Today the Sabres announced after firing Don Granato (absolutely the correct move) last week that we have hired our new head coach, bringing back Lindy Ruff to once again be the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres.
I loved Lindy Ruff when he was the coach for the Sabres the first time, the coach we had my whole childhood as I grew up loving this team. He took us the Cup Finals in 1999, and although that one was before my time by a little bit, my favorite memories of watching sports my whole life was when he took us to the the Eastern Conference Finals against Carolina (that was still our year if our top 5 defenseman weren’t out in Game 7) and then the next two years of success with Drury, Briere, and Miller.
Lindy’s the Sabres’ all time win leader with a 571-432-162 record in the regular season and a 57-44 record in the playoffs. He’s the fifth winningest coach in NHL history and has taken all three teams he was the coach of; the Sabres, Stars, and Devils to the playoffs.
As much as I love Lindy though, I wouldn’t say I love the hire. I know he took them to the playoffs last year, but he just coached the Devils, who are a very similar team to the Sabres, the fifth youngest team in the NHL and didn’t have success with them this season. Buffalo is the youngest team in the league, and I just don’t feel like this is the best hire for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in over a decade. We’re on an NHL record 13 year playoff drought since way back in 2011 when Lindy was still our coach. We’ve had seven coaches since then, all atrocious.
To me this feels like a nostalgia hire to sell tickets in Buffalo, and they’re even kind of selling it as such:
I really wanted Craig Berube as the next head coach. He took the Blues in 2019 from last place in the NHL in January to being the Stanley Cup Champions. That kind of pedigree is what I wanted. Or Gerard Gallant, who brought the original misfits out in Vegas to the Cup Finals in their first year of existence.
I love Lindy and all the memories from our “glory days”, so hopefully I’m wrong.
Let’s Go Buffalo!
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