...in Gleason's recent frothing is agency displacement, a type of causation error based on a mistaken belief that a party or agent exercises a greater degree of influence or control than actually exists. Such was the case with yesterday's screed, where Gleason attempted to saddle Regier, a General Manager, with responsibility for the Regher/Leopold lineup's failures of defensive mechanics. Whether this is the result of Gleason himself misunderstanding the scope of a modern GM's role, or simply a craven belief on his part that the readership don't understand it (and who cares, so long as he can perpetuate a masturbatory NHL kingbreaker fantasy) is not really all that interesting, though it may be unintentionally amusing on occasion. What matters, for the purposes of repairing the club, is that it is wrong:
1. GMs are responsible for bringing a potentially effective set of talents together in the hope that they will compliment one another's abilities effectively. The GM is not expected to oversee the full range of fiduciary responsibilities to the franchise and be involved in coaching and conditioning; the failure rate among those who have attempted to play both roles simultaneously over the past 30 years speaks for itself, and for why the joint title has not been offered anywhere in some time.
2. Responsibility for failures of defensive mechanics, reflected in both the absurd average SOG/game Miller has faced and a penalty kill percentage that ranks in the bottom sixth of the league, rests with the coaching staff. The GM also does not bear primary responsibility for selecting the personnel who fill assistant coaching roles- that discretion wisely rests with the head coach almost everywhere in the NHL, and it was certainly true here under Lindy Ruff. Ruff has already taken the fall for the dysfunction, and it would be no surprise to us if his hand-selected group of former players behind the bench are also let go come June.
Why won't Gleason acknowledge this organizational reality? Perhaps because he decided to amuse himself on 3/24 by suggesting that a wide range of Sabres alumni should be invited into franchise leadership roles despite the obvious failures of Patrick, Adams and (sadly) Numminen to develop a successful defensive strategy with a team that, on paper, should at least have been able to limit opponent offense to league-average SOG/game. Fine-point evidence of the dysfunction: in his first two games as head coach, Rolston felt it necessary to force the team to play the umbrella, a formation taught at instructional levels and designed to force "offensive-minded" [read: reluctant] defensemen to limit their range of attack while focusing on puck control at the blue line. In other words, it's meant to force defensemen to actually play defense. We lost both of those games, no real surprise since the umbrella requires very strong corner work to produce offensive chances, but they were at least able to reach a level of consistency that had fans talking about whether the 8th playoff spot was within reach.
3. It might be useful for fans to also bear in mind that Rolston, allegedly due to concerns over his own authority as Amerks head coach, decided that he couldn't continue working with Jay McKee at the end of last season despite (or perhaps because of ?) McKee's popularity among players in both the Sabres and Amerks locker rooms (he was reportedly a fixture at training sessions during the lockout). How or whether this bears on his current relationship to the assistant coaches is an interesting question, but it's not actually a situation for which Regier bears fault. Few teams in the modern history of the league have ever been in the position to sweep out an entire coaching staff at once in the middle of a losing season, which makes perfect sense when you stop to consider where the coaching talent would come from. Mass-transplant of coaches from the minors into the NHL is neither a prescription for NHL-level ills nor a likely plan for successful prospect development.
4. Gleason's aforementioned "star chamber" theory for rebuilding the club was proffered with such complete disregard for numerous conflicts of both interest and personality that it would take me another long post to break them down, so I will settle with this: a former player who, by multiple accounts, made himself unwelcome in his own locker room due to an unrelenting need to proselytize his evangelical beliefs is not the person you entrust with player development in a league where recruitment is an international undertaking. Failure to grasp that relatively simple organizational reality speaks to the true scope of Gleason's incompetence as an NHL analyst.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
A classic spelling lesson for words starting with "R"!
Oh Bucky, how can I keep up with youR wit. This evening's aRticle is a classic. It's shocking the GM and Coach have hatRed in theiR voice when answeRing all youR gReat questions! Rebuild. Reapproach. Bucky is Redundant.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
a short and incomplete list
of things less predictable than BG slagging Darcy on deadline day:
1. The Bills will not win the Super Bowl
2. A wistful reference to 7/1/07 in a TBN sports column this month*
3. Jack Edwards not being objective while calling a Bruins game.
4. The sun rising.
Oh, Bucky Bucky Bucky...you just couldn't sit by while Angry Mike Harrington has been stealing your bitter thunder this winter. Beginning with the idiocy of practically demanding the owner "make a statement" - what, so you can put as much stock in what would surely be just as vacuous and crowd-pleasing a statement as you did with his "winning the cup in 3 years" speech? Which you hilariously take as gospel rather than the rallying cry that anyone with semi-intelligence would take it to mean, and nothing more. "his bold speech...is an embarrassment" WE MUST HOLD HIM TO THIS THREE YEARS!!! jeez.
one paragraph in particular is "interesting" mostly because Bucky finally surrenders his grip on the Strawman and actually talks details, even if it is out of his....
"His first, for Brad Boyes, was a disaster. He was conned into taking Ales Kotalik, and his $3 million salary, in the deal that landed Regehr. Getting a first-round pick for Paul Gaustad and a fourth-rounder was good. Cody Hodgson for Zack Kassian looks fine now, but the swap can’t be properly assessed until both have matured. Steve Ott for Derek Roy helped chemistry but didn’t make a difference overall."
Boyes? Yes - he was a "bust" in Buffalo. I do recall a lot of time on the 4th line here. This is a chicken/egg situation perhaps but not-so-distant-past history suggests coaching decisions at least being part of the answer. The Boyes' acquisition was hardly widely-criticized at the time, and if you want to take a simplistic look at it, examine Boyes' #s before buffalo and more importantly this year in freaking long island. Already he has 6 more points in like 30 fewer games. But that's Darcy's fault somehow. I wonder if his name was something like Rocco Regier or probably just Gord Regier if Bucky would accept him more.
"Conned?" Sounds like "some people" (Bucky phrase) really loved that deal when it happened... "Darcy apologists" no doubt, like this one:
"For now, it all sounds like music. The Sabres are getting the proper pieces in place for what many believe will become a contending team" -B.Gleason, Sept 21, 2011
Hodgson for Kassian "looks fine now" - it looks even more like a heist now as it did last year when Canucks fans and opposing GMs were incredulous that the Canucks would give up their potential future #1 center for a decent-handed winger with dim-bulb on-ice instincts and a history of, frankly, being a douche. Love the "looks fine now" throwaway because he obviously couldn't shoehorn this successful deal into his preconceived notion. Can we assess the fact that Kassian is now back in the AHL? Why do I think that if Kassian had 20 goals by now we'd be hearing how we gave up too early on a "great bruising young winger..."
Ott for Roy was another trade everyone liked. How do you know it didn't make a difference overall? What does that even mean?
If anything, he has missed out on trades because he fears making mistakes.
Would love even one shred of evidence for this statement. Give me just one trade he "missed out" on.
This isn't meant as a wholehearted defence of Regier. He's had some issues with free agent signings or non-signings. But any criticisms or track records must be compared with other GMs and teams. Bucky loves to make everything cut and dried, a binary George Bush "if you're not with us you're against us" answer, and nothing on earth is that simple (except Fuck the Bruins to hell).
Now i'm rambling and reading that Pominville is gone and like everyone else he'll be shat on on his way out of town despite being the best 2-way forward we've had on this team in the past decade. F me.
*(because the "loss" of Drury and Briere apparently remains a source of great psychic trauma at One News Plaza despite 20/20 hindsight that the former was on the steep downside of his career and the latter was overvalued given his subsequent production- we think it's safe to say he's not going to have another 95 pt. season. BB.).
1. The Bills will not win the Super Bowl
2. A wistful reference to 7/1/07 in a TBN sports column this month*
3. Jack Edwards not being objective while calling a Bruins game.
4. The sun rising.
Oh, Bucky Bucky Bucky...you just couldn't sit by while Angry Mike Harrington has been stealing your bitter thunder this winter. Beginning with the idiocy of practically demanding the owner "make a statement" - what, so you can put as much stock in what would surely be just as vacuous and crowd-pleasing a statement as you did with his "winning the cup in 3 years" speech? Which you hilariously take as gospel rather than the rallying cry that anyone with semi-intelligence would take it to mean, and nothing more. "his bold speech...is an embarrassment" WE MUST HOLD HIM TO THIS THREE YEARS!!! jeez.
one paragraph in particular is "interesting" mostly because Bucky finally surrenders his grip on the Strawman and actually talks details, even if it is out of his....
"His first, for Brad Boyes, was a disaster. He was conned into taking Ales Kotalik, and his $3 million salary, in the deal that landed Regehr. Getting a first-round pick for Paul Gaustad and a fourth-rounder was good. Cody Hodgson for Zack Kassian looks fine now, but the swap can’t be properly assessed until both have matured. Steve Ott for Derek Roy helped chemistry but didn’t make a difference overall."
Boyes? Yes - he was a "bust" in Buffalo. I do recall a lot of time on the 4th line here. This is a chicken/egg situation perhaps but not-so-distant-past history suggests coaching decisions at least being part of the answer. The Boyes' acquisition was hardly widely-criticized at the time, and if you want to take a simplistic look at it, examine Boyes' #s before buffalo and more importantly this year in freaking long island. Already he has 6 more points in like 30 fewer games. But that's Darcy's fault somehow. I wonder if his name was something like Rocco Regier or probably just Gord Regier if Bucky would accept him more.
"Conned?" Sounds like "some people" (Bucky phrase) really loved that deal when it happened... "Darcy apologists" no doubt, like this one:
"For now, it all sounds like music. The Sabres are getting the proper pieces in place for what many believe will become a contending team" -B.Gleason, Sept 21, 2011
Hodgson for Kassian "looks fine now" - it looks even more like a heist now as it did last year when Canucks fans and opposing GMs were incredulous that the Canucks would give up their potential future #1 center for a decent-handed winger with dim-bulb on-ice instincts and a history of, frankly, being a douche. Love the "looks fine now" throwaway because he obviously couldn't shoehorn this successful deal into his preconceived notion. Can we assess the fact that Kassian is now back in the AHL? Why do I think that if Kassian had 20 goals by now we'd be hearing how we gave up too early on a "great bruising young winger..."
Ott for Roy was another trade everyone liked. How do you know it didn't make a difference overall? What does that even mean?
If anything, he has missed out on trades because he fears making mistakes.
Would love even one shred of evidence for this statement. Give me just one trade he "missed out" on.
This isn't meant as a wholehearted defence of Regier. He's had some issues with free agent signings or non-signings. But any criticisms or track records must be compared with other GMs and teams. Bucky loves to make everything cut and dried, a binary George Bush "if you're not with us you're against us" answer, and nothing on earth is that simple (except Fuck the Bruins to hell).
Now i'm rambling and reading that Pominville is gone and like everyone else he'll be shat on on his way out of town despite being the best 2-way forward we've had on this team in the past decade. F me.
*(because the "loss" of Drury and Briere apparently remains a source of great psychic trauma at One News Plaza despite 20/20 hindsight that the former was on the steep downside of his career and the latter was overvalued given his subsequent production- we think it's safe to say he's not going to have another 95 pt. season. BB.).
3 Modest Proposals
...for a better NHL:
1. Impose an automatic 5min major on any player who leaves his feet with clear intent to make contact regardless of consequences, with an automatic 10min game misconduct for a second offense, followed by automatic 5 and 10-game suspensions with escalating fines, etc. No pseudo-Solomonic, result-driven "discretion" from the league office in Toronto which does nothing to stem the concussion problem.
2. Eliminate the 2min boarding penalty- behavior linked to more than half of all in-game injuries resulting in a player on IR for more than 30 days over the past decade- and replace it with a 5min major. See #1 above for additional consequences.
3. Once you have the above in place, get the second referee off the ice- put him in a box with a top-down, full-ice monitor and give him discretion to rule on reprisal contact for additional penalties/ minutes- and no stripes behind the goal lines except to break up player contact after a whistle or reset the net. The current arrangement slows down the game by compelling refs to position themselves in traffic (a far more common tendency now than when the 4-man officiating teams were introduced in the late '90s) and, more importantly, it forces players to make tentative obstacle-avoidance decisions which lead to injuries.
If the league is serious about injury prevention, these steps will take us much further toward returning the game to a contest of skills than the alleged "beefing up" of rules we've seen over the past 2 CBA cycles.
1. Impose an automatic 5min major on any player who leaves his feet with clear intent to make contact regardless of consequences, with an automatic 10min game misconduct for a second offense, followed by automatic 5 and 10-game suspensions with escalating fines, etc. No pseudo-Solomonic, result-driven "discretion" from the league office in Toronto which does nothing to stem the concussion problem.
2. Eliminate the 2min boarding penalty- behavior linked to more than half of all in-game injuries resulting in a player on IR for more than 30 days over the past decade- and replace it with a 5min major. See #1 above for additional consequences.
3. Once you have the above in place, get the second referee off the ice- put him in a box with a top-down, full-ice monitor and give him discretion to rule on reprisal contact for additional penalties/ minutes- and no stripes behind the goal lines except to break up player contact after a whistle or reset the net. The current arrangement slows down the game by compelling refs to position themselves in traffic (a far more common tendency now than when the 4-man officiating teams were introduced in the late '90s) and, more importantly, it forces players to make tentative obstacle-avoidance decisions which lead to injuries.
If the league is serious about injury prevention, these steps will take us much further toward returning the game to a contest of skills than the alleged "beefing up" of rules we've seen over the past 2 CBA cycles.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
A Shared Affliction
We are middle-aged, life-long Buffalo Sabres fans who've become convinced that a little red wagon full of properly medicated rhesus monkeys would do a better job of rationally assessing the state of our hockey club than the alleged experts in the local media. We will occasionally try to meet that standard.
There are many other blogs devoted to the Sabres and their 42 years of occasional greatness, some of them quite good. We reserve this space to direct our invective at the knee-jerk belligerence which apparently passes for editorial policy among the hacks at the The Buffalo News (hereinafter TBN). You've been duly warned, and we understand if you choose not to join us in dwelling on rotten hash masquerading as journalism.
I'll begin, then, not with the usual verbal flatulence from the namesake of this blog, but with a bit of dross from his colleague Jerry Sullivan. In his most recent musing on the tenuous job security of Sabres GM Darcy Regier, Sullivan writes:
"Bucky Gleason was told recently that top brass are trying to convince Pegula that the media is the problem, and that certain Buffalo News writers are out to get Regier."
Putting aside the dubious assertion of "top brass" aside from Pegula and Regier themselves, the real question-begging inherent in Sullivan's claim is that Pegula, Regier or any Buffalonian in place or spirit who has made the error of opening TBN in the past 5 years would need to be convinced that such a campaign exists. Ample evidence that it does- a teaming pile of self-important bluster, baseless rumor-mongering and unremitting ignorance of either the depth of sports psychology we expect from pee wee coaches or a high school junior's grasp of the economics of the NHL- is readily accessible to anyone who has achieved a 3rd-grade reading level and cares to look.
We hope to more fully expose the underlying vanity of that enterprise in the weeks and months to come.
There are many other blogs devoted to the Sabres and their 42 years of occasional greatness, some of them quite good. We reserve this space to direct our invective at the knee-jerk belligerence which apparently passes for editorial policy among the hacks at the The Buffalo News (hereinafter TBN). You've been duly warned, and we understand if you choose not to join us in dwelling on rotten hash masquerading as journalism.
I'll begin, then, not with the usual verbal flatulence from the namesake of this blog, but with a bit of dross from his colleague Jerry Sullivan. In his most recent musing on the tenuous job security of Sabres GM Darcy Regier, Sullivan writes:
"Bucky Gleason was told recently that top brass are trying to convince Pegula that the media is the problem, and that certain Buffalo News writers are out to get Regier."
Putting aside the dubious assertion of "top brass" aside from Pegula and Regier themselves, the real question-begging inherent in Sullivan's claim is that Pegula, Regier or any Buffalonian in place or spirit who has made the error of opening TBN in the past 5 years would need to be convinced that such a campaign exists. Ample evidence that it does- a teaming pile of self-important bluster, baseless rumor-mongering and unremitting ignorance of either the depth of sports psychology we expect from pee wee coaches or a high school junior's grasp of the economics of the NHL- is readily accessible to anyone who has achieved a 3rd-grade reading level and cares to look.
We hope to more fully expose the underlying vanity of that enterprise in the weeks and months to come.
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