The Season To Come, Part Two

A quick continuation of yesterday's thoughts coming up but first a reminder that today (Thursday) is NHL Preview day for the Buffalo News. I know I'm pretty hard on TBN sometimes but they usually do a really nice job with the preview section. It's one of the few days I make sure to buy a hard copy of the paper. And let me just say, I'm pretty sure this is going to be the BEST NHL PREVIEW SECTION EVER! Trust me and click on the link.

CRAIG RIVET

I'm shocked that Craig Rivet is the new captain. I figured he'd be wearing a letter since he wore one for almost the entire preseason but I really thought it would be an A. I'm not gonna lie, I've made fun of teams in the past for appointing the new guy the captain right away. It seems really weird.

The fact that this was the result of a player vote makes me feel better. People like me can ramble on and on about what was missing last season and what needs to happen this season but the only people who really, really know what went wrong are the guys in the dressing room. I don't think you can stress enough that most of the current Sabres team has been playing together for a while now. They know each other very, very well. If they looked around the room and didn't find what they wanted in a captain in each other, I think you have to trust that they know what they're talking about. And really it's not that far-fetched. We've been watching these guys for a few years now so I think we forget sometimes that the core players are all still really, really young. Rivet can wear the C for the next three years and if he moves on after that, one of the kids should be ready. And as an aside, good for Lindy for taking the pulse of the team and appointing one captain.

At any rate, I'm really excited to see what Rivet brings to the team not just on the defensive end - one more dependable body back there can't hurt - but in overall attitude. He's made it clear already that he's not going to hesitate to stand up for his teammates on the ice and he said very straight-forwardly in his most recent interview on Sabres TV that opponents will not take liberties with the team on his watch. The fact that the Sabres are still young can be a bit of a double-edged sword in that some of them are still very influenced by what's going on around them. I think we saw a lot of situations last season where one guy's frustration or panic bled out and affected his teammates. Hopefully if the guy with the C is calm, kicking ass and working hard, everyone else will follow his lead.

And seriously, don't you love that moment when someone new to the area finally says, "Wow, Buffalo gets a bad rap. It's a great place to be."

SPECIAL TEAMS

I was pretty surprised when a stat check showed that the Sabres power play was the 14th best in the league last season and was actually a little bit better than it was in 2006-2007. Of all the struggles we sat through in 2007-2008, the power play is the one thing that absolutely made my eyes bleed. I'll admit, my little pea brain still doesn't understand how it can be THAT hard to score when you have more people on the ice than the other team and especially when you have two more people in which case it felt like we suddenly got a thousand times worse. God bless the 16 fan bases who had to watch a power player worse than ours all season.

Porky mentioned on his blog that the power play was hit by a lot of injuries last season. I hadn't really thought of that but it is true: Tim Connolly, Jaroslav Spacek, Teppo Numminen and Max Afinogenov all missed large chunks of time and that's not even taking into consideration Brian Campbell being traded at the deadline. There were definitely some oddball power plays units out there at times so I don't know, maybe we're lucky it wasn't worse than it was. Hopefully the re-addition of Teppo and the presence of Rivet will help steady things a little. I think a lot will also depend on how Andrej Sekera develops.

On the other side, I'm hoping Teppo will steady the penalty kill a little too. Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman spent a lot of their time on the ice last season killing penalties and while yes, that's what the top defensive pairing should be doing, I think there were definitely times when they were just worn out. The more bodies who can dependably kill penalties, the better. And of course, as they say, your most important penalty killer is your goalie. Ryan Miller struggled last season and there were times when he and the defense looked really out of sync with each other. Better play from him should help a lot when the Sabres are short-handed.

CONSISTENCY

Consistency is such a sports cliche that I kind of hate to even bring it up but it's a cliche because it is important. I think we've all heard that much ballyhooed stat the Sabres had the 4th best offense in the NHL last season and while that's definitely impressive, I think it's a little deceiving. Those numbers are skewed a bit by a number of games where the team suddenly exploded for 6, 7, 8 goals in one game. There were long stretches where the Sabres struggled to score and they had a hard time scoring when it really mattered which was reflected in their 14-18 record in one goal games. Scoring a lot of goals is great obviously but it needs to be more spread out.

Hopefully Derek Roy and Thomas Vanek, probably the two most important offensive pieces, will find a little more consistency this season as well. Vanek, a goal scorer first and foremost, will probably always be a little streaky - I think that's normal - but hopefully he won't disappear for half the season like he did last year. He really started to look more comfortable as the season went on and he had the second most goals in the league in the second half (behind only Alexander Ovechkin who was on a pretty torrid pace) so it'd be nice to see him spread that pace out over the entire season this year. Derek also improved as the year went on and I really think he's the motor that keeps the team running. When he struggles, everything is going to slow down a little so he needs to be working hard every night.

For me, one of the most frustrating things about last season was that parts of the team played well but never at the same time. If the offense was clicking, the defense was a sieve. If the defense stood tall, the offense couldn't score. If the goaltending was good, it was undone by poor defense. If the defense did its part, the goaltending was terrible. There were very few games where everything was working together. Guys, you are all allowed to play well in the same game. Really.

HENRIK TALLINDER

Hank will be totally awesome this season. Seriously. I know it.

Jeez, how did it get to be 1:10 a.m. already? One more post tomorrow should do it. Then we can finally move on to talking about actual games.

I've Got Vision and the Rest of the World is Wearing Bifocals

Some thoughts while half listening to Sabres-Leafs on the radio:

- As someone who was raised on older movies, I was pretty bummed to hear about Paul Newman's death. He's one of my favorites. Thanks to my iPod I don't listen to WGR very often but on occasions when I accidentally leave it behind I sometimes tune in for a few minutes because my car radio suddenly quit picking up FM stations about a year ago. A few months ago they did a Paul Newman version of the obituary game in which they attempt to pick what movie or TV show will be mentioned in the first sentence of a celebrity's obituary. I figured Color of Money would come up first since it's his Oscar winning performance but for me there's no question what Paul Newman's best movie is. If you've never seen this movie, get thee to a video store immediately. Or just go buy it. It's one of my favorites and it's totally worth the money you'll spend. Here are a couple of other great scenes.

- When Steve Bernier was traded I went back and read the post I wrote after his first game in Buffalo and the thing that really caught my attention was not how physical he was in that game but how much his physicality trickled down to the rest of the team. Derek Roy was hanging off people's backs, Tim Connolly was jumping into scrums and in one of my favorite moments of the season, Dmitri Kalinin got sent to the box with Patrick Kaleta where they shared an adorably triumphant fist-bump.

I'm really curious to see if Craig Rivet will have that kind of effect on the Sabres (but on a more consistent basis). I'm especially curious to see what kind of influence he has on Toni Lydman if he and Toni do end up playing together. I love Henrik Tallinder but he's just not an overly physical guy and probably never will be. And while Toni will never be throwing his gloves around the ice, I think he is capable of playing with a little more of an edge than he usually does. It'd be nice to have one defensive pairing that's willing to knock the opposition around some. I'm sure Ryan Miller would appreciate that as well.

- See, this is the problem with trying to write about games I can't see. Mike Weber got tossed out of the game for cross-checking Matt Stajan in the neck. Harry Neale said on the radio broadcast that he didn't think it looked like that big of a deal. Mike Harrington said on Sabres Edge that it was deserved. I'm inclined to believe Harrington over the guy who even after six months continued to mix up Paul Gaustad and Jason Pominville (different numbers, totally different sizes, completely different styles of play) but it would be nice to be able to form my own opinion. I can't wait until television coverage starts.

- Again, it's hard to say for sure but it certainly sounded like Maxim Afinogenov played pretty well. Coincidence that I wrote here yesterday that I'd like to see Max with Derek Roy and Thomas Vanek and tonight that's what happened? I'm not so sure. Lindy, if you're reading this, wear a striped tie Sunday night.

- The Sabres play really well but fall behind, tie it up with 2:30 left in the game and then win in overtime. I have two thoughts: One, ha ha to the Leafs. Two, do we really need to break out the exciting but frustrating games already? Can't we ease into this, guys?

- While it's really too bad Henrik Tallinder and Jochen Hecht didn't play on Red Carpet night, there were some decent highlights anyway.

Ales Kotalik looking like he's about to sell those children something illegal:

Watch out, kids!

Derek Roy rocking a suit that only Derek Roy would wear:

You gotta admire the kid's gumption.

And finally, Teppo Numminen showing all the little boys how it's done:

Smoking. What can I say? I like my men older.

(All photos taken by Bill Wippert and found on Sabres.com.)

- Totally unrelated to tonight's game but something I thought about while walking around the mall today. Fellow people of Buffalo, it's time to let go of the Drury/Briere jerseys and jersey tees. I understand being attached to players and how hard it is to say goodbye to those you love. I even kind of understand continuing to wear them last season as a defiant message to ownership that you did not approve of their dealings. But it's the dawning of a new day here in Buffalo. It's a new era and a new team. It's time to move on. Personally I'd toss those suckers right in the garbage but if you need to perform a ceremony, maybe lovingly place the jersey in a boat, a hockey stick laid carefully across it, and send it out on Lake Erie a la Boromir being sent down the Anduin toward the Falls of Rauros that's fine too. But whatever you gotta do, let's do it already.

- I'm going to Sunday's game! Yay!

Lazy Blogging

I'll admit up front that this post is totally half-assed. I haven't had a ton of time to think this week - summer school started up and I'm pretty sure my new class is trying to kill me - but I'm in a blogging mood. I'm not even going to make the effort to actually organize these thoughts in any way. The column quoted below is from our favorite fella, Bucky Gleason.

Rivet isn’t an elite player, but he’s an upgrade. He’s a tough, solid defenseman who can move the puck. He’ll score the odd goal, be dependable in his own zone and win a few scraps. He’s locked up at $3.5 million for each of the next three years, making him the Sabres’ highest-paid defenseman at a reasonable salary... He’s a quality player, a character guy, one this town will appreciate. Good for the Sabres, good for their fans, good work by Regier... They didn’t even bother to offer hometown defenseman Brooks Orpik a contract. He returned to Pittsburgh with a six-year deal for $22.5 million, hardly a budget-buster. He’s making $250,000 per year more than Rivet, 33, who is better offensively but six years older. The message received there was that mediocrity remains acceptable.

I just... I don't understand. Bucky lists all the reasons that Craig Rivet was a good pick-up and a good fit for the Sabres and then concludes that management is happy with mediocrity because they didn't make an offer to Brooks Orpik. Craig Rivet is older which means he has experience being a leader on his team, something the Sabres needed that Brooks Orpik would not provide. He's also right-handed, something that the Sabres needed desperately and something that Brooks Orpik is not. (I admit I only know we need this because of Meg. She always brings it up when we discuss the defense.) He has a track record of good play that's longer than 2 months during the postseason, something that Brooks Orpik does not have. He eats minutes, something the Sabres are missing without Brian Campbell and something that Brooks Orpik does not do. He also plays on the powerplay and the penalty kill, both things that - guess what! - Brooks Orpik does not do very often. (I can't tell you how shocked I was when I saw how little special teams time Orpik gets. What the heck good is a stay-at-home defenseman who doesn't kill penalties?) But passing on the player who doesn't do as much and hasn't done what he does do well for that long and instead going with the player who's proven he can consistently play at the same level over the course of an entire season and meets a lot of the team's needs is settling for mediocrity?

News alert: The Sabres have a poor reputation among players. It has become increasingly evident that the only way to get quality veterans into Buffalo is to force them here through trades. It’s an unpleasant way to survive.

News alert: This is not actually a news alert since we hear it every off-season.

I'm willing to accept that some of the team's trouble is based on its history for watching its money closely. They don't spend a lot of money and players want to get paid, yo. But I don't think you can underestimate the fact that people think Buffalo blows. Seriously. No one I know in Alabama has ever set foot in Buffalo but when they found out I was moving there I got all kinds of strangely critical, disbelieving comments unlike I've ever heard about anywhere else. Patrick Lalime said straight out that he wasn't sure about Buffalo because there doesn't seem to be much to it and to opposing players there isn't. If all you ever saw was the area around HSBC would you be impressed with Buffalo? Buffalo is one of those places you have to live in and let the city settle around you so it doesn't surprise me that free agents aren't inspired by it whereas guys who come up in the system or get traded here usually end up loving it, sometimes enough to move back when their playing careers are done. I find it very encouraging that all of the Rochester kids who came up together seem to want to stay put. And all the former players who Lalime spoke to (Marty Biron, JP Dumont, and some guy I'm forgetting) said Buffalo was a good place to live and play. Wow, our reputation rears its ugly head once again!

Also didn't we just say that the Sabres didn't even make an offer to Brooks Orpik? Did they make any competitive offers to any free agents? Is it rejection if you're not actually asking the other party to join you in the first place?

GM Dale Tallon admitted he overpaid Campbell at $56.8 million over eight years, but he also delivered a strong message that the Blackhawks were headed in the right direction.

Fundamental difference of a opinion. I'm not impressed by GMs who overpay a player much less publicly admit that they overpaid a player. What message does that send exactly? Maybe when I see hard proof that high payrolls equal winning teams I'll be impressed by a move like that but since the Red Wings had the 18th ranked payroll last season while the Maple Leafs had the 9th, I'll go on believing you can't buy a winning record and you can't buy a Stanley Cup.

Thing is, it’s difficult to see where the Sabres are going.

Well. Let me see if I can help you out, Buck. See, last season the Sabres had a really, really good offense. Their numbers were thrown off some by the fact that they tended to score in bunches but they did score and there's some reason to believe that those scorers will improve since most of them are still pretty young. They struggled more on the defensive side of things and the whole team seemed to skate around like a chicken with its head cut off when things weren't going well which suggested they were lacking in leadership and heart. Last but not least, the goalie started a lot more games than he ever had before and more than someone of his body type can probably handle so he was pretty wiped out by the end of the season.

To solve some of those problems, the Sabres signed a new back-up goalie - one who started in the neighborhood of 30 games last season and won a little more than half - and they also signed a veteran defenseman who isn't afraid to drop the gloves. I like to call that "progress." In addition, they've started talks with their starting goalie, one of their best young wings, and a pretty valuable UFA. Again, "progress."

Yet since the lockout the Red Wings have won three straight division titles and one Stanley Cup, seven straight division titles and four Cups in the last 11 years. Players practically climb over one another to play in Motown.

Yeah, Detroit is amazing. I whole-heartedly agree. Let's ignore the fact that they mostly built their team the the same way the Sabres did - drafting good talent and trying to keep them around - though definitely more successfully and just say, way to tilt the argument to your side by comparing Buffalo to one of the very best run franchises in all of pro sports. Just about everyone in every sport fails in that comparison. I think not living up to the Red Wings still puts Buffalo in pretty decent company.

All right. I'm going to bed.