sabresindc wrote:
In my opinion, Darcy has made a fatal mistake with the current squad. He has stuffed this team with players who have less that four years experience in the league. Other than experience, what rookies need is veterans to learn from and look up too. I count, maybe two veterans the rookies can learn from on this team. THIS will cause the Sabres to Continue to fail year in and year out. Just because all these rookies have talent, doesn't mean they'll learn how to use it correctly.
I think this is as close to an explanation for the poor play we see as I can find. But I'd like to stress the lack of experience part as even more important than the lack of leadership part. Even if you have good mentors for young guys on a team, I think it just takes time to develop, good advice or no. Looking at the team there are just too many rookies to be competitive. Pysyk looks like a keeper, but the rest still look like crapshoots to me. Grigorenko is a bust I'm pretty sure, Ristolainen could be good but he's having trouble, Girgensons started off OK but has not looked good lately. Larsson I've only seen once but didn't look great. It's just too many rookies to be competitive. And when your "veterans" and "go-to guys" include Myers, Ennis, and Hodgson, all guys under 25, what do you expect?
Whoever said the longterm contracts over the last few years killed Buffalo was dead on as well. Those contracts to Myers, Stafford, and Leino were premature and wildly optimistic. They will be nearly unmovable, and will handcuff the Sabres to the point where they keep having to rush young players into the lineup.