From Ruff all the way down to Mair, there are few teams in the NHL this season that have been as focused and motivated as the Buffalo Sabres.
If their play up to this point hasn't been enough to convince you of this, look no further than the little comments during post game interviews and other tidbits about practice that clearly suggest this team's goal is far beyond just making the playoffs.
Here's a pregame article from wgr550.com with some interesting information about the approach Lindy Ruff is using to push his team to far beyond their limits.
Quote:
We've spoken many times about how Lindy Ruff has changed the way he coaches to a more positive frame of mind. Mike Grier has noticed it coming back for his second tour with Buffalo.
"He's not yelling and getting after guys as much openly. I think now more he's treating a lot of the guys who have grown up a little bit, he's treating them more like men. If he has a problem with somebody he's bringing them into the office and talking to them one to one and giving guys advice like that. I don't think he's getting after guys in front of the whole team or the media, the practices have been hard, but they've been shorter and that's kept our legs fresher when it comes to the games."
Ruff has frequent meetings with a core group of players. They are Grier, Ryan Miller, Paul Gaustad, Craig Rivet, Jason Pominville, Thomas Vanek, Jochen Hecht and Derek Roy.
The team is just one point out of first place in the East and have three strong months of play in. Ruff keeps it going by meeting with these players.
"We met yesterday for breakfast. We talked about where we want to improve as a team, the areas in the first 40 games we thought were good. We covered everything, travel scenarios, to our days off just trying to get feedback. To a man everybody said 'we want to improve the powerplay'. The one thing we asked of the last meeting was everybody had to bring something to the table, you weren't allowed to just sit there and nod your head." Grier said, "It's been good, it's an opportunity for the coaching staff to express their opinions on how the team's playing and at the same time for us as players to give him our opinion on what's going on in the room and on the ice, what we need to do better and what we need to do going forward to be better on the ice. They've been very open to our suggestions and that's made for a good environment here."
Recently, I've seen some improvement in the power play. The puck is moving quicker, they're skating harder, and the entries have been more successful.
I credit the organization from making the necessary coaching change to help the team in that area.
Most of all though, I credit the players. Take a look at this recent winning streak. It began with very poor starts converted into impressive comeback wins. The players knew they needed to address that issue, and they come out with the 3 fastest goals in team history to start a game.
They've also stepped up the goal scoring during this win streak as they've been pressured to all season long. Tim Connolly has been very impressive, riding an 8 game point streak and playing solid, physical hockey in addition to his statistical production.
This is clearly not the same underachieving bunch of young guys of the past two seasons. This team has transformed into one of the most lethal teams to play against in the NHL, through nothing but hard work and dedication.
The will to improve is obviously there, and if they keep themselves unsatisfied and push themselves to improve no matter how well they're playing, they will be a very scary team come April.
A major test is coming up as they head out on the longest road trip of the season. If they can battle through it and come up with some big wins, this team will be considered a fringe team no longer.
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