Some Sabres are skating on thin ice
Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff is done messing around. He made that abundantly clear in recent weeks while using the oldest and most effective coaching tool in the shed: ice time. For all the chalk talks and video, nothing gets a message across better than a seat on the bench or an evening in the press box.
Ruff laughed Friday at the suggestion that his words have grown stale with a team that has been largely intact since the beginning of last season. He shrugged it off as a product of losing. In fact, he has tried everything. He has pushed and pulled back. He’s gone soft and been tough. And now he’s removing all wiggle room.
“It’s not my job to look the other way,” Ruff said Friday after his team prepared for today’s matinee in Boston. “I’m not the type of guy that wants to embarrass people, but I am going to be tough. It’s going to be, ‘You’ve got to play this way, or you won’t be able to play.’ We’ll either take off and go, and everybody gets hunkered in, or you’ll keep waddling until we have to destroy a couple pieces.”
Translation: Ruff’s way or the highway.
The cranky, hard-line approach could be the most refreshing message of all from a coach who spent years after the lockout humming a different tune. Ruff didn’t have reason to play hardball for two seasons. He merely needed to send his troops over the boards and prepare his postgame victory comments.
Buffalo became the lovable league darlings, the scary skilled team that seemed on the verge of ending the city’s lifelong major-sports championship drought. Two years ago, the theme was confirming the previous season wasn’t a fluke. Last season, it was battling back after consecutive trips to the conference finals and the Drury-Briere debacle.
Now, enough is enough.
“Last year, it was a little bit of a hangover from the two years that were going really good, where we could get away with certain stuff because we had built up such a base,” goalie Ryan Miller said. “We were winning games, and it was easy for us. We were having fun, and it was almost like goofing around. We did our work, but it was kind of loose. You can’t have that same attitude if you’re not winning games.”
Buffalo has an 18-15-5 record and is in ninth place in the Eastern Conference standings. The Sabres’ success has been largely related to effort. Give it, and collect two points as they did Thursday night against Toronto following a Ruff mini-tantrum. If the full effort isn’t there, the Sabres can lose to the worst of them.
“When you’re winning, you can close your eyes [to problems],” defenseman Jaroslav Spacek said. “It probably happened last year when we missed the playoffs. We’re in the same situation this year. . . . It’s about making the playoffs. The pressure is on us, on him, on the organization.”
And that’s what makes today’s matinee against the Bruins so compelling. The Bruins have won 14 straight home games and surged to the top of the league standings after a mediocre start. Their confidence has gone through the roof of TD Banknorth Garden, the site of today’s game.
The Sabres are inching toward the midpoint in their season and battling for a playoff spot. They play a Boston team that has come together much the way Buffalo did coming out of the lockout. A win today could snap the Sabres back into place and convince them that they can compete with the league’s best. It also could get ugly with another poor effort.
“This is a good test for us,” Ruff said. “You have to treat this as a statement game. I’m really interested to see what we bring and who brings it. It’s a situation where we can say, ‘We’re going to put an end to Boston’s streak and keep this thing going and build off the level we competed in the last game.’ Or you end up stepping back and saying that it wasn’t good enough.”
Buffalo for years has been an organization that builds during the offseason, tweaks with a player or two around the trade deadline and addresses needs over the summer. General Manager Darcy Regier rarely makes a big move before the season’s halfway point.
It could change this year, however, if the Sabres don’t start turning around their season by playing with consistency. Ruff isn’t going anywhere. The only other way to shift the overall direction is to change the players. Buffalo has several who could be shipped out if they don’t shape up. At this point, nobody should feel comfortable.
Henrik Tallinder has played much better after he was sent to the press box early in the season. Maxim Afinogenov has had one foot in the doghouse all season. Ruff called out Derek Roy and Jochen Hecht earlier this week. He rearranged the dressing room. He’s been more critical, less tolerant than he has been in past years.
“I think that’s fair,” he said. “It’s pushing hard, trying to push hard. I think it’s the only way to go, but it has to be a fair push. It has to be evaluated on a fair basis, and it has to be fair for everybody. We’ve had to make some tough decisions. The first step is losing ice time. The second step is losing completely. You go down the lineup, and then you go out of the lineup.
“You got to be making a difference in the game. At this point, the guys that are making the difference are the guys that are going to have to play the most.”
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