It's been over a week since Mike Babcock spurned the Buffalo Sabres to take the Toronto Maple Leafs job. But it's no worry as the Sabres have officially hired Dan Bylsma as their next head coach. This continues to show that the Sabres are on the up-and-up considering they will be drafting Jack Eichel next month.
They finished second in the race for the best head coach but they also finished first in the race for the second best head coach available and it's not like it's a slam dunk that Babcock is that much better. He chose Toronto fine I get that. Good luck with that. But Dan Bylsma will be here to work with Eichel and the best group of prospects in the NHL. Bylsma works with USA Hockey and he'll have what should be the best player America has to offer in another couple of more years. I love the USA Hockey connection. It's not the reason I want him here because I think he's a good coach but the USA connection just makes it all the more sweeter.
People only think Bylsma won because he had Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. He's never had less than 101 points in an entire 82-game season. He had 72 points in the 48-game lockout-shortened season which projects to 123 points over a full 82-game schedule. Even when Bylsma first took over in Pittsburgh, he coached only 25 games but went an impressive 18-4-3 and 40 points and that projects to a whopping 131 over 82 games. Bylsma never finished lower than second in the division and the Penguins were never lower than 4th in the Eastern Conference.
As for Bylsma only won because he had Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, he had two 100-point seasons despite Crosby missing a total of 101 games over two seasons between 2010-11 to 2011-12 because of concussions and other injuries. The 2010-11 season saw Crosby and Malkin missing the entire second half of the season (and playoffs) due to injuries and their other top center Jordan Staal was out for the first half of the season. The result, the Penguins had 106 points without their two best players. Travis Yost of TSN broke down how good Bylsma and the Penguins were in scoring and puck possession without Crosby and Malkin (http://www.tsn.ca/bylsma-can-stand-on-his-track-record-1.293813).
Thanks to GM Ray Shero, Bylsma wasn't able to build on his Stanley Cup success as he didn't really get a lot more better pieces in addition to Crosby and Malkin. The bottom six forwards were one of the worst in the league. The defense, outside of Kris Letang (who I'm a huge fan of), have been brutal. They're prospects were lousy and Shero traded a lot of draft picks and prospects to trade for rent-a-players at the trade deadline because they were contending for the cup and those players usually left in free agency, leaving the pens with not much to work with.
To be fair, the Penguins would be drafting at the bottom of round 1 because of their regular season success and generally weren't in very good position to draft a star. In 2008, the Pens did not even have a draft pick until the 4th round because of all the deadline deals to try and win the Cup. But a GM's job is still get good decent players and find them anywhere in the draft. Even the draft picks and prospects they've picked have been brutal. Shero's best forward since his first draft of Jordan Staal was none other than Beau Bennett (look up his numbers I dare you). Shero never gave Bylsma a good goalie whatsoever (more on the goaltending point later). Even his signings and re-signings (Brooks Orpik) have been failures.
Cap casualties include both Staal and James Neal. Bylsma has gotten the most out of Neal (who had 40 goals, 81 points one year) and Neal has not matched his production outside of his time playing for Bylsma. He never had less than 21 goals and was a point a game player in each of his full seasons under Bylsma, even though he is a total douche and dirty rotten scummy player. He scored goals, but his overall point totals never came close to when he played in Pittsburgh (although I think Crosby and Malkin had a lot to do with that).
Chris Kunitz has had his best years under Bylsma and struggled this year under Mike Johnston. The Penguins struggled as a whole this year under Johnston, barely making the playoffs on the last day of the season. Heck, Bylsma even got offensive production (including 19 goals one year) out of the scum of the earth Matt Cooke (Neal is close to Cooke for scum of the earth as well).
The goaltending has been a nightmare for the Pens and Bylsma. Marc-Andre Fleury was brutal, absolutely abysmal since they won the Cup in 2009 and he wasn't even great then as his save % was only .908 (which is Dominik Hasek numbers compared to other years) but he played well at times and made big saves, including the finals. Since Bylsma's first year, Fleury's save % in the playoffs were: .891, .899, .834 (a 5-year-old could do better than that), .883, and .915 (which isn't even that good). Fleury never had a save % of at least .920 in any of Bylsma's regular seasons as head coach.
I don't care what coach you are or have the greatest player of this generation, no one can win in the playoffs with those dreadful goaltending performances. I know many think that Bylsma should have pulled Fleury many times but there are two problems with that thinking. 1.) Crosby apparently was close with Fleury and demanded that Fleury play so Bylsma probably did not want to tick off the star player. 2.) For several years, the backup to Fleury was Brent Johnson, who was awful as his .904 career save % indicates. He was .901 in three years in Pittsburgh, including .883 his last year there. No matter how awful Fleury was, Johnson was a lot worse if you can believe that. Bylsma had no other choice.
Shero did not provide adequate goaltending at all for the Penguins. Finally they brought in Tomas Vokoun in 2013 and they replaced Fleury with Vokoun after Fleury was awful in the first round against the New York Islanders. Vokoun then led the Penguins to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they were swept by the Boston Bruins. Vokoun eventually retired due to blood clots and the job was given back to Fleury, who signed an extension this past year. It's great when teams and people don't learn from their mistakes. Give the Sabres anything better than Fleury and they're a good team.
Bylsma has as many Cups as Mike Babcock and his win% in both regular season and playoffs are nearly identical. Babcock has only one Stanley Cup and he's coached at least three Hall of Famers. I know many think the Penguins underachieved in the playoffs under Bylsma with Crosby and Malkin and their fantastic regular season records. I agree with that to an extent as they did lose to lower seeds in the first or second rounds. But a lot of great teams and coaches lose early to a lower seed every now and then.
Babcock was eliminated in the first round in his first season in Detroit in the 2005-06 playoffs. They won the President's Trophy with the best record in the league and were eliminated by the 8th seeded Edmonton Oilers in the first round and yet you never hear of anyone saying he or his team underachieved. No one ever mentions that. Babcock went to the finals three times to just one by Byslma, but he's also coached at least five years longer in the NHL as well.
The Pens did lose in the first or second round four times to lower-seeded teams, but three of those were the fifth seed so they weren't so much worse than the Penguins. The only really bad lose was in 2010 when they lost to the 8th-seeded Montreal Canadiens in seven games. They blew a 3-1 series lead to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round in 2011. They lost in six games to the Philadelphia Flyers in 2012 in a series where the Pens looked awful taking a ton of dumb and dirty penalties and Fleury played the worst I ever saw a goalie play (and that even included Iyla Bryzgalov on the other side) with his .834 save %.
As for losing to lower seeds, when you don't win the Cup, which only one team can, you lose in the playoffs. And when you are a top seed and you lose in the playoffs, you generally lose to a lower-seeded team that's how it works. When you are a top seed and have 100 point seasons and have two of the best players in the league, expectations are really high. I commend the Penguins for having high aspirations and goals of winning championships and anything else isn't acceptable.
However, I do like realistic goals and when you're goalie plays like he shouldn't even be in a pee wee league you won't win much. It's hard to win the Cup and win in the playoffs. It's really hard. It's hard just to win a playoff series where you need to win four times where luck and bounces can go for or against you. Also, you can run into a hot goalie that can beat you anytime. I'm not making excuses for Bylsma at all, I am just stating the facts.
Then in 2014, the Pens blew a 3-1 series lead to the New York Rangers in the second round as the Rangers went to the finals and lost to Los Angeles. I get the underachieving point and even their first round wins over the Islanders and Columbus Blue Jackets in 2013 and 2014 looked bad. They should have lost to either team if their respective goaltending wasn't awful. Like I said however, only two teams won two Cups since 2002 as it's hard to win the Cup and even harder in this salary cap era where parity rules.
Bruce Boudreau was fired in Washington for nearly the same thing as Bylsma, but Boudreau did not even get out of the second round while losing game 7 each year on home ice in either the first or second round to a lower seeded team. He had talented players and won the division every year in Washington and were a top-3 seed every year but could not for whatever reason win in the playoffs. It was similar in Pittsburgh with a weak defense and goalie and a weaker bottom-six forward group. A good team hired him as Anaheim quickly picked him up after he was fired after they fired a goof in Randy Carlyle. Boudreau has won the division every year he's been in Anaheim and they are one game away from going to the finals.
See, really good coaches get fired and Boudreau is very good. I am a fan of him and his unorthodox methods and personality. Bylsma is a complete 180 from Boudreau but still very good in his own right. Joel Quenneville and Alain Vigneault, the other two coaches in the conference finals, were both fired twice each by their teams before having success with the Blackhawks and Rangers. Good to great coaches get fired and land on their feet in better organizations. Lindy Ruff was even fired here after 16 years and seems to be in a better situation in Dallas.
I like how Bylsma wants his team to carry the puck out of his own end as quick as possible as that's the game nowadays. He's very good with analytics and puck possession. Dan Bylsma's hiring is just another reason to get excited about the Buffalo Sabres in 2015-16 and beyond of course there's some Eichel-guy playing here next year to get your hopes up a little bit. Take the Bills hiring Rex Ryan in addition to Bylsma and things are looking great for our Buffalo sports teams. Once again, we must thank Terry and Kim Pegula for all things being possible.
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