BLEAK FUTURE WITH BYLSMA
BY: STEVE SEIDE
If Buffalo’s beloved Blue and Gold eventually makes the playoffs, it will be in spite of him, certainly not because of him.
“They have too many injuries… But it’s still hard to fathom they entered (the game) 26th in the NHL and look flat-out terrible at times, especially at home. At some point, you have to start discussing how much of this responsibility lies with the coach. No matter who he has at his disposal to dress.”
Seems like these words could have been written this morning. But they are those of Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News, nearly a year ago. GM Tim Murray changed 60% of the roster since then and yet the results haven’t changed.
In the year of The Tank, Ted Nolan’s Sabres posted a record of 23-51-8 for a winning percentage of .280. Since then, Dan Bylsma’s Sabres have improved. All the way to 35-39-13. For a dismal winning percentage of .402.
The difference isn’t enough to raise any realistic chances of qualifying for the playoffs–and that’s a comparison of Bylsma’s results to a team who seemingly played the Zamboni driver’s third cousins so as to have a chance at the first pick overall in the draft.
Bylsma came to Buffalo as one of the most touted coaches in Sabre history, mainly because he had won a Cup. But he knows one system. A boring, defensive system to which he stubbornly clings. It didn’t work in Pittsburgh and it isn’t working here. Evidence? In 2014-15, under Nolan, the Sabres scored 83 times in 41 home games, an average of 2.0. They lost 27 of 41. In 2015-16, under Bylsma, they scored 97 goals in 41 home games, an average of 2.4. They lost 25 of 41 in front of the locals.
“I’d like to give them a goal to help them out,” coach Dan Bylsma said discussing recent losses, “We have some disappointments in terms of expectations this year. I think we expect to win the game in Calgary. We should expect to win the game in Philadelphia.”
The Sabres are chock-full of young, exciting talent up front. And arguably, compared to the rest of the league, they have only two top-four defensemen in Ristolainen and Kulikov. In goal, Robin Lehner has been good, when healthy, but certainly not the second coming of Dominik Hasek.
Any NHL-caliber coach would look at this line-up and preach scoring and offense. Turn the kids loose. Engage the fans at home by winning games by scores of 7-5 and 6-4. The team is not built to win with a defensive style. They should be playing to their strengths.
“I feel like we’re there,” Lehner said. “That’s the frustrating part. We’re there. It’s close games, but it kind of gets stretched out. We’re in the game, then in five-minute segments we kind of lose the game.”
Fans tire of hearing these same types of statements so often. If Bylsma were listening to these words, he would hear, “If we can lose games in five minutes struggling to play this system, we need a new system”. And a new coach.
“We hear the boos,” defenseman Jake McCabe said a couple of weeks ago. “It’s never good to hear that from your hometown fans, and we need to be better at home especially. The expectation is to win, and we need to start winning now. The whole rebuild thing is in the past. Our expectations for ourselves and our fans’ expectations and all of Buffalo’s expectations are to win.”