Confirmed with Link: Lindy Ruff named Head Coach, Press Conference at 1:00 PM EDT

[Jim Bob]

He's a terrible coach though. Why on earth would he give up a paycheck to go do nothing? Pegula was the only one dumb enough to hire him. Nobody else is.

His Sabres contract is for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons.

His Devils contract was through the 2025-26 season.

I doubt Lindy leaves a significant amount of money on the table if he walks away tomorrow and just retires.

Lindy turns 65 years old next month and has worked in hockey for over 40 years. If he's had a decent financial advisor over the years, he doesn't need to coach to pay the bills.

 

[Tijuana Donkey Show]

Maybe he's done for and this franchise is the end of him. I don't understand why he didn't want to add good assistants before the season, and if he did, why is he just keeping quiet while Adams blatantly lies to all of us at a press conference that Ruff was completely satisfied with this garbage coaching staff.

Publicly saying you hate your support staff is a terrible way to get any productivity from anybody in any org. Whatever you’re seeing now would be 10x worse had he stood up and said that the entire coaching staff needs to be fired.

This isn’t how the world works.

 

[Fjordy]

Publicly saying you hate your support staff is a terrible way to get any productivity from anybody in any org. Whatever you’re seeing now would be 10x worse had he stood up and said that the entire coaching staff needs to be fired.

This isn’t how the world works.

I'm not saying he should do it publicly, although it's weird to keep quiet when your GM is blatantly lying. And it doesn't even mean that this coaching staff is bad, it's just that Ruff wasn't allowed to add personnel, which is just stupid.

 

[Nikolajs Sillers]

Another wrong hire me thinks.

 

[sabresfan129103]

I mean you could have prime Scotty Bowman behind the bench and IDK how much it'll matter if the players stink. I didn't want Lindy as coach because I respect him so much and I didn't want him to deal with this bunch of losers.

 

[Ehran]

Ruff is an okay coach. Not great, not bad.

Just goes to show that the issues with this team go deeper than what one man can resolve.

 

[joshjull]

Please. A hard no to Ruff being POHO or GM. he has never held anything close to those roles. Minus hasek, his coaching career isn't very good at all. It's a terrible joke they would hire him back, but Adams and Terry need their comfort and someone to groom Seth Appert

It would all be pegulas comfort which is the thing that needs to be thrown overboard. Lindy probably has relationships and biases throughout the organization.

They so desperately need someone completely from the outside who can come in objectively and forcibly

What a terrible take.

Outside of the Hasek years Lindy won the Jack Adams with us in 05-06. Then in 06-07 we had the best record in the NHL. Made the conference finals both seasons. Two years ago he coached the Devils to the 3rd most points in the NHL.

The Hasek comment though……….. I don’t know how old you are but Hasek was our starter since the 93-94 season. We didn’t do anything in his first 3 seasons in that role and got to the 2nd round his 4th season (96-97). Muckler was HC first two season and Nolan for the next two.

Lindy was hired for the 97-98 season and we went to the Conference Finals his first season and then Cup Finals in his 2nd (98-99). Lost on 1st and 2nd rounds the next two seasons with Hasek. Then Hasek forced his way out.

The NHL was a very different thing back in that era. The gap in spending between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ was enormous. We were very much a ‘have not’ at the point. There was no cap and the top teams were stacked going into the playoffs. Many having multiple future Hall of Famers. You don’t win in that environment with just Hasek.

I mean Hasek won his first Cup on an absolutely stacked Wings team that had about 8 or so future Hall of Famers and several others who were All Stars on it. It’s somewhat amazing we had the run we did in those two years 97-98 + 98-99.

 

[pigpen65]

Ruff is a terrible coach. Sabres fans are the only ones who don't recognize how terrible he is for some reason. And Pegula is the only owner dumb enough to hire him because Pegula is the only owner dumb enough to make organizational decisions like a fan would.

 

[Fezzy126]

Ruff is an okay coach. Not great, not bad.

Just goes to show that the issues with this team go deeper than what one man can resolve.

I'm not coming with pitchforks or anything, but it's interesting that bunch of our numbers are down from where Granato had this group. I know development isn't linear, but as an overall group we should see a progressive rise in the team numbers as these high draft picks continue to gain strength and experience.

I have my issues with Ruff, I did during his first run and still do now. But regardless, we are stuck with him and have to figure out how to turn it around. The manor in which the organization went about rehiring Ruff and the pressers and social media... we'd look like a complete clownshow if we got rid of him again.

At this point I'd clean house with the assistants, tweak the roster, and hope they can put together some semblance of a successful season next year. This team...

 

[Fjordy]

At this point I'd clean house with the assistants, tweak the roster, and hope they can put together some semblance of a successful season next year. This team...

And who should do this, Terry and his lackey GM? I have no faith in them at all, just zero.

 

[Ehran]

I'm not coming with pitchforks or anything, but it's interesting that bunch of our numbers are down from where Granato had this group. I know development isn't linear, but as an overall group we should see a progressive rise in the team numbers as these high draft picks continue to gain strength and experience.

View attachment 958322

I have my issues with Ruff, I did during his first run and still do now. But regardless, we are stuck with him and have to figure out how to turn it around. The manor in which the organization went about rehiring Ruff and the pressers and social media... we'd look like a complete clownshow if we got rid of him again.

At this point I'd clean house with the assistants, tweak the roster, and hope they can put together some semblance of a successful season next year. This team...

I think, as I posted in another thread, Ruff is trying to teach them how to play to actually win in the NHL. Granato's approach could only take them so far but they learned the "fun way" to play but not the "winning way", and its so ingrained ( I mean, who doesn't want to have fun at their job?) that I'm not sure these core players can break the bad habits instilled in them.

So yeah, our numbers are down across the board. Which is to be expected trying to break bad habits.

Unfortunately, the front office hasn't really learned to break their bad habits so the training isn't getting the support it needs. (i.e., vet leaders, effective, experienced, NHL players).

Zucker has been great! But we needed players like that 3 or 4 years ago. He's fighting a losing battle at this point, IMO>

 

[debaser66]

Its a shitty constructed roster not much any coach can do about it