FanHouse Lindy Ruff

It's not exactly a national secret that hockey teams tend to go through coaching changes about as often as a high school kid goes through a change of clothes (speaking on personal experience, that's about once per year). As we begin the conference finals, it's probably worth pointing out that three of the four teams taking part -- the Pittsburgh Penguins, Carolina Hurricanes and Chicago Blackhawks -- experienced a change behind the bench during the regular season.

Newsmakers in the NHL is a weekday morning attempt to clear yesterday's rebounds and look to the day ahead.

Rangers 4, Flyers 3: With a win on Sunday -- or a loss in overtime -- the Philadelphia Flyers could have secured the No. 4 seed and home ice advantage in the opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Instead, the Flyers watched a 3-2 lead after two periods turn into a 4-3 loss, at home, against a New York Rangers team that had absolutely nothing to play for in terms of playoff positioning. As a result, the Flyers are going to begin their opening round series in Pittsburgh against a Penguins team that is extremely difficult to beat on home ice.

During Tuesday night's game between the Ottawa Senators and Buffalo Sabres, we showed you some video of Jarkko Ruutu taking a bite out of Andrew Peters during a first period altercation. In what can only be described as confusing, maybe even a little ridiculous, Peters received the only penalty on the play, picking up a two-minute minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Today, the NHL announced that Ruutu will be suspended two games for his actions. Following the game, Ruutu denied the incident even took place. Peters' response?

"I don't think if I did something that stupid I'd really be admitting to it either," Peters said. "It goes too far for any player. It doesn't matter who you are, it's not part of hockey."

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said he wasn't going to overreact to the incident, and even called it "humourous" and that "games need a little spice."

Funny, needing a little spice is probably would Ruutu had to say about Peters' hand.

This is Ruutu's second suspension of the season, as he received a two-game banishment for elbowing Montreal's Maxim Lapierre in the head. Combined, his two suspensions still don't equal the punishment handed out to Sean Avery for making a sex joke. I'm still not sure how that makes any sense.

Last night's 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning highlighted, for me, so many of the issues surrounding the Buffalo Sabres right now. Their swoon from 1st to 8th in the Eastern Conference has produced the kinds of wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the fans worthy of a realtor or car dealer. Maybe it's fitting that the primary corporate sponsor for the Sabres is Chevrolet as the Sabres Cup aspirations have mirrored the chart of the GM's stock price.

I got a chance to watch the recently re-booted Sabres play against Tampa, distraction-free, and it was an illuminating experience. Having missed the games against Nashville and Florida I couldn't comment on them, and by all accounts, who would have wanted to? The Sabres are bad right now, and the reasons why are manifest. Ready? See if you disagree with the list:

1. A lack of secondary scoring. The team that was the poster child for a balanced, deep attack has become the Thomas Vanek show.
2. Forwards cheating in the defensive zone and not supporting the defense-men at all.
   
3. Poor transition game because of the large gap between them and the defense.
4. Insistence that this is 2006 and not nearly 2009, so shinny is still the way they think they can win.
5. No one except Vanek is willing to bury a shoulder and drive the net. The entire team, to a man skates across the blue-line, pulls up short to set up a 5 man offense that looks like a bad power play
6. There's little battle in the corner for pucks. Winning one on one battles along the boards was a specialty and now it's a liability.
   
7. They are terrible at even strength, a team total -15.
8. Drew Stafford has no sophmore slump excuse. Grow up or get out.
9. Very little willingness to stand up for each other. They are now a collection of guys rather than a team.

I'll stop there... I could probably come up with more if I spend another five minutes thinking about it.

Injuries are quickly becoming a sub-plot in the story of this year's Buffalo Sabres, well, injuries and massively unbalanced scoring, as Captain Craig Rivet is not playing tonight against the Nashville Predators. The news out of Erie County is pretty ugly. In addition to Rivet's unnamed injury, agitator extraordinaire Patrick Kaleta is out with a neck injury after he was boarded by Andre Kostityn during Saturday's 3-2 loss to the Habs. Tim Connolly is, well, Tim Connolly and is still out with a broken rib and Max Afinogenov is out of the lineup because of a number of short-circuits between his ears. To my mind, Rivet has been pretty ordinary since returning from his knee surgery last month, a step slower.

On the good news front, Ales Kotalik is playing this evening, after missing the last 7 games with a bad hamstring. Al's size will be welcome on the RW, given the chippy (and that's putting it generously) nature of the Preds. The Sabres need him to return to score-sheet where he was to start the season, but Lindy Ruff has him skating right now with Peters and Mair on the 4th line. This suggests to me he's being rushed back to the lineup a little early to get him out on the point for the power play. Any shifts he gets 5 on 5 have to be considered gravy.

This brings me back to the link above to Mike Harrington's article today in the Buffalo News about the top-heavy nature of the Sabres offense.

So Vanek has 18, meaning the Sabres have gotten 38 of their 65 goals from just four players - Vanek, Jason Pominville (eight), Derek Roy and Clarke MacArthur (six each). That's 58.5 percent of the offense, making the Sabres one of the most unbalanced attacks in the league heading into tonight's visit by Nashville.

The rash of injuries down the middle to start the season didn't hurt the offense much as Clarke MacArthur stepped up while others, namely Stafford and Roy, were struggling to find the net. But, as the team returned to relative health the lines got shuffled and with it any chemistry between players. The question I have is, if Connolly is consistently injured and there's no one with whom Afinogenov can play with successfully, why would anyone think the Sabres are much more than a one-line team when one looks at the lower half of the lineup?

Mix in the fact that not one of the defense men are capable of getting a shot through from the point or rushing the puck up the ice to create havoc and there's no threat from the blueline. This has quickly become a predictable team offensively, if not a bit thin.

Ta,

According to WGR550, Buffalo Sabres Captain Craig Rivet (D) had to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery today. GM Darth Regier informed them that Rivet will be out a minimum of two weeks. At 5-0-1, the Sabres have played excellent defense so far this season (with the exception of a couple of periods against Boston and Atlanta) which can be attributed to the addition of Rivet and his pairing with Henrik Tallinder. His no nonsense approach to the game was just starting to rub off on Hank as I began to see signs of the player that was so dominant during the 2006 playoffs before breaking his arm against Carolina.

Nathan Paetsch will most likely be inserted into the lineup. No mention has been made as to whether Mike Weber will be called up from Portland for the upcoming road trip. If I know Regier, he'll want to try and keep Weber in the AHL for as long a continuous stretch as possible, allowing that group of players to gel as much as possible. It's the reason no one was called up when Jochen Hecht went down with a broken finger last week.

You can here Lindy Ruff's comments here on the Rivet injury here.

For a little taste of what the Sabres will be missing in the next two weeks check out the video after the jump:

Ta,

The Buffalo Sabres announced today that C/LW Paul Gaustad had surgery to repair a ligment in his right thumb. Goose prevailing wisdom was that he injured it when he jumped Marc-Andre Bergeron after Bergeron submarined Danny Paille bruising Paille's thigh in the process in Monday's exhibition game against Minnesota. That's apparently not the case according to Lindy Ruff.

"It's not something he could play through," head coach Lindy Ruff said. "It was something that came up...When we had the MRI yesterday, it was found he needed to have it operated on."

It was originally thought that Gaustad injured his thumb while taking on Marc-Andre Bergeron after the Minnesota forward laid a hit on Daniel Paille. But according to Ruff, it wasn't during the fight, but in the previous shift that Gaustad claims he hurt it.

Among the many issues surrounding the Sabres to start this season are their depth at center, on-ice leadership and toughness. Gaustad provides all of that and a whole lot more. This will be the first big test of this group in how they deal with him not being in the lineup. This is yet another example of why the NHL's pre-season schedule this year is monumemtally stupid. 20 days of camp with 7.4 games per team

Where's the training portion of training camp?

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

With all of the talk about Alexander Ovechkin winning the Hart Trophy and the Art Ross trophies in a High School cakewalk, most people haven't quite noticed another superstar Russian kicking ass and taking names: Evgeni Malkin.

Now that Alexander Ovechkin has gone three straight games without a point (I'd blame his new girlfriend for sapping his energy *Ahem*), Malkin has leapfrogged Ovechkin and taken the lead in the NHL's scoring race.

"It's a great feeling to be leading the NHL in scoring," Malkin said through translator George Birman. "There are still lots of games left and Ovechkin is a good player. He will try to prove he's the best in the NHL. We'll see what will happen."

Malkin continues his torrid play. He saw his five-game goal streak snapped, but extended his points streak to nine games (6+14). He has 38 points (19+19) in his past 20 games.

"I never had a stretch like that over here in the NHL or back when I played in Russia," Malkin said. "I just want to thank all my teammates who are giving me such great passes.

Since Sidney Crosby went down to injury, the Penguins have gone 8-4-2.. Rather than wilt and cry about their predicament, Malkin decided that it was his time to step out of Crosby's shadow and carry the team for awhile. Certainly, Malkin ought to be entering the MVP discussion and booting Vincent Lecavalier all the way to the golf course.

One of the most sensible rules changes in the NHL 2.0 reboot has been the one that prohibits defensive players from making a line change if their team is guilty of icing the puck. (You didn't think I was going to mention that asinine regulation that treats a puck over the glass with the same level of punishment as a high-sticking minor, did you?) The rule has also made for more exciting hockey, as teams leading late in the game are no longer able to ice their way to victory -- a tactic that had become the tedious hockey equivalent of basketball's foul-shooting exhibitions to end regulation.

But there's a loophole to the icing rule, and Lindy Ruff helped expose it in the Winter Classic. Pittsburgh had all the momentum late in the game, forcing the Sabres to ice the puck rather than face another wave of attacking Penguins. The NBC announcers predicted Ruff would call a time out, and call one he did -- allowing his defenders to rest before heading back out on the ice for a critical face-off.

If the intent of the rule is to punish the team that ices the puck, let's take it all the way: Coaches should not be allowed to call a TO in that situation. Yes, the same players that were on the ice before the time out have to return after it's over -- having caught their collective breath. Yes, time outs in hockey are intended to be used sparingly and strategically, and burning one in a defensive situation means not having one in a critical offensive moment even later in the game. I can understand that latter argument. But what other penalty in hockey has a "Get Out of Jail Free" card like the icing rule has? It cheapens what is, in fact, a pretty good rules change for the NHL.

Sorry, no witty title forthcoming on the selection of defense man Toni Lydman as the latest guy to wear the "C" for the Sabres, but a workman-like title seems appropriate for a blog about one the NHL's great lunch-pailers. For video evidence of just how self-effacing most hockey6 players are, the interview with Lydman is a great example.

Frankly, I'm a little confused by the choice, as I really don't think that he's played especially well during the first month of the season. Lydman apparently agrees with me:

"The last few games have been better than the start of the season," Lydman said. "I wasn't too happy about my play over the first couple of games. Hopefully it will keep going the right way and getting better, but I believe there is a lot that I can improve on."

Let it not be said, then, that the now old man of the defense corps (at 30 years old) isn't a stand-up guy. Let's also hope that as his play improves it rubs off on his partner Hank Tallinder. Did anyone not notice the "A" on Tim Connolly's chest through the last week of the month? That used to be on Hank's chest.

It seems that the older guys (all 2 of them) in the room are not big talkers, but doers. Maybe Lindy Ruff is trying to send the message with this selection that actions speak far louder than words, as both of the Captains so far this season are the very antithesis of garrulous.

Not a bad message to be sending, if you ask me, considering the play of some of the loudest mouths in that locker room.

Ta,