Any Darcy defenders left?

[Philagape]

Someone please throw Darcy Regier into Lake Michigan.

I've beyond had it with him. He should have been fired five years ago, and since then he has built this team into an utter national disgrace.

This year was supposed to be Darcy Unleashed, when he finally got to do what he wanted with no ownership restraints. You see the results.

He broke off pursuit of Brad Richards to get Ville Leino. Great call there! Ehrhoff has been a disappointment, and Regehr is good for 60 feet.

He has a team totally devoid of leadership. Pominville may be the most irrelevant captain I've ever seen here. It's a team full of gutless, listless quitters whose season took a catastrophic turn when they failed to stick up for their goalie, who's now in total meltdown.
The only players with any heart are either goons, midgets or guys who score less than Napolean Dynamite.

Even if you forget Black Sunday, what he has done since still makes him an incompetent clown. But no, I won't forget it. He will always have that epic fail wrapped around his neck until he redeems himself, which at this rate he never will.
That dark, dark day left a stellar core of Vanek-Roy-Pominville. Sprinkle on the likes of Brad Boyes and Jordan Leopold on top of home-grown garbage like Sekera, Stafford and Gragnani. This is your team!

I fear for any decent prospects they do have, that they'll be ruined by this disaster of a franchise. Right now the Amerks could beat this team.

If Daddy Warbucks doesn't wipe this front office clean, then he might as well just shovel his money into the fireplace, at least that will produce something for a couple hours.

[trapezeus]

and ruff doesn't seem to care. i think 2000 lindy would have too much pride to let this happen. his in game interview today was so telling. when asked if leino's give away was a problem, he said, "he didn't think so."

Sheet, man. this can't go on for much longer. every sports site covering hockey has a dedicated space on how bad the sabres are. i feel like pegula won't be able to stand by these guys when his sold out stadium dries up.

[Fitzpatrick'sbeard]

and ruff doesn't seem to care. i think 2000 lindy would have too much pride to let this happen. his in game interview today was so telling. when asked if leino's give away was a problem, he said, "he didn't think so."

Sheet, man. this can't go on for much longer. every sports site covering hockey has a dedicated space on how bad the sabres are. i feel like pegula won't be able to stand by these guys when his sold out stadium dries up.

Ruff said that it was a bad play!

http://www.wgr550.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=5644800

[DMBcrew36]

I can defend Darcy. This Summer, for the first time as Sabres GM, he had full freedom to make moves and made all the right moves. He did everything any fan could want. He might've overpaid for Leino but that's about the only fair complaint that can be made. Brad Richards was never going anywhere except to the NYR. Anyone who argues about what a great offseason we had with Darcy is out of their ****ing mind or clueless. We were all ecstatic about the moves he made.

The only question (or complaint) is - what now? What can be done to turn this team around; to spark the team?


I think Lindy is a great guy and a great coach - but after a while players stop listening. The buttons you used to push to get guys going don't work anymore. Players stop responding after a while. Maybe if the locker room had better leadership, it wouldn't have gotten to this point. Maybe having Drury/Briere/Grier is what kept it from happening sooner.

So it really doesn't matter who the coach is; even if he is a great guy and great coach like Lindy. The change has to be made.

[don137]

I agree that this team lacks good veteran leadership in the locker room. This team lacks guys like Drury, Peca, Lafontaine, etc. It needs a few of those guys desperately. I blame Darcy for not getting true leaders. Pominville and Vanek are play makers but not leaders.
I don't blame Darcy for Stafford getting his contract and then playing like a fourth liner. Stafford is in his prime so one could expect he finally could be a decent player based on last Year's result. I blame Stafford for not only repeating last Year's numbers but playing like someone who belongs in the AHL.

[Cleve]

Stafford's poor play was pointed out last night by the VS broadcast team. Roy too was just dead wood - and actually hurt the team more than he helped (Remember that idiot penalty of his that allowed Chicago to score their first goal and get in the game?)

Stafford has been here over 5 years - what has he accomplished? Roy has been here for ELEVEN years.

And we complain about Fitzpatrick being kept as the starting Bills QB for 3 seasons? At least the Bills will fire poor players/coaches in 3 year cycles. The Sabres and Regier have a retirement plan for poor players going I guess. When Roy hits his 20 year mark, Regier will probably award him a gold watch or some nonsense.



Do we really think that either of them is going to have an explosive, 'break out' season at this juncture? Get both of them out of here. They hurt more than they help

[Philagape]

I can defend Darcy. This Summer, for the first time as Sabres GM, he had full freedom to make moves and made all the right moves. He did everything any fan could want. He might've overpaid for Leino but that's about the only fair complaint that can be made. Brad Richards was never going anywhere except to the NYR. Anyone who argues about what a great offseason we had with Darcy is out of their ****ing mind or clueless. We were all ecstatic about the moves he made.

What some fans thought at the time is not a defense of Darcy. It's irrelevant. The measure of success is whether the moves actually worked or not. A lot of people were wrong about Leino, but Darcy's the one getting paid to go get the right players.

[trapezeus]

Ruff said that it was a bad play!

http://www.wgr550.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=5644800

he didn't during the in game interview. he said something to the effect that people have to try and make plays and it went back up to Doc and eddie o, and they were like, "what? he defended that?" and lebrun said, "i think you have to find some positives out of this trainwreck."

i saw his blonews comments about it being terrible.

[DMBcrew36]

What some fans thought at the time is not a defense of Darcy. It's irrelevant. The measure of success is whether the moves actually worked or not. A lot of people were wrong about Leino, but Darcy's the one getting paid to go get the right players.


I think even the best GMs in the league looked at the Sabres acquisitions of Leino, Ehrhoff and Regehr as being impressive and of high quality.

Just looking at current results isn't fair. Hindsight is 20/20. And it's also up to coaching to make it work.

[Philagape]

I think even the best GMs in the league looked at the Sabres acquisitions of Leino, Ehrhoff and Regehr as being impressive and of high quality.

Just looking at current results isn't fair. Hindsight is 20/20. And it's also up to coaching to make it work.

OK I'll rephrase ... what anyone thought at the time is irrelevant. And for the record, while I liked the D-men, I wasn't exactly thrilled with Leino. I called him "good depth" and "better than Connolly" (very faint praise, and even that turned out to be wrong).
http://billszone.com/fanzone/showthread.php?t=203566&highlight=leino
There was reason to be skeptical of trusting him, considering his buzz came from one playoff run. He's looking like the Rob Johnson/Kevin Kolb of hockey: teams going ga-ga over him based on a very limited sample of good play.
I have no problem admitting I'm wrong about anything, but I'm not the one who's running the team.

And looking at results isn't fair??????? There is no other way to properly evaluate anything but results!

[SkateZilla]

he didn't during the in game interview. he said something to the effect that people have to try and make plays and it went back up to Doc and eddie o, and they were like, "what? he defended that?" and lebrun said, "i think you have to find some positives out of this trainwreck."

i saw his blonews comments about it being terrible.


yeah, during the VS Behind the glass bs , the guy asked lindy about it, and he defended it, saying he thought it was a good offensive play unfortunately it went the other way and they score. Lindy whined about Injuries, and losing Guastad, saying the Hecht, Vanek, Poms line was gonna be over used instead of Rolling 4 lines, KNOWING you have to travel and have a Game TOMMORROW, why the Eff would you overwork your only line that produces... so you lose this game when they get tired, and you'll lose the next nights game too. Meanwhile during the entire behind the glass interview w/ Ruff, guess who is sitting in front of Ruff...... Leino. Listening to every effing word... So now he knows Ruff dont care about mistakes.

i was cursing out my TV after that.

the fact that he had a step on the defenseman, and he was 1 on 1, he coulda took two strides, cut in, and / or took a shot aiming for the top corner, if he missed it would have at least been a puck in deep.

but he pussy'd out and executed a drop pass without looking, to a chicago player.


then the effing idiots, went for a line change while the puck was at the red line already heading back in, and its not like they hustled off so the other guys could get on. in the slo mo replay, you can see the 3 players going to the bench, they kinda stop skating, 2 of them look directly at the play happening and instead of turning around and playing defense for 2 seconds, they still coast to the bench on the OTHER side of the red line, and make 3 players jump the boards and sprint back in time to get a -1, the whole time all 3 players are coming off while watching Chicago skating in 3 on 2 .


Weber and his bonehead, im gonna take my hand and swat the puck out play over my shoulder...any other coach woulda benched him.

[SkateZilla]

He's looking like the Rob Johnson/Kevin Kolb of hockey: teams going ga-ga over him based on a very limited sample of good play.
And looking at results isn't fair??????? There is no other way to properly evaluate anything but results!

You mean like how Gragnani got his roster spot off of last years 7 game series with Philly....


at this point, Timmy is about 3400x better.

[chernobylwraiths]

Well, looking at the offseason:
Trading for Reghyr. Almost a no brainer. We gave up very little and took on a whole bunch of payroll. The fact is, we so desperately need a stay at home tough defenseman and Robin is one of the better ones. Probably the only downside to this deal is the fact that RR might only have a few good seasons left, (see Craig Rivet)

Trading for the rights to Erhof. In retrospect, I don't know if it was that good of a move. 4 mil a season isn't bad and frontloading it so that CE gets his money now, is good for him. These first two moves were both about being able to make moves without having to deal with monetary issues. The owner wasn't tying his hands. BUT. Erhof is an offensive defenseman on a team with many offensive defensemen and little physical play on the backend. Myers still has work to do to learn that, Weber is a fifth or sixth man and probably won't ever be much better and Sekera, Leopold and Gragnani are IMO terrible defensively at times, give away machines at other times and seem to despise contact. That doesn't bode well for a team that seems to have their goaltender run into once or twice every game.

Leino move. Again in retrospect was terrible. But even at the time, many questioned about giving him that kind of contract without much to go on AND the fact that he wasn't even a center, which is what this team was sorely in need of. Within weeks of the beginning of the season, Leino was even griping about playing center. I remember Paul Hamilton saying on GR that when he talked to some Philly guys about Leino, he said that he was told that Leino sulked for a while in Philly when he didn't get his way. Way to do your homework Darcy.

When I think of Darcy, I think of several key moments in Sabres History:

Offering the reigning coach of the year a one year contract.

Not dealing in good faith with Michael Peca (though Peca deserves some blame too)

Having Hasek tell him that he would nix any deal that would give up "too much" to get him and getting malcontent Kozlov.

Not trying harder to sign Briere before arbitration where he said afterward that he sort of knew where the prices were going.

Not trying to resign Dumont before arbitration and letting him walk

Losing Briere

Losing Drury

Letting Edmonton set the price for Vanek

signing Pomminville to that big deal

Sure he has made some good moves. But there is a lot of bad in there too. This team is soft and passive. There should be some of his players following him out of Buffalo.