Coach for day: Tough guys on first line will set tone
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There's one surefire way for athletes to alienate this town. It's when they sum up their games like this:
"We came out flat. The effort wasn't there. We just weren't ready to play."
Of all the sentences from the Buffalo Sabres during the past two playoff-free seasons, three stick out.
"We came out flat. The effort wasn't there. We just weren't ready to play."
That's going to stop. The first-period sleepwalk (which occasionally carries into the third) is going to end. The best part is, this Coach for a Day doesn't need new personnel to do it. The answer is already sitting in the dressing room. So, I present to you the Sabres' starting lineup each and every night, three guys about whom those quotes never apply:
Paul Gaustad at center, Patrick Kaleta at right wing and Adam Mair at left wing.
I don't care if they're lined up against Sidney Crosby and Joe Thornton, or Chris Neil and Donald Brashear. They're starting. They're setting the tone. People think my squad is soft? Wait till your ear drums pound when Kaleta rattles someone off the boards 10 seconds into the game. Wait till Gaustad drives the crease at the 30-second mark, showing the goaltender what's coming all night.
As Lindy Ruff once famously said: "Run 'em."
Everyone else had better feed off that first shift. I'm betting Gaustad and Kaleta, two new-school leaders and old-time players, will make sure they do. Because, really, in the end, it's all about effort. This team is getting that point driven home nonstop.
I used to think it was kind of cheesy that the Pittsburgh Penguins decorate every dressing room they inhabit, at home and on the road. Signs that read, "We take pride in winning" and "Whatever it takes, we walk together" adorn the walls as the players lace their skates and stride toward the ice. I used to look at the signs and think, "Come on, do professional athletes really need slogans?"
I've changed my mind, mainly because there's another sign going alongside those placards. It reads, "2008-09 Stanley Cup champions."
So just in case a daily dose of the Kaleta line doesn't fill the Sabres' motivational quota, various themes playing off the phrase "every shift counts" will be all over HSBC Arena. Every shift does count, as this team should have (finally) learned last season. The Sabres missed the playoffs by two points. One more win — one better shift somewhere — they're in.
Signs are solid tools, but I've learned a few things from watching Ruff the past seven seasons. One is that some players respond only to an enhanced audible experience. In other words, the coach yells and swears at them. Ruff used Dmitri Kalinin as his target for years, screaming at the top of his lungs to send messages to the defenseman and his teammates.
The person who'll be my message conduit is Derek Roy. The reasons are twofold. He's the Sabres' top point-producer, so if teammates see him getting a hard time, they should feel anyone can be a target. Also, I get the sense he likes it. Roy seems to play better whenever Ruff calls him out, whenever people underestimate him. I think he's stung by the fact he's not part of the alternate captaincy crew and tries to prove he should be. Tormenting him could be a driving force toward elite status.
I'm looking forward to trotting out my revamped defense, one that provides a mix of grit and skill despite its youth. First, a tip of the cap to GM Bucky Gleason for delivering Jay Bouwmeester. The newcomer gets to earn his big bucks by tutoring his rookie sidekick, Tyler Myers. Chris Butler looked good alongside Craig Rivet, so they're staying together. I'm hoping Mike Weber and Andrej Sekera rediscover the skill they had down the stretch two seasons ago.
As far as goaltending, Ryan Miller is obviously the man. But Patrick Lalime is getting more work under my watch. Eight days between starts is the maximum. That would give him 23 appearances, enough to keep him sharp, enough to give Miller rest.
But no one else is getting a breather. Whether it's opening night, a December day in Nashville or the final week of the season, every game had better have the same intensity or there will be serious payback in practice.
And if anyone thinks that's tough, just wait until Ruff gets ahold of the Sabres in September. He's in the last year of his contract and his team has missed the playoffs the past two seasons. Friends are likely to be few and far between — though I hope he goes easy on the writer taking his job.
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