Another day, and yet another headline news story in Pegulaville.
The Sabres were off on Monday, and they spend the day away from the rink in Montreal.
Ryan Miller offered a mea culpa to his teammate Pat Kaleta for the postgame comments that Miller made about Kaleta directly following the galling loss in Washington on Sunday night.
Miller was asked to comment about the Kaleta benching in Washington, following PK36s NHL-imposed five game suspension for his dirty hit on NYR centre Brad Richards.
Here's what Miller said in washington:
“ He’s dramatic. No, we are not into discussing what Patty said, because that’s drama and he needs to just grow up of he‘s going to say that to you guys (the media). Ya know what? He has a stupid play in a game He sat, he was punished, just get over it and move on. We handled it. He doesn’t have to go to you guys and say that stuff. There. I’m addressing it and now I’ll go talk to him about it. Its not need to just say that”.
Miller was asked if the Sabres leadership group approached Ron Rolston about giving Kaleta more time of:
“We don’t make lineup decisions. We’re plugged in. You guys think we have more power than we’ve got, man. We talk about this every year around trade deadline… when something comes up. We’re plugged in, we play. Sorry it’s a bad tone, but you caught me in a crappy night. He (Kaleta) doesn’t have to handle it like that., so we’ll deal with it internally”.
Brian Duff from Sabres TV caught up with Ryan Miller for this exclusive interview at the team hotel in Montreal.
Thanks, sabres.com
This situation is beginning to unravel like a cheap sweater.
Miller calls out a teammate, then apologizes for it.
How does this play out in the Sabres locker room?
Is Miller indirectly asking for a trade by speaking out about his teammates and the referees?
Sabres captain, Jason Pominiville, said in his post game autopsy that he didn’t have time to react to the lost draw that eventually led to the Ovechkin goal at the 19 second mark of the first period of Sunday loss in Washington. Hodgson lost the draw cleanly, however, the wingers were charged with the task of getting their feet moving to get their sticks on the loose puck. Pommer couldn’t get coverage on the puck, nor Ovechkin because of the bang-bang nature of the play.
After the game, exasperated Sabres interim coach , Ron Rolston, disagreed with the captain.
“There’s a design for it… thats what I’m saying, we just didn’t execute on the play. First of all, you can’t lose the draw that clean, and secondly, we didn’t have the execution that we needed to on the play”.
Sounds like the coach is calling shenanigans on the captain.
Good on the coach. Its about time for Pominville to be held accountable. Afterall, this is his team, right? He's the leader, on and off the ice. He's the guy who the media grills when things are looking bleak like they are right now.
Pominville should be held accountable for his laissez-faire mentality on that, and many other lost draws. Its getting to be rather irksome watching Pominville trying to play pucks with his stick, while not moving his feet. He’s been looking a lot like “Zorro” the swashbuckler lately. He’s sword fighting for lose pucks rather than using his 6‘1 200 lb. frame to leverage guys off the puck. By no means am I criticizing Pommer for not hammering guys with thunderous body checks, because that is not his game at all. Pommer is a swift, heavy skater, when he’s engaged in the process and when he is moving his feet. Operative word: “when”.
Take a look at this mess. How can Pominville say that he had no time to react to Hodgson’s lost face off? He was within a stick length of the puck and Ovechkin, yet he blew the coverage and the red light cause a sunburn on the back of Ryan Miller’s neck.
There’s no excuse for Pominville’s passive play on that draw. That’s Ovechkin with the puck, nit some beer leaguer playing shinny at the Northtown Center. Its inexcusable to roll over and play dead on a face off at the 19 second mark of the first period of a must-win game. Its all the more galling when the error was committed by the team’s captain, the supposed leader of the group. We’ll never know it now because its retrospective analysis, however, what if Pommer makes the effort to tie up Ovechkin or he had won the puck and cleared the zone? Perhaps there’s no Ovechkin goal. Perhaps there’s no chance at all. Perhaps the Caps don’t earn the momentum. Perhaps the Sabres go the other way and score. Perhaps the Sabres win the game as a result of playing to NHL standards in Ryan Miller’s end of the rink. The Sabres are so vulnerable in their own end. Its maddening. Something has to give. This team will not compete for a playoff spot until it cleans up the offensive graffiti that is plastered all over its face off coverage.
Don’t even get me started on Jochen Hecht’s clean face off loss against Ottawa that resulted in the Chris Philipps goal.
The Sabres enter tonight's action ranked 29th in the NHL with a 45.9% face off win percentage. They lose 54% of their draws. They are not good in the dot. We know this. Their opponents know this. Seemingly, the Sabres players on the ice in those crucial face off situations also know this. What is being done to prevent the same litany of mistakes from happening again and again and again?
Its like the movie 'Groundhog Day".
Same crap, different day.
This face off loss crisis has been occurring on a regular basis since the first game of the season, yet the same offenders keep making the same lazy mistakes every game. Ruff tried to fix it before he was made the scapegoat for the continues mistakes on the ice.
Did you know that Steve Ott, a winger, is ranked 7th in the NHL with a 58.6% win rate? He trails Jonathon Toews, Joe Thornton, and Boyd Gordon by an eyelash. Otter is a sliver better than Pavel Datsyuk, Brian Boyle, Matt Cullen, David Krejci, Michal Handzus, and Travis Zajac-- who are all centres.
If Ott can win draws, why can't Hodgson (69th with 46.1%)? Ennis (81st with 41.2%)? Hecht ( not in the top 82 faceoff men)?
Who gets the blame now? Coach or players?
If I’m Rolston, I call my captain into the coach’s office in Montreal and I tell him that he has earned a front row seat in Suite 150. Healthy scratch in his home province of Quebec on Tuesday night. The reason? The vets and the kids follow the example set forth by the captain,and if he’s taking shortcuts and doing fly-bys on killers like Ovechkin, then it sends a message that its acceptable for all players to make the same lazy, passionless mistakes too.
Other players, namely Leopold, Myers, Kaleta, and Stafford have had to sit for their sins. Why not the captain? Is he immune from the wrath of Rolston?
Pat Kaleta is foaming at the mouth to play again. So I say sit Pommer and play Kaleta in his place.
Its a Sabres off-day in Montreal. All is quiet, and rightly so. This past weekend was a red-hot mess. Losses to Ottawa and Washington in back-to-back fashion have really dampened the spirit of the fans in Pegulaville. You better believe that organizational changes are on the way. I would not be surprised if Darcy Regier were on the phone to another NHL GM, or two, at this moment. The NHL GMs will be meeting in Toronto on Wednesday for their quarterly meetings. Trade seeds that were sewn weeks ago are now staring to come to fruition. The winds of change will be blowing through under achieving NHL towns like Buffalo in the days and weeks to come.
I'll update you later on news that I'm hearing from around the NHL.
In true denial fashion, I'm shifting my focus off the Sabres for now.
The best of seven QMJHL Playoffs begin Friday night at Le Colisee in Quebec City.
Fifth place Quebec will host the 12th place Chicoutimi.
The King Of The Red Devils, Patrick Roy, was a proud head coach immediately following Quebec’s blowout of Rimouski on Sunday. Roy was beaming about the play of his squad, and notably the excellence put forth by his Russian Rifle, Mikhail Grigorenko. Roy admitted that he’s happy to have his secret weapon back in Quebec:
"For a first game, it was solid. He (Grigo) moved the puck well on the power play. After a time, he had already played more than in most of his games [in Buffalo]. A guy like him should raise points, his confidence returned. And he took the shot [for his goal] shows that he is an exceptional player. You could see he was happy to play. I do not want to draw a parallel with me, but I was not disappointed by his return to junior at the time”.
Roy set forth his agenda for the upcoming playoffs:
"I do not see why a change [role] is not accepted, the guys are on a mission. Anyway, it would not fall into nothingness, we play four lines here, there are no passengers. Top 10 forwards will play at least 15 minutes per game in the playoffs. All this is fine, but this is going to bring to the table that will determine the impact of Grigo. If we lower our game a notch, it will not work. If we maintain the same attitude, it could get interesting. My feeling is good, the club is strong since late January. "
Thanks, Google Translator
Roy wasn’t shy about loading up Grigorenko’s ice time in his first game. The kid dominated the game and ate up nearly 20 minutes in his impressive Remparts return. The extra ice time didn’t faze Grigo one bit. He has been training hard in Buffalo for this type of physical exertion. Grigo talked about it after his one goal, three assist performance:
"I did a lot of stationary bike, recently I had a good heart rate and not be afraid to use that much. At first I was a little nervous because I wanted to play a good game. I think I've done offensively, but I may have made some mistakes defensively for my first game with the Remparts. More importantly, we won”.
Keep an eye on this kid and his uber-talented Remparts squad in the first round of The Q Playoffs.
**
In case you were hammered and sleeping off your St. Patty's Day buzz on Sunday night, you missed Ryan Miller's rant.
Miller was none to pleased with his team's second period sink hole. He was pissed at the refs. He was also critical of his teammate and friend, Pat Kaleta:
Its been an emotionally draining weekend for Sabres fans. The team only could muster one point out of four against Ottawa and Washington.
After the 5-3 loss to the Caps, Ryan Miller cleared his throat and voiced his displeasure on his team's erratic play, the poor officiating that occurred on national TV, and his teammate Pat Kaleta. Yes, Miller is fed up with the Pat Kaleta drama.
Miller had some sage advice for his sulking, scratched buddy, Pat Kaleta:
“ He’s dramatic. No, we are not into discussing what Patty said, because that’s drama and he needs to just grow up of he‘s going to say that to you guys (the media). Ya know what? He has a stupid play in a game He sat, he was punished, just get over it and move on. We handled it. He doesn’t have to go to you guys and say that stuff. There. I’m addressing it and now I’ll go talk to him about it. Its not need to just say that”.
Miller was asked if the Sabres leadership group approached Ron Rolston about giving Kaleta more time of:
“We don’t make lineup decisions. We’re plugged in. You guys think we have more power than we’ve got, man. We talk about this every year around trade deadline… when something comes up. We’re plugged in, we play. Sorry it’s a bad tone, but you caught me in a crappy night. He (Kaleta) doesn’t have to handle it like that., so we’ll deal with it internally”.
***
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Miller was asked when his team is going to finally deliver a sixty minute, concerted effort in a game.
Miller smartly responded:
“I don’t know. Are we going to take a “dead pool” or something? Put me down for like, April 15th. I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. We know we to be ready. We were coming off a back to back. We have to be smart. Ya know, we got spun out a little bit in the second period again, so, its frustrating for sure, everybody’s got to be better, myself included. You can’t let them get the lead. You can’t play that kind of hockey”.
**
Was Miller concerned that Rolston would pull him from the game after the Sabres allowed the Caps' fourth goal? What's your opinion of the referees, Ryan?
“Yeah, he didn’t say anything to me. Until I get pulled out of a game, I try to make every save, try to battle, try to give ourselves a chance. We got close. As you can probably tell, I wasn’t very happy about the last goal, ya know, they get rewarded driving the net, but I though that was a little to far on the refs. I thought we were a little lazy on that one. They just assume that something is going to happen, just like the icing that Christian Ehrhoff won in the second period, they assumed something was happening and they got lazy. Luckily we were on NBC and everybody got to see how lazy refereeing effects the game. Awesome!”
***
Miller sounds like a guy who is at his limit. He sounds like he has had it up to here with his team.
Don't blame Ryan Miller for the combined catastrophe that was the St. Patty's Day hockey weekend.
Miller did his part. He gave his team a chance to win both games.
In both games, for some inexplicable reason, the Sabres took a twenty minute power nap in the second period, and for the second game in a row, the Sabres couldn't recover from their fatal flaws.
On Saturday, the Sabres stormed out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, then for no good reason, allowed the Sens to score three goals in an ugly second period.
On Sunday, Troy Brouwer, Jason Chimera Marcus Johansson, scored in rapid fire fashion in the second period and the game was over. The Sabres pushed back in the third period but in the end, it was too little too late.
Look at how lost the Sabres look in front of Ryan Miller. They are timid, passive, and late to make the right decisions in their own end.
Its the theme of this season.
This Sabres team has a fundamental problem: it lacks the ability to play a complete, sixty minute hockey game.
On February 20, Lindy Ruff was bounced out the door for his failure to get his team to tighten up defensively. Ron Rolston hasn't stemmed the barrage of ribber that is pelting Ryan Miller, who has been facing 35-40 shots per game. The Sabres were, and still are a mess in their own zone. Forwards and D were, and still are, lost and soft in their own end of the rink. They whiff at thin air hoping to create turnovers, rather than moving their feet to deny and space.
Defensive zone faceoff losses have been killing the Sabres all season long, none more damning than the Hecht draw loss in the Chris Philipps goal on Saturday. On Sunday night, Cody Hodgson's draw loss led to Ovechkin's bomb on Washington's first goal of the game at the 19 second mark of the game.
Ryan Miller can't win games by himself. he's good, but he ain't that good.
Its time to strongly consider all option for Miller's future in Buffalo.
Trade him to get valuable pieces that will help re-shape this team for years to come?
Re-sign him and ship out the perpetual under achievers that populate the Sabres forward and D ranks?
Miller will be a UFA in July 2014. Trade him now, or, keep him?
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