, so let's get this out of the way right away. I WANT you to respond with your own thoughts. But let's keep it civil. The Sabres had a miraculous year. I've watched 90% of the games the Sabres have played since 1989, and I have never been as excited, entertained, and proud to be a Sabres fans as I was during the 2005-2006 season, and we can all agree on that. This was a historic year for the franchise, and we were blessed to have the oppurtunity to see it. So this is the greater frame in which we must keep all dissent in perspective. What follows either in my blog, or in your comments, is not "negative" or "not being a true fan." It is HOCKEY ANALYSIS, so temporary bandwagoners please do not come on here with your thunderously exalted "I only say positive things" and "I support my team no matter what" and "you're not a real fan if you say that" garbage. Your short-sighted hijacking of a winning team will receive no sympathy here ... nor really anywhere from people who really know the sport.
And now, the "Post-Season Super Spectacular" as presented by the staff of Dominion of Cool.
There are a lot of reasons why the Buffalo Sabres are not in the Stanley Cup. First of all, it needs to be acknowledged, Carolina is a dynamite team. They are built, like the Sabres, for speed and depth and epitomize the concept of the "new NHL" perfectly. Second, Ward stood on his head for them all post-season. Third, injuries, quite obviously. We took them to game 7 with a skeleton crew, but the tank ran out of gas. Nothing you can do about it.
But here are, in my opinion, what we shall call THE BIG TWO. The unholy twin towers that turned a storybook season of destiny into a suddenly concluded season of "oh no, not again" in the city of Buffalo.
I. (Mis)Management: People such as myself took a lot of heat once the season was underway. Why? Because we spent the two months before the season blasting the Sabres' front office for not bringing in some guys to bolster the lineup. "Don't be stupid," these bandwagoners would tell us. "Why would you want to throw 7 million dollars at some old asshole who isn't going to do anything for you?" These people simply refused to look at what it was we were really asking for. We weren't asking for John LeClair, or Jeremy Roenick, or Brian Leetch, or any other of a stormcloud of journeymen with big $$ contracts. No, we wanted Yanic Perrault, a centerman without a home or contract who just happens to be the single greatest faceoff man in the league, and a scoring threat to boot. We wanted Ray Whitney, a speedy winger worth 25-30 goals/season in his arsenary, and a reasonable financial investment. Guys like that.
Management shied away from this responsibility and hid behind the continued rhetoric of "we're not going to spend 7 million dollars on an old guy, and we trust the team we've got." So when the Sabres kept winning, management was quick to take credit for assembling the team, and the bandwagoners were quick to puff out their chests like little children and say, "seeeeeee?" Good job, management. You're brilliant foresight and blinding genius gave you the ability to put a team full of 5th and 6th round draft picks on the ice and KNOW BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that they were going to be a winning group of guys. Riiiiight. The truth is management was hoping to god it could save a few pennies and sneak this team in to the playoffs on the eighth ticket. Just like every other year, they wanted to do JUST ENOUGH to appease fans and leave us saying we'll be good in the future.
So when the post-Olympic portion of the year rolled around and the Sabres were fighting for first place in the division, here was a real oppurtunity. A chance to say, "Oh wow. We've way over-exceeded our expectations, the fans have exploded into life like the Big Bang all over again, we're making a profit ... hmm, let's fucking tool up and make a serious run for the fucking thing." Instead, they continued their rhetoric about not bringing in old, expensive players, and started a whole new line of horse shit about not breaking up the team's chemistry. A team that withstood constant injuries to key players, goaltending shifts, and the constant injection of AHL players and still won games on a nightly basis ... somehow this team's "chemistry" was too fragile to withstand the addition of a much needed stalwart defenseman. Adding a 4rth or 5th d-man on the depth chart, or - heaven forbid - even two of them, would have shattered ... absolutely incinerated any shred of team chemistry supposedly, and ruined our chances of going anywhere in the playoffs. Probably, in fact, the planet would have exploded just from the sheer magnitude of the chemistry being broke down.
More likely, a point-man or two would have shown the players that management was committed to them winning, and trusted them to be good enough in the playoffs that it was willing to help it tool up for the run. A lot of people are having a good time saying "Come on, what were the odds ..." Actually, they were pretty good. Kalinin spent roughly 75% of the season injured, and Teppo was becoming increasingly a day-to-day case for the Sabres as the physical grind took its toll. The question wasn't what are the odds that these guys would get hurt ... the question was what are the odds that at least one, maybe both of them WOULDN'T get hurt. Sure, Tallinder and McKee were longshots to both go down in Carolina, but this is the rough and rugged NHL playoffs and these things happen. So all in all, it wasn't as long of odds as we'd like to think. This is why it was imperative to bolster the point. Instead they kept a 2 million dollar backup goaltender/dynamic tradebait on the bench and trudged into battle without the necessary equipment at the blueline, and sure enough ... it was defensive absenteeism more than anything else that cost Buffalo a sorely needed shot at the Cup. Didn't take a rocket scientist to put that equation together and reach the inevitable result. And Regier and Quinn both knew it, but they also know it doesn't matter. They made a profit this year and still got to game 7 in the Conference Finals. A minimal effort on this part could have been the difference between a Cup win and a just-missed, but that's a fan's perspective and only for them and the players to sort out. The result was equally as good from a strictly business perspective.
And are you really brave enough to call it coincidence when Doug Weight scores the game-tying, momentum shifting goal in Game 7? Doug Weight - who Carolina actively pursued and brought in along with Mark Recchi after Cole went down - scoring a huge, season-saving goal on the same floundering defense that Regier refused to patch up? And is it just coincidence that Ray Whitney (see above) assisted on that goal? Maybe, but that is one cruel and unlikely fucking coincidence. I'd almost be tempted to think there was a lesson there ... the team that made itself stronger scored a goal of the stick of the player they brought in, while our shoddy defense ran around helpless because Regier was hiding out in Mexico.
II. (Here's where you're going to get really angry) Goaltending. Now let me preface this before you start planning to burn down my home. I'm not going to sit here and say Ryan Miller is a bad goaltender, or that he single-handedly lost us many games. I'm simply taking a non-extremist position on this one and going down the middle path. He was average at best, all season long. You can argue that point if you want, plenty already have. But I'm afraid the stats bare it out. What Buffalo fans like to almost affectionately refer to as his "little slump" after the Olympic break, was really a 20-game skid - that's roughly a quarter of the season. Now factor in that he only played 48 games to begin with, and you realize that nearly half of Miller's season was this "little slump" wherein his stats were a GAA of 4.00, and a save percentage somewhere in the low .800's or high .700's.
Fine, but he was great in the playoffs, right? No, not actually. He blew two games vs. Philadelphia that we've been fond of forgetting since we won the series in spite of him. He did play miraculously for much of the Ottawa series, and I give him credit for that. But heading into Carolina with a short bench, we REALLY needed our man in the net to step up and perform for us. We needed him to make a statement, justify all the U.S.A. chants, and steal us some games. Well, rather than do that, he gave up 4 goals four times (!!) in seven games!!!! Let that sink in for a minute ... he gave up 4 goals four times in seven games in the Stanley Cup Playoff Conference Finals. He finished the regular season with a terribly unimpressive 2.60 GAA and .914 save%. He finished the postseason with an equally unimpressive 2.56 GAA and .908 save%. Simply put, this is NOT good enough.
In 18 playoff games, our "superstar" goaltender stole us one game - a forty-plus save performance against Ottawa in game two of that series. Fine. Great. Kudos for that. But 1 in 18 when your team has a short bench is not good enough. So what's my point? This ... again, Miller is not terrible, that is not my argument. It's just that he's not good. Not yet, anyway. He's mediocre for the time being. Buffalo fans love to come away from these 3+ goal games and say "Well, you can't blame Miller for those goals." And, hell, maybe you can't. It's the NHL, after all ... there's some talented goal scorers out there. You can't make every save. But guess what - Edmonton fans aren't sitting at home right now saying, "Well, you can't blame Roloson for those goals." Why? Simple! Roloson made a save when it would have been perfectly acceptable to allow a goal under the circumstances. It's not the highlight real saves that differentiate a good goaltender from an average one. They all make those saves from time to time. What differentiates goaltenders is their ability not to leave you saying "Ah, heck, you can't blame him for that goal." Dwayne Roloson came through and delivered for his team. Buffalo is a better team than Edmonton, but Edmonton is going to the Cup. Why? Yes, injuries, sure. But for fucks sake ... we fought through the injuries! We forced game seven! This team has more heart than any other team in sports right now, and they really needed their goaltender to steal them a game. Steal one game, Miller. Then we get McKee back, Kalinin was working out again, and maybe Teppo might even come back sometime down the road in the Cup series. One game, Miller. Please. No, Buffalo goes home and Edmonton goes to the Cup, because of this difference ... we're sitting at home right now saying Miller played well, and you can't blame him for the goals he gave up. Edmonton is sitting home right now planning for a couple weeks of partying for the Cup because Roloson didn't put them in a position to excuse him for the goals he gave up. He made the saves. Bottom line.
Well, there's my rant. Please leave your thoughts here. What a terrific season. Hockey at it's very best. We were fast, oppurtunistic, and exciting, and anyone who watched it won't forget any of the names or any of the games. It's important to keep this team together, build on our success next season, and add the right components. We CANNOT stand pat. And we need to trade Biron (I say trade, not let him fly away for nothing like Zhitnik and Satan ... and anyone who says those guys wouldn't have helped the team this year is full of shit)or we need to let him start again.
Stanley Cup '07!!!!!!!! Go Sabres!
And now, the "Post-Season Super Spectacular" as presented by the staff of Dominion of Cool.
There are a lot of reasons why the Buffalo Sabres are not in the Stanley Cup. First of all, it needs to be acknowledged, Carolina is a dynamite team. They are built, like the Sabres, for speed and depth and epitomize the concept of the "new NHL" perfectly. Second, Ward stood on his head for them all post-season. Third, injuries, quite obviously. We took them to game 7 with a skeleton crew, but the tank ran out of gas. Nothing you can do about it.
But here are, in my opinion, what we shall call THE BIG TWO. The unholy twin towers that turned a storybook season of destiny into a suddenly concluded season of "oh no, not again" in the city of Buffalo.
I. (Mis)Management: People such as myself took a lot of heat once the season was underway. Why? Because we spent the two months before the season blasting the Sabres' front office for not bringing in some guys to bolster the lineup. "Don't be stupid," these bandwagoners would tell us. "Why would you want to throw 7 million dollars at some old asshole who isn't going to do anything for you?" These people simply refused to look at what it was we were really asking for. We weren't asking for John LeClair, or Jeremy Roenick, or Brian Leetch, or any other of a stormcloud of journeymen with big $$ contracts. No, we wanted Yanic Perrault, a centerman without a home or contract who just happens to be the single greatest faceoff man in the league, and a scoring threat to boot. We wanted Ray Whitney, a speedy winger worth 25-30 goals/season in his arsenary, and a reasonable financial investment. Guys like that.
Management shied away from this responsibility and hid behind the continued rhetoric of "we're not going to spend 7 million dollars on an old guy, and we trust the team we've got." So when the Sabres kept winning, management was quick to take credit for assembling the team, and the bandwagoners were quick to puff out their chests like little children and say, "seeeeeee?" Good job, management. You're brilliant foresight and blinding genius gave you the ability to put a team full of 5th and 6th round draft picks on the ice and KNOW BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that they were going to be a winning group of guys. Riiiiight. The truth is management was hoping to god it could save a few pennies and sneak this team in to the playoffs on the eighth ticket. Just like every other year, they wanted to do JUST ENOUGH to appease fans and leave us saying we'll be good in the future.
So when the post-Olympic portion of the year rolled around and the Sabres were fighting for first place in the division, here was a real oppurtunity. A chance to say, "Oh wow. We've way over-exceeded our expectations, the fans have exploded into life like the Big Bang all over again, we're making a profit ... hmm, let's fucking tool up and make a serious run for the fucking thing." Instead, they continued their rhetoric about not bringing in old, expensive players, and started a whole new line of horse shit about not breaking up the team's chemistry. A team that withstood constant injuries to key players, goaltending shifts, and the constant injection of AHL players and still won games on a nightly basis ... somehow this team's "chemistry" was too fragile to withstand the addition of a much needed stalwart defenseman. Adding a 4rth or 5th d-man on the depth chart, or - heaven forbid - even two of them, would have shattered ... absolutely incinerated any shred of team chemistry supposedly, and ruined our chances of going anywhere in the playoffs. Probably, in fact, the planet would have exploded just from the sheer magnitude of the chemistry being broke down.
More likely, a point-man or two would have shown the players that management was committed to them winning, and trusted them to be good enough in the playoffs that it was willing to help it tool up for the run. A lot of people are having a good time saying "Come on, what were the odds ..." Actually, they were pretty good. Kalinin spent roughly 75% of the season injured, and Teppo was becoming increasingly a day-to-day case for the Sabres as the physical grind took its toll. The question wasn't what are the odds that these guys would get hurt ... the question was what are the odds that at least one, maybe both of them WOULDN'T get hurt. Sure, Tallinder and McKee were longshots to both go down in Carolina, but this is the rough and rugged NHL playoffs and these things happen. So all in all, it wasn't as long of odds as we'd like to think. This is why it was imperative to bolster the point. Instead they kept a 2 million dollar backup goaltender/dynamic tradebait on the bench and trudged into battle without the necessary equipment at the blueline, and sure enough ... it was defensive absenteeism more than anything else that cost Buffalo a sorely needed shot at the Cup. Didn't take a rocket scientist to put that equation together and reach the inevitable result. And Regier and Quinn both knew it, but they also know it doesn't matter. They made a profit this year and still got to game 7 in the Conference Finals. A minimal effort on this part could have been the difference between a Cup win and a just-missed, but that's a fan's perspective and only for them and the players to sort out. The result was equally as good from a strictly business perspective.
And are you really brave enough to call it coincidence when Doug Weight scores the game-tying, momentum shifting goal in Game 7? Doug Weight - who Carolina actively pursued and brought in along with Mark Recchi after Cole went down - scoring a huge, season-saving goal on the same floundering defense that Regier refused to patch up? And is it just coincidence that Ray Whitney (see above) assisted on that goal? Maybe, but that is one cruel and unlikely fucking coincidence. I'd almost be tempted to think there was a lesson there ... the team that made itself stronger scored a goal of the stick of the player they brought in, while our shoddy defense ran around helpless because Regier was hiding out in Mexico.
II. (Here's where you're going to get really angry) Goaltending. Now let me preface this before you start planning to burn down my home. I'm not going to sit here and say Ryan Miller is a bad goaltender, or that he single-handedly lost us many games. I'm simply taking a non-extremist position on this one and going down the middle path. He was average at best, all season long. You can argue that point if you want, plenty already have. But I'm afraid the stats bare it out. What Buffalo fans like to almost affectionately refer to as his "little slump" after the Olympic break, was really a 20-game skid - that's roughly a quarter of the season. Now factor in that he only played 48 games to begin with, and you realize that nearly half of Miller's season was this "little slump" wherein his stats were a GAA of 4.00, and a save percentage somewhere in the low .800's or high .700's.
Fine, but he was great in the playoffs, right? No, not actually. He blew two games vs. Philadelphia that we've been fond of forgetting since we won the series in spite of him. He did play miraculously for much of the Ottawa series, and I give him credit for that. But heading into Carolina with a short bench, we REALLY needed our man in the net to step up and perform for us. We needed him to make a statement, justify all the U.S.A. chants, and steal us some games. Well, rather than do that, he gave up 4 goals four times (!!) in seven games!!!! Let that sink in for a minute ... he gave up 4 goals four times in seven games in the Stanley Cup Playoff Conference Finals. He finished the regular season with a terribly unimpressive 2.60 GAA and .914 save%. He finished the postseason with an equally unimpressive 2.56 GAA and .908 save%. Simply put, this is NOT good enough.
In 18 playoff games, our "superstar" goaltender stole us one game - a forty-plus save performance against Ottawa in game two of that series. Fine. Great. Kudos for that. But 1 in 18 when your team has a short bench is not good enough. So what's my point? This ... again, Miller is not terrible, that is not my argument. It's just that he's not good. Not yet, anyway. He's mediocre for the time being. Buffalo fans love to come away from these 3+ goal games and say "Well, you can't blame Miller for those goals." And, hell, maybe you can't. It's the NHL, after all ... there's some talented goal scorers out there. You can't make every save. But guess what - Edmonton fans aren't sitting at home right now saying, "Well, you can't blame Roloson for those goals." Why? Simple! Roloson made a save when it would have been perfectly acceptable to allow a goal under the circumstances. It's not the highlight real saves that differentiate a good goaltender from an average one. They all make those saves from time to time. What differentiates goaltenders is their ability not to leave you saying "Ah, heck, you can't blame him for that goal." Dwayne Roloson came through and delivered for his team. Buffalo is a better team than Edmonton, but Edmonton is going to the Cup. Why? Yes, injuries, sure. But for fucks sake ... we fought through the injuries! We forced game seven! This team has more heart than any other team in sports right now, and they really needed their goaltender to steal them a game. Steal one game, Miller. Then we get McKee back, Kalinin was working out again, and maybe Teppo might even come back sometime down the road in the Cup series. One game, Miller. Please. No, Buffalo goes home and Edmonton goes to the Cup, because of this difference ... we're sitting at home right now saying Miller played well, and you can't blame him for the goals he gave up. Edmonton is sitting home right now planning for a couple weeks of partying for the Cup because Roloson didn't put them in a position to excuse him for the goals he gave up. He made the saves. Bottom line.
Well, there's my rant. Please leave your thoughts here. What a terrific season. Hockey at it's very best. We were fast, oppurtunistic, and exciting, and anyone who watched it won't forget any of the names or any of the games. It's important to keep this team together, build on our success next season, and add the right components. We CANNOT stand pat. And we need to trade Biron (I say trade, not let him fly away for nothing like Zhitnik and Satan ... and anyone who says those guys wouldn't have helped the team this year is full of shit)or we need to let him start again.
Stanley Cup '07!!!!!!!! Go Sabres!
posted by Il Pazzo @ 10:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home