The Buffalo Sabres have plummeted to a 5-13-4 record this season with their 5-4 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night. GM Jason Botterill and head coach Phil Housley have seen enough of the madness. They want solution to chronic problems and they want them now.
Botterill is no doubt assessing his roster which currently is playing like a group of individuals rather than a team.
Botterill has been contemplating trades to improve the performance of his struggling team. His phones is buzzing with texts and inbound calls from his NHL GM peers. The vultures are circling.
The losing must end. Losing cannot continue to be an acceptable option for his players.
Participation awards need to be torched in the bonfire. Trying isn't good enough. Showing up means nothing if the effort is sub-par. Mistakes cannot continue to be ignored and washed away with the next zamboni flood.
It's time for each man to to the mirror and look himself in the eyes. Hockey is a simple game. It' a game of mistakes. The degree of difficulty increases exponentially when teams get rattled, lose their focus and improvise their way through games.
Flying by the seat of their pants is what got the Sabres locked in this dank, dreary gulag called next-to-last-place in the NHL standings. Sabres fans are the most loyal, forgivng fans in the NHL. Win or lose, they support their Sabres. Their atience is being tested.
Big time.
Mired in a 0-5-2 losing skid, Phil Housley assembled his crestfallen team on Thanksgiving morning. It was an optional session.
Thirteen #Sabres on the ice this Thanksgiving morning for an optional light practice. On the ice include goalies and those coming back from an injury. pic.twitter.com/YIfw1S5Ooo
On Wednesday night, the players held a long overdue twenty-minute meeting in their room.
When the doors were opened, the mood in the Buffalo room was noticeably dark and tense. To my eyes, all hands were on deck and either seated or standing at the locker stalls. There was no mass exodus once media walked in the room.
Who spoke? What exactly was said?
I’m not sure.
They were likely airing grievances. Lots of grievances.
It looked to me like the entire team was present and accounted for. Jordan Nolan spoke about the high-level of accountability that he experienced on two Stanley Cup championship teams in Los Angeles. Nolan said his Sabres team could use more accountability for the constant mistakes and the poor attention to fundamentals and details.
Nolan, a disciple of the Daryl Sutter school of tough love and mean hockey, wondered allowed why Sabres players are not harping on one another and checking themselves when mistakes are being made. Why are the veterans not leaning on the youngsters?
Sam Reinhart told me that he sees teammates flying solo and not using line mates to advance pucks and extend plays. Reinhart told me the constant turnovers must end.
Defacto captain Ryan O’Reilly put the blame on himself for not being a role model for his teammates to follow in the loss to Minnesota.
"We have to be able to hold each other accountable and find ways to push each other. What we're doing isn't working so we have to find a way to do better."
Jason Pominville, 34, says the solution to the habitual problems is seated in the middle of the Buffalo dressing room.
"We've had talks. We've had video sessions. Again, that's not on coaching, it's on us. They can't change it. It's got to be us. It's got to come from us. We've got to be better and I believe that we have the capability to do it but, again, everyone's got to look themselves in the mirror and pull up their sleeves and be better. Right now it's not happening and we've got to put this behind us and move forward because what's behind us isn't even close to being good enough”.
When asked about the players meeting, an agitated Phil Houlsey said that's a players concern.
Housley is one of the most positive and optimistic human beings you will ever meet. Housley is always quick to see the glass half full, even when his team plays poorly. He's not a yeller and a screamer. He doesn't play head games. He doesn't shove players under the zamboni when they play poorly. I saw a different looking Housley after the Wild loss. He looked like he was going to snap and melt down during his post-loss presser on Wednesday night.
Housley knows what the problem is. He has a few players who choose to freelance and create on the fly rather than execute his five-man attacking system. Some guys are taking shortcuts while others are playing the "right way". Houlsey says the players have to figure it out.
You know how you solve problems in the NHL?
You trade them. Or, you mediate them and work them out as best you can.
Some NHL GMs prefer the former and not the latter. Inquiring minds what to know what Jason Botterill’s modus operandi is regarding solving his problems. My intel suggests that Botterill is likely to make a trade in the near future. Not a minor leaguer to a pick type of deal. A seismic shift of a swap. Western playoff contenders Anaheim, LA, Calgary, Edmonton, Las Vegas and Vancouver have been scouting the Sabres during their first 22 games of the season. The Arizona Coyotes sent their player development/pro scout to Buffalo on Wednesday night. The aforementioned teams are seeking a top six center and a scoring top six winger. Botterill must, must, must strengthen and fortify his blue line. He badly needs a veteran top pair defenseman.
Botterill and Housley have had eight weeks to evaluate the individual players who comprise the Sabres roster. By now, Botterill has written copious notes on which players are keepers and which ones are to be moved on from.
Housley sees his team spinning its wheels and chasing games. He says its a "losing recipe".
Thanks, Sabres TV
"In the offensive zone, we turn the puck over when we have a D going down the wall," Housley said. "We have a D getting involved in the play down low, trying to keep a play alive in the offensive zone, and we don't cover for the D. It's these mistakes in the game that are costing us.
"I don't feel like everybody's on the same page. I think guys are taking things in their own hands and this is the result they're getting."
On Thursday morning, Kyle Okposo cleared his throat, the same way Nolan had done the night before.
Okposo has seen this movie before. When he was a rookie with the Islanders, the veterans wasted little time pulling the kids aside to correct them when they made errors in judgement on the ice and in the room.
Hey, Kyle. Has the NHL become a different league in the past decade with regard to vets applying peer pressure to the prospects and newbies?
"Yes. I think it has."
"When I first came in the league I just kind of stuck to myself and tried to follow the veteran guys," Okposo said. "If I did something that was wrong or not the right way, you had Bill Guerin or Doug Weight or Brendan Witt saying 'Hey kid, do this. You can't do that. You can't do that here. You can't do that in this league.' And kinda seems like it's gotten away from that a little bit and maybe that's my fault. You know in the last year before I got hurt I tried to get some accountability in the locker room and we need more of it."
"It's obviously not very much fun to be at the rink right now and that's never a good feeling," Okposo said. "We just feel like we're letting a lot of people down and we just have to find a way to make some changes. I think as a group we have to come together as a team and just really buy in. Otherwise it's just going to be a miserable year."
"We've got to find a way to do our own jobs and push each other to be better basically," Ryan O'Reilly said. "We're not satisfied. This is nothing that we wanted. We have to get back. We have to start making each other look good”.
"Every one just gets worse and worse and worse," center Ryan O'Reilly said Wednesday night. "It's tough looking at the standings right now. It doesn't feel good. It's discouraging."
If the Sabres had a full-time captain, there would be one voice who speaks for the team’s internal leadership committee. This team desperately needs a Brian Gionta-style, no nonsense leader who stands up and addresses his peers and media. Through good times and bad.
I love what Nolan, Reinhart, Pominville, Okposo and O’Reilly are saying.
“Accountability” isn’t just slugs. It’s hugs, too.
You want your vets to tell the kids to get their heads out of their asses.
“You call that a back check?! Bury your head and be the first man back to protect the house!”
”Knock it off with the 1 on 3 rush crap. This isn’t the NCAA or OHL. It’s the NHL”.
“Take a snapper not a big wind-up clapper”.
“Lean on your man”.
"Win the battle".
“Get below the puck”.
“Stop on pucks instead of doing fly-bys”.
You also want your kids and vets to pump each other up on the bench when things are going well. Reinforcing good habits its essential to building a winning culture in the NHL.
“Hey, D, thanks for bailing me out on the wraparound attempt”.
"Bro, thanks for covering me high when I pinched down the wall”.
“Good stick”.
“Great shot block”.
“Nice rebound control”.
The Sabres need more communication. Chatter. Support. Criticism. Pride. Respect.
They need less mistakes. Less shoulder shrugs and less staring into outer space on the bench.
The 30th place Sabres host Connor McDavid and the 29th ranked Edmonton Oilers on Friday night.
Buckle your chins straps. This one is going to get nasty. It would not surprise me if Jack Eichel and Connor McDavid drop gloves and chuck the knucks in an attempt to inspire their teammates.
Cue the Steely Dan:
When Black Friday falls you know it's got to be
Don't let it fall on me
When Black Friday comes
I fly down to Muswellbrook
Gonna strike all the big red words
From my little black book
Gonna do just what I please
Gonna wear no socks and shoes
With nothing to do but feed
All the kangaroos
When Black Friday comes I'll be on that hill
You know I will
When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna dig myself a hole
Gonna lay down in it 'til
I satisfy my soul
Talk about reelin’ in the years.
**
Stick tap, Buffalo Sabres for this thoughtful round of appreciation for former Sabres players Marcus Foligno and Tyler Ennis who were traded to Minnesota in June.
The Sabres recieved Jason Pominville and Marco Scadella in return for Foligno and Ennis.
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