he hasnt won in like his last 11 starts.

There’s a mindset in this town that starting your goalie 21 times in 22 games, even in the midst of fighting a battle to make the playoffs, is a travesty of such epic proportions that no team with a sane coach would ever do the same.

If that’s the case, folks, then there sure are plenty of deranged coaches in the NHL.

One of them has to be Phoenix coach Dave Tippett, who went out of his mind and started Mike Smith 21 times in 22 games between mid-January and early March. As fate would have it, Smith won 13 of those games to bring the Coyotes to the brink of clinching a playoff berth and possibly a division title.

And you know Barry Trotz of Nashville must have been berserk when he gave Pekka Rinne 25 starts in 27 games in February and March. All the Predators have to show for the craziness of their coach is a shot at home ice in the first round of the playoffs.

After being hired by the Kings almost four months ago, Darryl Sutter returned the favor by getting delusional and starting Jonathan Quick 21 times in 23 games from mid-January to early March. Despite such lunacy, Los Angeles is now in great shape to win the Pacific division.

Take a look at teams that battled the Sabres for playoff positioning last year. John Tortorella went so far off the deep end that he started Henrik Lundqvist 26 straight games from February to the end of the regular season. Jacques Martin had the audacity to go with Carey Price in 21 of 24 games from mid-February to early April.
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Miller went on a tear that saw him compile a 14-1-4 record with a 1.63 GAA and a .941 save percentage. Then he surrendered bad goals to Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel this past weekend and folks made it sound like he instantaneously hit a wall. Within 24 hours, we completely forgot that Miller’s off-the-charts performance is the main reason why those games were even important in the first place.

The Sabres knew they had to play over .700 hockey for two months to make the playoffs. I guess it’s nuts to forgive Ruff for thinking that giving 4 or 5 starts to a guy who had lost 11 of his last 12 decisions wasn’t exactly conducive to making that heroic run to 8th place.