Apparently, building a team that amasses 100 points and wins a division title doesn’t get you much slack or credibility in this town.

In the midst of a hot Buffalo summer that many Sabres fans were hoping would see some changes at the top of the forward lines and a touch-up on the power play unit, GM Darcy Regier has once again had his own feet put to the fire by Sabres Nation due to his trademark calculated and methodical management style.

In case you’re not keeping score at home, that’s the same infuriating management style that under his watch has produced four conference finals appearances.

One of those campaigns was ended in the ’99 Stanley Cup Finals with Brett Hull’s toe in the crease.  Another was halted in the ’06 Eastern Conference Finals with four of Buffalo’s top defensemen out of the lineup against an otherwise evenly matched opponent in Carolina.

That’s what is really comical and contradictory about the many pundits that claim that Buffalo will never win a Stanley Cup with Regier in charge.  These are the same people that screamed about No Goal and a Jay McKee staph infection as being the only reasons that the Sabres haven’t won two Cups already.  Can’t have it both ways, folks.

The disconnect between Regier and the Buffalo fans and media is derived from his complete disregard for the public relations effect of his decisions (and non-decisions).  Or, put another way, he manages with his head and not with his heart.  That’s why this club is still stocked with promising young prospects and isn’t run like a fantasy team.

But lest we forget, as Regier bashers love to remind us, the Sabres are just a team of average forwards and defensemen with a world-class elite goaltender.  How brilliant.  You have to wonder if folks in Washington criticize management for having just a team of average defensemen and goaltenders with a world-class elite forward.

Admittedly, this has been a tough offseason for Sabres management.  In an attempt to bring in some offense and leadership, they tabled offers for some quality veteran forwards.  Insiders in the know say that two of those players were Saku Koivu and Matt Cullen.  Unfortunately, the best fish that could be reeled in was Rob Niedermayer.

In an ideal world, Derek Roy and Tim Connolly aren’t your top two centers.  But you don’t dump them for nothing just to appease the fan base and to avoid bad press.  That’s why guys like Regier still run NHL teams while guys like Mike Milbury are television analysts.

Continue reading this post »

In his first year he took a lousy hockey team and made it entertaining.  In his second year he made it a division champion.  But for someone so good at making others better than they really are, since getting the boot from Buffalo, Ted Nolan has failed to do the same for himself.

Once considered a rising star in the NHL coaching ranks and a beloved figure for his great work and fiery persona in his short time in Buffalo, Nolan has been responsible for much of his own career demise since he and John Muckler were both losers in a 1997 power struggle.

And as the 15-year anniversary of his hiring as head coach of the Sabres approaches, Nolan apparently hasn't used up all of the cards in the racism deck just yet.

Two weeks ago, PuckLife Magazine ran an amateurish error-filled Nolan apologist piece disguised as an objective interview, and the former Sabres coach was in rare form.  In case you missed it - well, you really didn't.  You've seen this routine before:

"You know, that's one of the bad misconceptions out there, that I don't get along with GMs very well, it's just one of those things. You know, me and my wife have been married thirty years. We have disagreements all the time. Does that mean I'm a bad husband?"

"I'm different. I didn't go to their hockey schools, I don't look like them.  Racism, when I was younger, was in your face. And I almost preferred that. When you become an adult it is less pronounced but it's there, just not to your face. It's hard to deal with."

"I know the reason (for the rift with franchise goalie Dominik Hasek).  And it's just one of those things I'll write in a book when I'm all done.  But it wasn't a very pretty situation."

You have to hand it to Nolan for being a master of using emotions to blind people into overlooking simple facts.  He's so good at it that he even fooled Hall of Fame writer Frank Deford, who used a 2006 NPR interview with Nolan to jump on board and suggest that racism was behind Nolan not being offered another NHL job.

There's just one problem with this outcry, however.  As great a writer as Deford is, he seemingly failed to do his homework on this one.

Six weeks after Nolan lost the Buffalo job, Phil Esposito offered him the head coaching position in Tampa Bay.  Nolan rejected him.  And while he contends that this was due to the fact that the area didn't have adequate hockey programs for his talented sons, Esposito seems to have a different take on it.

In television and print interviews, Esposito has implied that money was the issue, and that at a time when Tampa was struggling financially due to incompetent ownership and a huge Chris Gratton contract, Nolan demanded a salary of $750,000 - more than what any coach, including Scotty Bowman, made in ‘97.  Eventually Jacques Demers, who had better credentials, took the job for $350,000.

During the same offseason, Nolan turned down an offer to become an assistant coach with the New York Islanders.  He then rejected them for the head coaching position in January of 2006, but they stayed in pursuit and offered him the job again that summer. 

Thankfully for the Islanders, at long last, his schedule was apparently finally free enough to allow New York the esteemed privilege of having him.

There's no shame in accepting a lesser position to stay involved in the game.  Former Sabres head coach and the father of hockey video scouting, Roger Neilson, accepted assistant coaching gigs on three separate occasions after having already been a head coach.  Ken Hitchcock and Terry Murray took scouting jobs while waiting for openings.

And, unlike Nolan, those guys actually won more than 45% of their games.  Having a subpar record along with an entitlement mentality doesn't exactly equate to being a slam dunk for the latest hot coaching gig.  It's not about racism - it's about professionalism.

Not coincidentally, it wasn't just an issue in Buffalo but also in New York.

After reaffirming his media darling status following the Islanders earth-shattering eighth place finish in 2007, things fell apart the following season.  The team struggled and Nolan once again through the media played his GM like a fiddle, bemoaning the lack of talent on his team.  Conflict arose over the use of veteran players like Bill Guerin, Miro Satan, and Rick DiPietro.

At the end of that season, Snow did the unthinkable.  He fired the coach that led his team to the 26^th best record in a 30-team league. 

Was Nolan let go because he is an Ojibwa Indian?  Larry Brooks of the New York Post apparently doesn't think so.  Following the firing, Brooks wrote: "Ted Nolan fired himself the first week of March when he picked against Rick DiPietro for both ends of a home-and-home series against the Rangers."

Anyone with more than a hockey puck for a brain knows that racism is still a sad reality in society.  But Nolan, in comparing the mentality of the naïve and ignorant fools he's faced in his life to the collective mindset of a group of hockey executives simply obsessed with winning, proves to lack any credibility once you put emotion aside and just look at the facts.

Turning down job after job and in the process complaining about being blackballed should make people roll their eyes.  Many folks who matter have grown tired of the act. 

Media personalities and former Sabres forwards Rob Ray and Matthew Barnaby were once huge Nolan backers, but last year on Canadian television both admitted they no longer felt it was a good idea for any NHL team to hire him. 

Sabres Managing Partner Larry Quinn, who also was in charge during Nolan's tenure, said this week on Buffalo sports talk radio that the major cause of the Nolan-Hasek rift was that when newspapers and talk shows turned on him, Hasek could never count on his head coach to defend him. 

That theory from Quinn, who himself has had a maligned career, can certainly be opened up for criticism.  But the point here is, both in this case and in the Islanders saga, that none of this involves racism and all of it involves professionalism in the eyes of the decision maker.  Anyone who has worked in a professional capacity in any walk of life should understand this.

This is not about blackballing anybody.  There aren't a lot of openings out there, and good coaches sometimes slip through the cracks for awhile.  John Tortorella didn't come close to landing one of the eight head coaching gigs that opened up in 2008 despite having a Stanley Cup championship on his resume.

And when finally offered the Rangers job, he didn't turn it down and then whine about being shut out.

Shortly after the PuckLife interview Nolan said he regretted being "too honest" and declared that he wouldn't talk about it anymore.

Seeing that this soap opera has dragged on far too long, and many fans and media would just assume see it put to bed for good, we can only hope that this time he means it.

Twitter: @DaveDavisHockey

If anyone still had visions of this group of Sabres skill forwards someday leading their team to a Stanley Cup run, then the events of the past six games should pretty much run the hope tank to empty.

What we witnessed during the Boston Bruins 4-2 series win over the Buffalo Sabres was a colossal vanishing act by Derek Roy, Tim Connolly, and Jason Pominville.  Sure, you can point fingers at other players like Paul Gaustad and Drew Stafford, but on a team desperate for big goals it is pretty evident where the biggest holes are in this lineup.

Gritty efforts by players like Mike Grier, Tyler Ennis and Steve Montador were overshadowed by the poor all around performance of the three players in question, who stood out like sore thumbs in every facet of the game.  They were the top three leaders in ice time on the power play that went 0 for 19.  All three played major roles on the penalty killing units that allowed Boston an ugly 27% conversion rate.

This series was supposed to be money in the bank for Buffalo.  They had arguably the top goaltender in the league and were facing an opponent that withstood a ten game home losing streak following the Winter Classic, boasted only one 20-goal scorer and was missing their most dangerous forward and two of their regular defensemen.

Instead, while a few of their Eastern Conference rivals were succumbing to teams led by potent and feared superstars like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Daniel Briere, and Mike Richards, the Sabres were being schooled by the likes of Miroslav Satan and the 2010 version of Mark Recchi.

Continue reading this post »

The playoffs are fast approaching, and Sabres Nation is frustrated because their team has lost every single game to its hated rival all season.  

The thought of facing them in the postseason evokes the same feelings as when trying to walk past the school bully without giving up their lunch money.   Bad memories still linger of the most recent playoff matchup that saw the Sabres on the short end of a five game series.

Get the picture, Buffalo?  As I'm sure you've figured out by now, I'm referring to the 2000-01 Sabres and their struggles against the Philadelphia Flyers.

The regular season series was an embarrassment.  We kept hearing about how great and unsolvable Flyers goaltender Roman Cechmanek was.  While losing all four games to Philly, the Sabres were only able to light the lamp twice.  When they finally met in the playoffs, Buffalo had that many goals in a crucial Game 6 by around the end of the national anthem.  Cechmanek was off to the showers and the Flyers were sent home for the summer with an 8-0 drubbing.

And now here are the Ottawa Senators, firmly entrenched as the most hated hockey team in Buffalo - the club whose mere mention sends an equal jolt of fear and angst through the hearts of Sabres fans. 

"You want to win in every game you play, especially against [Ottawa]," right wing Jason Pominville said. "We're not going to lie. It's not a team we like. ... To come up short at home is definitely disappointing."

But this is also the team, with many of the same stars, that dominated Buffalo during the '05-'06 season by allowing only one regulation loss in eight games - including an ugly and memorable 10-4 thrashing at HSBC Arena - before falling apart in the playoffs and losing to the Sabres in five games.

You can make your case about the relevance of regular season domination all you want, but it really doesn't matter. It's one of the biggest myths about playoff hockey, just as much of a fallacy as the one that says you need to have momentum and be on a roll going into the postseason.  History has proven time and time again that these beliefs, while generally accepted and seemingly logical on the surface, just aren't true. 

If anything was proven by Friday night's game, it was that there's no reason to think that the Sabres can't play with this team.  

A good effort with 43 shots on goal plus a possible late game-tying equalizer clanking off the goalpost really isn't a reason to be ashamed.  Yet a lot of people are pointing to this monkey on their backs as being responsible for Buffalo not being a championship caliber team.

In reality, the reason that the Sabres aren't true Stanley Cup contenders actually has nothing to do with Ottawa.  It has everything to do with Pittsburgh and Washington.  Those are the only two teams in the East that would be big favorites against Buffalo in a seven game series, and it's extremely unlikely that the Sabres would be able to make a deep run while avoiding both of them.

But in the meantime, is it really that improbable that Buffalo could beat Ottawa in the playoffs again?  Strangely, many folks vividly remember what happened four years ago but are discounting it.  They're also ignoring how important goaltending is in the playoffs. 

Ryan Miller is the best there is, and he has 34 games of playoff experience - which is 34 more than what Brian Elliott and Pascal Leclaire have.  Regular season success between the pipes early in your career doesn't mean a whole lot if you don't win the big games in April and beyond.

Don't take my word for it - just ask Cechmanek, who last we heard was tending duty for HC Ocelari Trinec in a league that isn't even one of the top two in Europe.  Elliott admittedly looks great for the Senators right now, but you never know where the pressure of playing real games in April and May can lead you.

Don't be afraid to face the bully, Buffalo.

Twitter: @DaveDavisHockey

It was a March night in 1996, and the hated Philadelphia Flyers were in town to face the feisty Buffalo Sabres.  This rivalry was as heated as ever.  You could sense something was going to happen that would set off a firestorm, and it did. 

Matthew Barnaby bumped goaltender Garth Snow.  Six minutes of intense, entertaining, even comical brawling mayhem ensued.  Every player on the ice, including Buffalo's Brad May and Bob Boughner and Philly forward Rod Brind'Amour, stuck up for their respective teammates with a level of energy and determination that would make you believe that they loved the game enough to play for free.

The old Aud in Buffalo was rocking that night.  The team wasn't very good but it didn't really matter.  Everyone in the building was on their feet, and it wasn't just about fighting - it was about the enjoyment of watching a very tight knit group of determined scrappers who would go through walls for their coach and for each other.

It's 14 years later - a March night in 2010.  The Flyers and Sabres are locked 1-1 midway through the second period of a yawnfest at a morbidly silent HSBC Arena.   Both teams are skating back and forth and going at it with a level of intensity and passion that could only be found at a September scrimmage.  The game is half over and there hasn't been a single penalty.  Had vendors been selling No Doze tablets it might have launched the discovery of a new revenue stream.

Continue reading this post »

It’s almost March 3rd, and a perfect storm could be brewing.  An inundation of data in a high tech world may force Internet Armageddon upon us.  If the brainiacs who helped us avoid the Y2K disaster a decade ago can be found, then someone might want to try and round them up. 

The dizziness that we NHL diehards experience in the coming days won’t be the result of an unusually high number of hockey transactions, but from the methods that updates will be produced and consumed.  It’s going to be a wild ride on the information overload speed train for three main reasons:

- It’ll be trade deadline week, and hockey fans just love their trade rumors;

- Many credible and trusted hockey media insiders are now using Twitter;

- Many phony rumor spreading reporter wannabees are now using Twitter.

Welcome to hockey journalism in the post-web 2.0 world, where any half-literate dreamer, armed with only a keyboard and a seventh grade knowledge of spelling and sentence structure, can piggyback public updates from Bob McKenzie and Darren Dreger and broadcast them as scoops from "inside sources" to thousands of information-starved hockey fans.

Continue reading this post »

It’s only fitting that the red hot Ottawa Senators earned their franchise record 10^th straight win at the expense of the Buffalo Sabres, considering how one-sided this matchup has been over the past few years.

It was the Alfie and Spezza Show once again.  It looked like a rerun.

Senators forward Jason Spezza now has 50 points in 38 career games against Buffalo.  Fellow SabreCrusher Daniel Alfredsson started slowly but had a whale of a finish with two goals in the final minute of a 4-2 Ottawa victory at HSBC Arena last night.

It was just a regular season game in February, but the hype and buildup was justified, as there were some major implications.

For starters, any plans coach Lindy Ruff may have had to rest Vezina frontrunner Ryan Miller a few extra games have been put on hold.  Losing the division title would likely mean an unenviable first round date against either Pittsburgh or New Jersey.

But what should be of bigger concern to Sabres fans isn’t exactly a new question:  When in a tight playoff series having to fight for every inch of ice and getting figuratively punched in the face, how will they respond?  Don’t underestimate the importance of this just because of their skill level.  It’s not 2005-06 anymore; even with Miller, being an above average finesse team with little grit and jam isn’t going to be enough.

In a related story, Sabres veterans have apparently instituted a new rookie initiation program.  When Senators physical and ornery defenseman Chris Phillips took advantage of an opportunity to run Miller into the ice, it was the new guy - none other than Calder candidate Tyler Myers - who had to respond and defend his goaltender.  Hey, at least it’s cheaper than dinner for twenty.

Continue reading this post »

If you ask passionate long time Buffalo Sabres fans to describe GM Darcy Regier in one word, you might want to avoid having young children around when doing so.  Even in the midst of a great season he is considered by many fans and writers to be the problem and not the solution.

Well, if you want a good answer to such a question, like him or hate him, you could probably do much worse than this one:  Survivor.

Through years of coaching, captain and franchise goaltender controversies, criminal ownership, team bankruptcies, broken fax machines, superstar departures, and various other dramas unthinkable to even the most vivid imagination - it's 13 years later - and he's STILL here.

This despite the fact that over the years he has never caved in and followed the brilliant advice coming from all of us geniuses in Sabres Nation.  Bring back Ted Nolan.  Pay Michael Peca whatever he wants.  Heck, we're all so much smarter than him that we even know how he should run his scouting department.

It's unusual for GM's, team presidents, and owners to get a lot of positive attention when things go well.  It's the nature of the sports talk universe.  Players get the credit for winning and management gets the blame for losing.

We're making an exception to that philosophy today - and giving credit where credit is way overdue.

Carefully and methodically, Regier has put together a pretty darned good hockey team that is battling for the Eastern Conference lead and has folks wondering how far into May or June this season could last.

When the Montreal Canadiens were committing $90 million to Scott Gomez, Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta, Regier was looking to add value by putting Steve Montador on the blue line and spending his other dollars on his long list of home grown talent.  The Canadiens are now a top-heavy club with little depth and are a 50/50 pick at best to make the playoffs.

When the New York Rangers were courting Marian Gaborik with $37.5 million in their hands, Regier was pondering what bringing Mike Grier back would do to enhance the penalty kill and the chemistry of the Buffalo locker room.  While Gaborik has been great for the Rangers, his cap-strapped team is 26^th in the NHL in goal scoring and fighting for its playoff life.

And while we're on the subject of the Rangers, that great player Regier failed to bring back a few seasons ago, Chris Drury, might as well be the subject of a fan-funded billboard in Times Square.  Blueshirt fans and media can't wish him out of Manhattan fast enough.

This season marks a fitting anniversary for Regier.  It was 30 years ago that he won the "Iron Man Award" as a defenseman for the Indianapolis Checkers of the Central Hockey League. 

Now he's an iron man among NHL executives, being the 3^rd longest tenured active NHL GM, outlasted only by Jim Rutherford (Carolina) and Hall of Famer Lou Lamoriello (New Jersey). 

That isn't a result of listening to fans and media, or going gaga over every big name free agent that becomes available.

It's funny and ironic, really, how Regier has never been accepted in Buffalo - even when the team has been good enough to contend for the Stanley Cup.  Much of it probably dates back to the circumstances under which he was hired. 

But in reality he is the epitome of the Buffalo sports mentality - rooting for the underdog grinder and shunning the overpaid superstar who is about the individual and not the team.

Which reminds me, I heard a rumor that Ilya Kovalchuk might be available...

Twitter.com/DaveDavisHockey

Okay – raise your hand if you really thought the Buffalo Sabres would be 2nd in the East with more points than Pittsburgh and Washington at the halfway point of the season.

In all fairness to pretty much everyone, it’s unlikely that any hockey pundit on the planet would have predicted such a start.  My secretive inside sources have told me that even the anonymous hockeybuzz guy got this one wrong.

But this is where we are, and for the typically cautiously optimistic Sabres fan it now becomes a simple question of whether this is a good team or a great team. 

Is this club really that much better than the one that failed to even make the playoffs last season?  Well, to be honest, not a whole lot.

Before sending in that hate mail, ask yourself a simple question:  How can a team be that much better when, out of your top five most talented forwards, every single one of them is behind their scoring pace of last season?

Derek Roy, Jason Pominville, Thomas Vanek, Drew Stafford – all lower.  An injury free Tim Connolly will outpoint his 2008-09 total, but he was injured much of the season and was averaging a point per game.  As well as he’s played he isn’t doing that now.

This brings us to the obvious reason for the seven-point increase over last years half-season point total: the franchise goaltender.

Thanks in great part to Ryan Miller, the Sabres are 13-1-4 in one-goal games.  This stat is almost incomprehensible.  He’s made so many huge saves, game after game when it’s been on the line, that he's almost becoming at risk of being taken for granted.

Buffalo certainly has banked some impressive wins against good teams – especially on the road.  I seem to recall that was also the case last season.  And five-game winning streaks are certainly nice, even when four of those wins are against losing teams. 

Recent history indicates that the lack of goal scoring is enough of an impediment to keep the Sabres from having an extended playoff run.  They’re on pace to score 228 goals.  Since the lockout, the fewest goals scored by any Stanley Cup finalist was Pittsburgh with 247 in 2007-08.  Last season six teams that didn’t even make the playoffs netted more than 228.

For all the complaints about Roy and Stafford, the biggest concern has to be Vanek.  Every year we wait for him to hit that hot streak for which he is so well known.  As for this year, we’re still waiting.  He hasn’t scored goals in consecutive games this season, which by his standards is rather incredible.

If you’re dreaming big, this team cannot get to the Stanley Cup Finals without Vanek pulling his weight.  There just isn’t enough offense elsewhere to go around.  He’s a $7 million cap hit and is on pace for 44 points.  If the second half ends like the first he’ll have the same point total as Tyler Myers.  Last season Jaroslav Spacek and Dominic Moore had better offensive production.

For now, Sabres fans can only hope that 18 regulation goals scored in the past 5 games is the start of a trend.  Otherwise it’s going to be questionable at best to expect Miller to keep up his torrid pace, especially after what is sure to be a grueling Olympic tournament.

If that’s the case, will Moore be available again at the trading deadline?  Here's hoping the bar will be set a tad bit higher.

davedavis@usinternet.com