andydrmm

Canandaigua, NY • United States • 29 Years Old • Male

Time To Fire Darcy

You know, lately I’ve done a lot of harping on the system in Buffalo. I still stand by it. Buffalo’s system isn’t working as Buffalo continues to spiral out of control towards dead last in the east.

However, the person in charge with shaking things up on a higher level is Darcy Regier.

This is from John Vogl, reporter for the Buffalo News. Everyone’s read it by now, but here it is again

"At this time of the year and where we are, I've done a lot of talking to teams around the league, so I'm aware of some of those situations," Regier said. "Right now there's nothing imminent, and that's part of the business. We'll keep working."

Does this team need a shake-up?

"I wouldn't call it a shake-up," Regier said. "If there's a move that makes sense for us, we'll do it if something is going to improve our hockey club. There's nothing imminent, as I said, right now.

Here’s a link to the whole article
http://www.buffalonews.co...res-nhl/article699257.ece

The quote above says it all.

Darcy needs to make it his job to start shaking things up in Buffalo. Right now, there is no reason to believe that the Sabres are going to start improving. I pray that I’m wrong. However, when your GM says that “there’s nothing imminent” coming for the Sabres, I ask how long it will be until he does something. Seriously, just by saying that “No one is safe” or “I’ve gotten interest from a lot of teams” could at least be a spark under the players to think to themselves “I don’t want to be traded!” and take their game to the next level. But, Darcy hasn’t done that yet. Nor, has he said that he’s going to do anything.

Will he even get the chance?

Later on in the article, he blames injuries again. I refer to my last blog where I pointed out that the players who are injured weren’t doing anything in the first place.

If I’m Terry Pegula, and I read that article, AND after I watched another lackluster effort from my team where they lost to the last place team in the East, I’d be furious. I’m not Terry Pegula and I’m still furious. I’d have fired him right there.

What needs to happen? Ted Black and Terry Pegula need to take charge of their team.

Here’s the steps I’d take.

First- Darcy is fired. I’ve watched this for far too long. He should have been fired in 2007 (sorry, but it’s true) When he failed to sign Briere or Drury (we couldn’t have both), and then instead of trying to rectify it by signing someone else, he had a press conference explaining how he screwed up. Plus, he does over pay players... SO, So long Darcy.

Second- Promote Ruff to GM. His methods are no longer working behind the bench. However, as someone who has played in Buffalo, knows the intricacies of the team, I think he’s definitely a GM that could do a better job than Regier. However, only a 2-3 year contract to see what he does.

Third- Promote Rolston to Buffalo as head coach. Get the Sabres playing the way the Amerks are. Again, see how he does the remainder of the season, and then potentially interview other coaches at the end of the year if Buffalo is still playing poorly with Rolston in charge. If they turn it around, another short term contract, lets see what he does with a full season instead of half of one.

Fourth- Trade time. Not Stafford. He just signed a new contract, yes he’s struggling, but I’m seeing some improvement lately. Plus, he’s one of the few forwards who isn’t afraid to get into a scrum here or there, he just needs to be encouraged to do it.

Here are the players I say are on the block for Buffalo, right now.

Boyes, Ellis, Roy, Gragnani, Sekera, Hecht, Tropp, Stuart, Szczechura, and any of the young guys.

Put together a package deal. Throw a few prospects in, and some other moves, and you can pull in some decent power forwards to help this team. Forget improving the defense the pieces are there. They just need to play defense right. The offense needs help, and they need to bury their chances. Good forwards, the one’s who are remembered, didn’t miss their chances. Buffalo seems to keep missing theirs.

Again, this all starts with giving Darcy the boot. That all depends on how far Terry Pegula is going to let this team sink in the standings. I’d make a move now, and fast, before it’s too late for Buffalo to crawl out of this hole.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to leave a comment.